Ribs and BBQing and the Fourth

My parent’s hometown hosts a Ribfest over the 4th of July weekend. It’s huge. They bring in all sorts of national award winning rib teams and host a competition and there are concerts and games and demonstrations and it makes for a real good time. We were very excited to be close enough this year to go.
We spent two wonderful nights shoving our faces full of the most delicious ribs and sandwiches we’d ever have, listening to live music, and seeing demonstrations.
 
Tennyson was our secret agent and watched closely for all the secret recipes.

So as soon as he can talk, we’re golden.
My mom and I went one night alone to see a concert because I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to stay on Saturday night to see Styx because Tennyson wouldn’t last that long. So we went to Phil Vassar/David Nail on Friday night and it was awesome. The perfect night for an outdoor concert.
My mom and David Nail:

Me and Phil Vassar:

No one ended up seeing Styx anyway because, to make a very long story short, the park filled to the max and we got stuck on the wrong side. So Mike and I went to take Tennyson to bed (and three lucky people got to enter the park because we left) and my parents stayed to see the other band that was headlining that night.
On the 4th, we parked our chairs on the side of the road and watched the Ribfest fireworks from afar (to avoid the massive crowds). We also enjoyed ourselves some Andy’s ice cream which is a local establishment there that we absolutely love.
 
Tennyson took the occasional glance at the fireworks, but Monsters, Inc. won out most the time.

So what else did we do that weekend?
Since it was so hot, a visit to the pool was warranted.

Tennyson rode on his first school bus ever. And it was crazy.

We did a lot of grilling.

We had a nice little campfire.

We watched our usual allotment of Elmo.

We went to a ward picnic.

We played with the dogs. (Okay, we played with the little one and watched the big one from a safe distance.)

All the fun really wore us out.