Easterfest: Sunday

The last day…. so very sad!

We started off this day a little differently than usual… by going out for breakfast. Fourteen of us headed out to the Engine Room Cafe (owned by friends from our church) for breakfast and to celebrate my birthday. It’s our new favourite cafe, and their food and coffee, and everything about them is beyond lovely. If you came to visit us, that’s where we’d take you.

We very much enjoyed the time of fellowship and talking and laughing and memory-making, and it was Aunty Joce & Uncle Pete’s 29th wedding anniversary also, so a bit of a double celebration. Unfortunately my very clever husband brought our camera with him, but forgot that he had left its batteries in the charger at home, so I have no photos of this happy event.

Then back off to the park, for our last day of Easterfest.

Mum and Aunty Joce settled into the Epicentre tent, where they were having a Jazz and Blues showcase that lasted nearly all day. And that’s where they stayed all day. The rest of us flitted between there and the various other stages, trying to soak in as much music and discover as many new favourites as possible.

I think one of my highlights of the day music-wise was Sydney-based band Garage Hymnal. We only went to see them because my sister and I had seen their album in the Superstore (The Easterfest music store), and its cover was intriguing. Yes, we often do judge a book by its cover but luckily it usually works out for us. Garage Hymnal were fantastic and we did end up buying their CD. Amazing passion, beautiful lyrics and very impressive arrangements. You should check them out.

We also stopped by the Bella tent (a special space just for girls – and don’t worry, the boys had one too!) to attend a forum with Melinda Tankard Reist. She is passionate about stopping the sexual exploitation of women and girls, and had a lot of great things to share. Our generation of girls definitely need people like her out there, and that’s for sure.

We also did our official shopping trip at the Superstore. I bought albums by Sanctus Real and Planet of the Stereos, and my hubby bought a Grace Note album. The rest of the family also bought various other albums, all of which mysteriously ended up on each other’s i-pods and i-rivers the next day.

Late afternoon saw us trekking back to mainstage. No big concert tonight, as Sunday night at Mainstage is traditionally home to the Combined Church Service. The unity shown by churches in Toowoomba has always inspired me, and the success of Easterfest is indeed a testament to it.

As always, the church service, which is free and open to all the public, was packed out. Luckily some committed members of our group has taken up all our folding chairs and secured us a spot quite early on.

Sunday night was by far the coolest night of the festival, and we all rugged up and settled in ready for the service to begin.

How cute is Mayana’s warm outfit??! Here she is with Tante Lexi, in her new fluffy coat from Kami, and winter hat made by me, of course!

Mayana was lucky to have both sets of grandparents at Easterfest this year, as Pete’s parents and their best friend joined us at the festival for the first time.  As I said, the church service was packed -  it always is. And as always they did a fantastic job. A team of musos from various churches around the city made up the band, including –for the first time- a rather large combined choir. My mum’s cousin Brendon Walmsley was up their doing guitar and backing vocals also. A message was shared by a local teacher, and the service concluded with a stirring rendition of ‘How Great Thou Art’ – which has become a traditional ending to the service over the last five years or so.

There was no way we were going home early on the last night of Easterfest – we were there for the long haul, regardless of weather Mayana slept or not! She was still wide awake after the service. Pete went to put our chairs back in the car, and Mum, Aunty Joce, Mayana and I went and bought ourselves Devine Donuts (if you ever come across these you HAVE to have one – they really do live up to their name) and settled in to the Chai Circle stage to listen to some easy-listening acoustic bands.

Then we headed back to the Epicentre to catch Simeon – another band I make sure to check out every year.

 
By this time we were all becoming a little overtired and somewhat silly. This is a normal course of events for Sunday night at Easterfest. But we were still determined to stay put until the final show.

Somewhere around here Mayana *FINALLY* crashed. And then she was out of it for good and stayed asleep until nearly 8am the next morning!

Some of us popped over to watch the first few songs of the Planet of the Stereos, then raced back for the traditional Last Hurrah of Easterfest: The Fancy Pants Ball, with our favourite jazz band, Scat. Each year they have a different theme for their suits – they’ve done white suits (painted with house-paint by the way), newspaper suits, wrapping paper suits and police-tape suits. This year, they each were painted a different colour. And not just the suits this time – they were way more committed and even they were painted!

 

As always, it was a fantastic show, and the best way to send out Easterfest 2010 with a bang!

So there you have it people: the weekend that is the highlight of my year. I can’t believe it’s over again for a whole year! I guess that’s the good thing though… there’s always another one to look forward to. And next year, we most likely will not be living in Toowoomba, and will be back to looking for accommodation again. A whole new adventure awaits.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little reviews and thanks for indulging me in a little trip down last weekend’s memory lane.

Easterfest: Saturday

We started day two with a traditional breakfast-in-the-park. We have a little ANZAC memorial park across the road from us, and the little eating area and BBQ there is bigger than my kitchen. As such, it’s easier to cater for 14+ people over there. So there we went, for pancakes and bacon. Mmmm.  
The first show we headed to once we hit the park was Spacifix. We discovered them last year and did not want to miss their only show of this year’s festival. They’re such good fun!
 
We flitted around for the rest of the afternoon, catching bits and pieces of various bands from around the seven different stages. Soooo much music to enjoy I couldn’t decide where I wanted to be half the time!

Mayana of course enjoyed some more time in Kids Island…

Before we knew it, it was time to head over to Mainstage again. Tonight’s headline acts were: ‘Glen Kaiser Band’, ‘Playjerise’, ‘Sanctus Real’, ‘Stan Walker’ & ‘The Newsboys’.

Mayana really enjoyed listening to all the music, and playing with all the people who wanted a piece of her! 
This is Sanctus Real. I really had only heard of them on my Veggie Rocks CD, where they do a cover of the song ‘I Can Be Your Friend’. However, when they started playing, I did recognise a few of their other songs. I loved them. Really enjoyed their music and their message. I even bought their album.

Stan Walker was possibly the biggest surprise of the whole festival for me. I have to admit, when the announcement was made that the ‘surprise headline act’ was him, I did roll my eyes a little. But man, he was awesome! He led one of the most awesome praise sessions of the weekend. I loved his heart.  He has such an awesome passion, and I really pray that he never lets go of it, and isn’t scared to share it, because he has a very big anointing and amazing gift.

My poor little bean was soooo tired. She didn’t go to sleep quite so easily tonight. But she did enjoy the music and did eventually crash.

And of course, the main event of the night: Newsboys. They’re my husband’s favourite band ever, so he was pretty excited. And I am also definitely a fan. They always do a fabulous show and this year was no exception.

Recently, the Newsboys have acquired a new lead sing: Michael Tait previously of DC Talk. Most people I talked to were a little dubious about how they’d go together, but we were all very impressed. Perfect combo. They did a fun combination of of new and old Newsboys stuff, with a little bit of DC Talk thrown in for good measure. Loved it!
And so did the rest of the MASSIVE crowd!
  I would love to know how many people were there -  I honestly could not get over the size of the crowd. It was so awesome!

Once again we left after the Mainstage show on Saturday. Mum came with us this time. Mayana had awoken once again, but we made a pact that even if she was awake on Sunday we’d be staying till the very end. Because it just wouldn’t be Easterfest otherwise!

Stay tuned….

Easterfest: Friday

I hope you don’t mind too much, but I’m going to do this in three separate posts. We took some awesome photos… lots of them, and if I do too many in one post my computer has heart-failure.

So. Friday.

Most of my family arrived on Thursday night, and the rest got there Friday morning while we were at the Good Friday church service.

After a quick catch-up, and some present-opening (my dad had just got back from China and had gifts for us all), we trecked off to the park.

If you don’t know, Easterfest is an awesome three-day Christian music festival, conveniently held in the town where I live. So I have an incredibly packed house over the Easter weekend, but I LOVE it! This is the tenth Easterfest that my family has been to!

We saw some awesome music on Friday.

First stop was the Watoto Children’s Choir. These little darlings are so energetic and beautiful and awe-inspiring. I love them!

Mayana also very much enjoyed dancing along to their beautiful music (all decked out of course in her baby-ear-muffs to keep those precious ear-drums safe!).

Next we stopped off to see Melissa & Tricia Brock, the two wonderful girls from Superchic[k] speak about their experiences sponsoring children through Compassion. 
Then over to a very special event, and one of my favourites of the whole weekend. It was called the Empty Chair Project, and it consisted of a 19-piece big-band who performed songs with a number of different headlining artists. The other artist’s styles ranged from contemporary to rock to screamo (!!! Yes really!) and rap, and the big band backed them all. The arrangements were AMAZING, and I cannot get over how clever and fantastic it all was. The whole show was topped off by a surprise proposal! The guy who did all the arrangements invited his girlfriend to the stage (she thought she was going to sing) and the big band played a most incredible piece of music which he had composed and then he proposed! It was soooo romantic!  This is Jeremy from New Empire doing his thing with the Big Band:
 
Mayana also got to enjoy some time at ‘Kids Island’ – a fun little area set up with a whole lot of fun activities for the kiddies, including a Veggie Tales theatre, a bubbles tent (aka Mayana Heaven), face-painting, various crafts and other exciting things. Mayana loved drawing on the huge chalk wall, and very much appreciated her balloon flower.

Then before we knew it, it was time for Mainstage! This is the main event of the day, and tonight it was showcasing the following: ‘Planet of the Stereos’, ‘Article One’, ‘Compliments of Gus’, ‘KJ-52’, ‘New Empire’ and ‘Superchic[k]’. It was very fabulous! This is Compliments of Gus. They’re one of my favourite bands EVER. I have loved them since the first time I saw them at Easterfest ten years ago, and I love how their style evolves every year and they just get better and better.

Mayana coped very well thoughout. Having umpteen pairs of more than willing arms helped of course. Here she is with Kami playing with a glo-stick-ball a friend gave her.

This is KJ-52. he’s a rapper/hip-hop type muso. Not a style that I’m generally into, but I was suitably impressed by this guy. He had awesome crowd control, and I loved watching the thousands of people down in the moshpit (from my safe little spot on the hill of the amphitheatre) as they swayed and jumped to his every command.

And this is my angel-baby. Yes she actually slept! She woke up when the music stopped. Ha. What can I say.

After the mainstage show, Peter and I went all ‘sacrificial parents’ on everyone, and took our little bean home – she wasn’t going to go back to sleep, and we knew that she needed it with the rest of our big weekend ahead! It was the first time in ten years that I haven’t stayed for the last show of the night! But I can deal, lol.

Oh yes, Easterfest is AWESOME! Stay tuned…

oh.my.so.dumb

So did you know that you can’t start an automatic car if it’s in drive?

Let me just say how eternally grateful I am that I figured this out *before* the RACQ patrol guy came to figure out what was “wrong” with my car.

My Happy Birthday

I am now twenty-three!

Me on the morning I turned 23. So attractive I know. That’s what happens after a whole weekend of very limited sleep and far too much excitement!

We had the hugest weekend ever (massive Easterfest post to come), and I was a very lucky girl to have my whole family here at my house on my actual birthday.

It was a pretty cruisy day, we were all soooooooo tired! We slept in (as much as you can with a 14 months old baby who gets extremely over-excited when you have visitors), then waited for everyone to make their way up from my cousin’s house where some of them were staying (our house is teeny-tiny and my family is not), then had a delicious breakfast.

Oh, and I opened my presents.

 Gorgeous stationery from my mum & dad. Two beautiful notebooks and a set of notecards. I LOVE stationery.My new handbag, from my siblings. Isn’t it scrummy!!!??

I got pretty dang spoiled.

 Sewing box from Peter & Mayana. This was on my wish-list – because the chocolate box I had been using just wasn’t cutting it anymore!

 Another wish-list item – from my mum & dad.

After a clean-up and the crazy 14-month-old had a morning nap, we met up with my cousins at a cafe for coffee before my family all headed home. Sad!

Miss Mayana cried very much when her favourite people left. Especially as Kami and Tante Lexi drove away. I think we all had a tear just from witnessing her devastation. She wept the whole way home, little darlin’.

The rest of the day I lazed around, watching my McLeod’s Daughters, trying out my new crochet patterns, and trying to shake my massive tired headache.

McLeod’s Daughters: The final season – and the only one missing from my collection. Also from my siblings.

 
Crochet pattern magazine from my hubby & daughter. It has some awesome patterns!

I had Hungry Jacks for Dinner, and a scrumptious bubble bath when we got home.

I didn’t have a birthday cake, but my lovely husband bought me one for tonight – so that it really felt like a birthday. He’s so wonderful!

So, happy birthday to me!