Suwannee River Kids Music Camp

If you know us, you know we're always up for a camping trip. What? A weekend in the woods?  Yes please. A retreat by the river? Count us in. So when our new friends, the Boggs, asked us if we would like to go camping with them at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park for a kids music camp, it didn't take much convincing.

They'd already been helping to inject some much needed musical fun in our lives--giving fiddle lessons to Noodle (and even me) and inspiring Hopers to want to try out the banjo. We've been really blessed by these "special persons" always willing to offer help, drop by to play, lend an instrument, share a meal, or just chat with.

So, when I say we were excited about a weekend of camping and music and hanging out with some new special persons in our lives, I'm saying EXCITED with a capital E.  And a capital X. And C...and you get the idea.

We arrived Friday afternoon to set up camp, spray on a two-inch thick layer of bug spray, and go to the instrument expo.  The kids listened to the instructors talk about and demonstrate each instrument before deciding what they wanted to learn to play for the weekend.  There were classes for guitar, fiddle, banjo, ukulele, mandolin, harmonica, drums, and voice.

Noodle and Amelia already knew they wanted to be in the fiddle class.  They brought their fiddles with them and were geared up to learn some new songs.

Hopers and George Wilder knew they wanted to play banjo, but Hopers didn't have a banjo.  No instrument? No problem!  The camp provides instruments for the kids to use.  Did I mention this camp was completely free?  It blew my mind.  The banjo teacher mentioned one of her instruments that had been named Frankie because it was put together from other banjo parts like a "Frankenstein".  Frankie was also her loudest banjo.  Hopers looked at me during the demonstration with wide eyes and said, "I really wanna play Frankie!"

Hopers and Frankie

The next day, lessons began at 10 am.  Each group met at a different stage or area of the music park.  I'd never been to the Suwannee Music Park and didn't realize how huge it was.  It's like its own town, with cottages and stores and a chapel... not to mention camping, multiple music stages, and a river.  Hippie paradise.

Amelia and Noodle were in a small group of kids who had already picked up a fiddle once or twice.  They had lessons at a ring of stump chairs.  The beginner group of 20 or 30 fiddler kids met in a barn nearby.

Hopers' and George Wilder's group met in a music hall behind a restaurant.  They had about 8 kids in their group.  The first lesson lasted about 2 hours and the kids were enthralled for every second of it.  We had to peel them off their banjos with promises of food and swimming.

After a short break and some lunch, we took off in search of a place to get in the water.  Being May in Florida, it was hotter than two cats fightin' in a wool sock.  Sadly, the swimming access in the park was closed because of high water.  We didn't let that stop us though.  Five minutes across the street from the park was another Suwannee River swimming hole.

We were in hillbilly heaven.

Canoers, Kayakers, and Boaters paddled by

Great fun was had for hours tossing small people into the air

The river is tea-colored from the tannins in the leaves of the trees surrounding its banks.

The camp then fed us all an awesome (and again, free!) barbecue chicken dinner prepared completely by volunteers.  Wow. 

And soon it was time for more music lessons.

What did the adults do while the kids were becoming little music geniuses, you might ask?

We relaxed.  Elisha and I had a great time sitting in rocking chairs and chatting.

We entertained ourselves with the unique art around the camp.

I took lots of pictures of the ever adorable William.  Isn't he scrumptious?


By Sunday morning the kids were a little tired but still jumping for joy to get to their lessons.  We swam some more in the afternoon and then prepared for their final concert.  We gave the kiddos the option to cut out early and head home if they were too tired.  They looked at us as if we'd suddenly sprouted green tentacles from our heads and asked them to get on our spaceship.

So, concert we did.

Amelia and Noodle at rehearsal

George Wilder strummin' a G chord

Hopers crankin' out a chord on Frankie

These are some serious musicians.  By 2:30, Hopers and George Wilder could barely keep their eyes open, but they were determined to play their songs.



Amelia and Noodle, center.  Our friend, George, on the left bravely helped with lessons when their instructor, Kayla (right, purple shirt) couldn't be there.  Both teachers were AMAZING!  Noodle and Amelia were AMAZING too!

The groups played songs they learned and also several songs as one big band together.  Parents cheered and felt proud (I know I did).  Children were proud of their accomplishment, too. We left the Suwannee River Music Camp that day feeling glad we went and talking about the next one.

The next one is in August, but unless there's some freak cold snap happening that weekend, we won't be back 'til November. 

Meanwhile, we are all incredibly inspired by our adventure in music with our new friends.  Noodle, Hopers and I jam on the banjo and fiddles every afternoon.  Even Seth is learning to play the egg shaker.  He's very, very good on that egg.

More Culture

Saturday, we went to the Asian Festival here in Tallahassee. It's practically a prerequisite for our family now, because of my little asian sister, Tabitha. You see, my parents are part of a group called Tallahassee Families With Asian Children (TFWAC), and this group always displays a booth at the festival. The booth provides information about TFWAC and gives children a space to do crafts. My parents signed up to help with the crafts. They sat on a blanket in the grass and made panda masks, hats and red paper lanterns with the children that wandered by. Noodle and I came (Hopers and Daddy stayed home for a nap) and helped out also.

The Asian Festival grows every year, and I've heard that more than 10,000 people attended this year. It is held at the downtown Park Ave. chain of parks and is packed with crafts, vendors, delicious food, and people from all over the world. Among some of the countries I saw represented were China, Japan, India, Taiwan, Philippines, and Korea.

We spread out in the grass (see first photo) to watch a few of the acts on the main stage. The second photo show a group doing a Japanese parasol dance. One of my favorite acts was a group of students that were visiting from Taiwan. The kids wore bright, matching costumes and showed off impressive skills while engaging the audience with smiles, claps and gestures. They jumped rope. Not your run-of-the-mill jump rope act either. They flipped and bounced in coordinated groups with lightning-fast spinning ropes. They also threw tops with ropes so that they landed (impossibly) on tiny tables across the stage while dancing and jumping around. It was great entertainment! Noodle was mesmerized. She wanted to know how they could do all those neat things. Practice, I said. Practice, practice, practice. It was another great learning experience for her.

Pow-What?

For anyone that knows where Sopchoppy, FL is, you can understand that it isn't usually a weekend destination. Even if you don't know where it is, you can probably guess that it isn't exactly a thriving metropolis. No, it's one of those places that people from Tallahassee might recollect that it's "somewhere between here and the beach." For us, however, it was a place to go on this hot Friday morning.

We went to a Pow-wow. You heard me. I said pow-wow. My husband gave me a raised eyebrow "huh?" when I told him what our plans were for the day. It seemed normal enough to me--like going to the county fair or the zoo. Growing up, we attended many pow-wows in an attempt to explore our family history of Creek and Cherokee and find entertainment.

Basically, it's a bunch of people from one tribe or another who gather together (with campers and tents and such) to sell crafts and jewelry in booths and promote their culture through music, dancing, storytelling, etc.

Apparently, Friday mornings are not the best time to go, because there was a very small turnout. The vendors seemed to be just setting up when we got there. Others seemed to be just waking up and stretching in front of their campers.

We still managed to have a good time. Noodle, Tabitha, and Hopers all got drums (thanks Amie) and proceded to stir things up a bit. We realized that there weren't going to be any dances until the evening and mentioned our regrets to one of the vendors. In moments, there was a small flurry of activity and suddenly we had our own private dancing lesson, complete with a full group of drummers/singers/chanters and 4-5 dancers. In the photo, you can see one of the dressed-up dancers showing Hopers, Tabitha and Amie the proper steps. Noodle and I also danced. It was fun and left us laughing and sweating.

So even though Sopchoppy wouldn't normally be my first choice in entertainment recommendations, I do recommend attending a pow-wow sometime. It can be educational and fun. Noodle got to experience a different kind of music and dance than she'd ever known. Hopers really got into it and bobbed her head and body up and down to the rhythm. Seth even stopped raising his eyebrow after a while.