Monday, June 15, 2009

Bikes, Yellow Foam Hands, & Live Kids' Music

We were looking forward to yesterday evening for many months. New Haven's International Festival of Arts & Ideas had They Might Be Giants come and play a free family concert out on the Green. We told all our friends that we would head downtown at 4:00pm with food for a picnic potluck and that they should just look for our bikes and yellow TMBG foam hands that we got as a free give-a-way when we went to see them in NYC earlier this spring.

The past week has been incredibly rainy and Sunday started out grey and foreboding. Thankfully, the sun broke through about 3:00 pm, just as we were rushing around, getting numerous quesadillas cooked, bakfiets decorations painted, and boys ready. We were most happy to have two cargo bikes as we loaded all our gear.

Here's the xtra with one rider, one passenger, two Crazy Creeks, two beach chairs, and a number of water bottles. I was bummed I didn't get a snap of the baks loaded up with two boys, three bags of food, a folding chair, etc. We made our way to the Green and got quite a few inquisitive stares, likely due to the bikes brimming with kids and stuff and our special 'foam hand' bakfiets' decoration.Once we arrived at the Green, we parked the two cargo bikes on either side of a relatively open space, anticipating a number of friends to join us. As the crowd thickened, it seemed that our well-marked bikes did the trick as family after family we knew joined our staked-out territory.
Finally, They Might Be Giants took the stage and the dancing began. It was a joyous time. Here's part of the kindergarten-first grade most pit:


When the show ended, we easily stashed all our gear back into the cargo bikes, not-so-easily rounded up three spent little boys, and off we pedaled home-- feeling rather smug, I might add, watching all the other families dealing with hauling their gear over their shoulders, through the crowds, to their parked cars.

4 comments:

MamaVee said...

awesome!

I was supposed to see an adult TMBG show last sat but forgot the babysitter thing. My friend was opening for them. There was a kids show during the day but we didn't do it mostly b/c of the night show we thought we would see and b/c it was inside. I was unsure how well my kids would do. Now a free concert on the green that we could bike to- sheer perfection. looks like a great time!

Andrea said...

That looks so fun!! Your guys are going to have such great memories of their bike childhood--I can't wait to see the children's books you write wherein the family goes everywhere by cargo bike (hint, hint)!

Trisha said...

That looks like so much fun! The foam hand idea is too cute.

Silly Bus said...

It is a very nice and good post. Keep up the good work.