The Weekend - Riverfest & More Decluttering

*This post may contain affiliate links, which means at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through or make a purchase.

What a weekend!!  Friday evening we kicked it off with Mex followed by some outdoor fun downtown!  Our city does a really fun outdoor spring event each year, so there were food trucks, beer, lots of vendors selling handmade items, and two bands performing by the river. 

Our little family of four along with my parents, my brother and his family, and my aunt, uncle, and cousin all set up chairs and blankets on the lawn, grabbed some beers, and spent the rest of the evening lounging.  The weather could not have been more perfect if it tried, and we had so much fun with our peeps!  We stayed out way later than normal and we had two sleeping babes by the time we pulled up in the driveway.  That’s a sign of a good time!

Now that soccer is over, we had zero to do Saturday until the evening, so we spent the entire day decluttering.  I only had two projects planned because I knew that they were going to be big ones – the outdoor storage closet and the indoor storage closet in our kitchen.  When we added our outdoor storage closet on three years ago, we just chunked all of our stuff inside and closed the door with the intention of coming back to declutter and organize shortly after, but three years went by, and we never did.  #Oops

So B and I spent the morning pulling every single thing out, sorting everything into a “keep” pile, a “trash” pile, and a “yard sale” pile, sweeping everything off, and then putting everything back in nice and organized.  We had purchased this Rubbermaid Fasttrack years ago and B finally installed it and got everything hung on it.  We could NOT love it more.  It’s so customizable, y’all!  Basically you hang up the track and then you buy the different hangers... they have one for a bicycle, one for a hose, one for a cooler, one to hold balls, one to hold a ladder, one to hold a power-tool, and multi-purpose ones to hold rakes and shovels and brooms... it is AH-MAZING!  You can buy as many as you need for whatever items you need to hang, and then you can just slide them around wherever you want on the rack.  So.  Cool.

I never had a chance to take a “before” picture of the outdoor closet, but just imagine a whole bunch of crap piled everywhere in disarray… that’s what it looked like before.  And now it’s glorious!!  Everything is so neat and tidy and we can find anything we need in seconds.

All the while that B and I cleaned, the kids played in the sprinkler.  Olivia found some wild blackberries randomly growing in our yard and one was already ripe and ready to eat!  So fun!

We finished up around lunchtime, headed inside to take a break to eat, and then after lunch, it was back at it to tackle the storage closet in our kitchen.  It holds all of our coolers, indoor tools, light bulbs, candles, extension cords, electronics for the whole family, house paint, rollers, cleaning supplies, mops, brooms, etc., as well as our kitchen trash can… AKA a WHOLE lot of stuff.

Y’all, it was a HOT MESS.  I was able to snap a “before” picture and I’m almost embarrassed to show you…

I could barely even set foot in the closet because it was so bad.  Every evening when I cook it’s always such a pain because I can barely get to the trash can.  Well, not anymore!!

Yep, it was three hours well spent and I’m so glad to have that out of the way!  I swear, every time I open the door to that closet now I smile!!  And I’ll show more before and after pictures eventually once I get around to doing another declutter update, so stay tuned… there's a lot more to see!

Around 5 we stopped cleaning, got ready, took a quick trip to Walmart to grab a couple of containers for the closet, and then we headed to my parents for Sunday dinner… on a Saturday!  My bro and his wife and baby who just moved back from Texas still live a couple of hours away so they never get to hang around for Sunday dinner, so we all moved it to Saturday this week so they could join us!

The usual crew + my bro, SIL, and nephew all came, and Momma made one of her chicken casseroles that’s a real crowd pleaser, green beans, carrots, and fresh fruit.  We opened a few bottles of wine, and we all stayed over there waaaay past our normal Sunday time since nobody had to be up early for work the next day.  Momma also made a chocolate bundt cake for dessert and my Mama Cass told us some old stories about her teenage-hood including the story about how she met my grandfather.  I can’t believe that in my 36 years of life, of all of the stories I’ve heard about my whole family, I had never heard that one.  It was so, so special to hear.  <3  And in case you were wondering, they met in Athens during football season even though my grandfather had already graduated and neither of them were living there at the time.  #GoDawgs

Sunday morning we were up earlier than usual to head to 10:30 AM mass because Jacob’s first grade class at his school was the choir!  He sang beautifully and I was so proud because he doesn’t normally like to sing in front of a crowd, but he sang his little heart out Sunday!  And Olivia was on her best behavior as well, so it was a great start to the morning.

We headed home for a quick change of clothes, grabbed Maui, and headed to my MIL and step-FIL’s for Sunday lunch next.  After lunch, we all walked around the garden because they had gotten most everything planted – tomatoes, several different varieties of peppers, blueberries, strawberries (which were already ripe), okra (my fave!), pumpkins, several different herbs, and many other things.  We’re going to be eating fresh in just a few weeks!!

Since we had Sunday dinner on Saturday night, my Momma didn’t cook again Sunday evening, so our little family of four stayed home, I whipped up some homemade grilled cheese sandwiches, and we all lounged around on the back porch all evening.  We’re going to enjoy every single second of this weather before it turns blazing hot!

A nice, relaxing ending to another lovely weekend!  And now this week it’s about to get real – SO.  MUCH.  GOING.  ON. 

That’s May for ya!!

Happy Monday, y’all!

Don't forget to link up with Heather, Johannah, and myself... just grab our new graphic and link up below!

*Linking up with B Loved Boston for Weekending and HoHo Runs for Weekly Wrap.

An InLinkz Link-up