Snowbird Mountain Music Festival

A few weekends ago (See: still behind on blogging) was the 12th annual Snowbird Mountain Music festival. Our family has been going the past 4 or 5 years and we always have a good time! The last couple of years there has been a charge, because lots of bands come to entertain, however this year everything was free! ...Well, besides the Scentsy booth I couldn't pass up. And, the ring booths (Pictures coming soon). I'm okay with that though. I feel like me paying someone else's bills and scoring some super awesome goods while doing so is a fair trade.

And anyway...the festival was free. I had to spend the saved money on something.

Back to the festival...if you're ever in the area (Snowbird Ski Resort in Utah), you should definitely make a pit stop at Snowbird. It is absolutely beautiful and the festivals and such (especially this Mountain Music one) that they host up there are sooo much fun!

We stayed at the Cliff Lodge this year. There was a pool on TOP of the roof of the Hotel. Nuff said.

We started the day each morning watching the (Insert really long, professional name here) Instrument Competition. Anyone can join. There are two divisions: Novice, and Open. They hold the competition for all types of instruments. It's a blind judging session, and when it's your turn, you get up on stage and perform two songs. Based on the points you received from the judges, they choose a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. In the open division, first place gets a donated instrument (whichever instrument they competed in). I love watching all of the people get up there and give it their all!! The age ranges from 10 (or so) to 65+, so you see all kinds of stuff! Later in the day, they have (my favorite) a singer/songwriter contest. This year they had 11 singer/songwriters. Something about live music--singers--and songwriters totally makes me the happiest Jessica ever.

Another thing that makes me the happiest Jessica ever is spending time with the fam up in the mountains! We were all there this year: Grandpa, Grandma, Auntie Tammy, Uncle David, Alexis, Stockton, Katie, Megan, Kass, Jon, Me, and Travis. AND, I totally forgot until now, we actually were welcomed by the emcee on the stage! He said something like "It's so nice to see all of the familiar faces coming back each year! The Nays, and their wonderful parents and family who come to support them each year, the SoandSo's, and the SoandSo's."

I took lots and lots of pictures. Here are a few of my favorites!

Megan competing, and receiving her 3rd place ribbon. (She played beautifully!!)

Trav drove up for the day on Saturday, so after we watched a little bit of the music competition he wanted to ride up the mountain on the Peruvian Express (Ski Lift). We rode last year and I couldn't remember very much about it, except for I thought it was beautiful up there, and I remembered there was an awesome cave thingy at the top. So, I agreed. We got on the chairs, and Travis said (laughing) "I can remember last year, you were a little baby! You were so scared. It was funny." Um awesome. How did I not remember that I was scared and WHY was I scared? Well...I was soon to find out!

The lift is SO steep!!! Also, you are just in a lift chair, with no seat belts. Once we started to go up at a steeper rate, I instantly remembered why I was so scared last time!! I do okay as long as I don't move at all. Once in awhile I'd snap a picture but for the most part, I kept pretty still!

It's pretty bad when you are going *over* very tall trees in a little shaky (ok, Trav assured me they were very sturdy and "Could hold quite a few Semi's full of stuff") chair. It's also bad when you look at your boyfriend to try and talk him into never doing this again, and you notice he is thoroughly enjoying it.

Once we got to the top, we got off the lift and walked through the cave to the other side of the mountain. It has a hiking/biking trail map to show where you are, and the view is so, so, so pretty!! I really want to go up there in the fall to take some pictures. I'm trying to think of another way to get to the top though so I can ditch the chair ride. Any ideas?

Once we got back down, we decided to go on a hike. I was behind documenting everything most of the time, but it was nice for the two of us to just get away from everything for a little bit, and go exploring!

I made him pose lots, but he was a trooper...so I took advantage :)

Love the flower with the clouds in the background. In fact, I love all of the wild flowers in the mountains!

On our way back, we stopped to look at some trees with (probably) awesome stories.

Another favorite about this festival is all of the music lovers who go. It's 100 percent normal to start a "Jam" where you just start playing, and people come join/watch. So, as you're walking from place to place, you see people jamming.

This jam consisted of my Aunt and her family. They played for over an hour and people started to come, and watch, and clap, and there was even a shy little girl who ran up and dropped a dollar in one of the guitar cases.

Grandma and Grandpa had been resting up in the room, so when Auntie Tammy and everyone started to play music, I went up and brought them back down to watch. As you can see, there were quite a few people watching. All different ages. The little boy was a favorite. He'd come right up to where they were playing and clap, and dance, and try to strum the (huge) bass. He was fascinated.

Unfortunately we weren't able to go to the pool on the roof (21 and up), but we had a blast swimming and hanging out together at the pool! Kassi sported Auntie Tammy's swimming suit and I wore some pj pants that I rolled up...with intentions to put my feet only in.

Do you know how hard it is to say no to 3 cousins, 1 friend, and 1 sister?

That being said, I swam too!! We played "Colored Eggs" "Hands Up Stands Up" "Racing" and all of the games that I haven't played in SO many years. It was good times!!

Snowbird I love you, and I'll see you next year!!