World Beat

Lately Nora has become a bit obsessed with wearing her swimsuit bottoms as a hat.

As a result, I felt it was time for a change of scenery...So this morning, in an effort to give Brian a little time on his own to wade through a few work e-mails, we packed up the 3-wheeler, all-terrain stroller, and off Nora and I went to the local World Beat Festival.
I went alone with Nora the first half of the day, where we saw her very first Belly Dancing troup from Turkey...I wish I had a picture of it, but unfortunately for the belly dancers, I had to go stop Nora from rushing the stage, instead of stopping to take a picture first...

Since Nora's obsessed with belly buttons and says "BEEEEEP" right before she puts her finger into yours or anyone elses, I felt it was important to stop this before we had an International Incident...
Brian picked us up at lunchtime, and we went home so Nora could get a nap. Fortunately we don't live far from downtown and Riverfront Park, so we went back after she slept a bit! We got our friend Jenn and her son Brendan with us, and we spent lots of time in "Africa" (It's the World Beat so all continents (except Antarctica) were represented with music, dance and arts).

I bought a Kenya Bag in one of the booths -- I've always regretted giving mine up, and now I've replaced it! And the nice lady (who's actually from Nigeria), gave Nora this rattle/maraca thing for her to play with for free!

Nora had a blast running around checking out the various shopping opportunities. From necklaces...

...to rainsticks...

...to bong drums...

and rattle things I'm not sure what they are...

We even saw Nora's cousins and some friends with Rachel, Amanda, Hannah & Miriam!