Saturday Snapshots; Dawn at the Downs

if you’re new here, I use my Saturday Snapshots posts to share a bit about my life with you here. Things I’m doing, things I’m thinking, and things I like.  

This week was one of those that felt like it was a month-long. I won’t go into details, but I felt very overwhelmed and over-committed most of the week.  Combine that with a few unfriendly people that crossed my path, and this week is not going down as one of my favorites.

On a MUCH lighter note, though, we did get to do something enjoyable this week.  Every year we celebrate the entire week leading up to the Kentucky Derby.  For the last 5 years, I’ve been able to go to the Kentucky Oaks race, which is the race the day before the Derby and a favorite of the locals around here.  I’ve yet to go to THE Kentucky Derby; rapidly escalating ticket prices have made that very difficult (anyone want to pay $500 a ticket?).

This year we decided to try something new; we went to Dawn at the Downs.  It’s a fancy breakfast that starts at 7 am all Derby week and is hosted on Millionaires Row.  We decided to take the kids, and in my opinion, this is an excellent alternative for kids to experience the Derby without going to the races.  (I wouldn’t take kids under 16 to the Oaks or Derby, too crowded, and there’s a lot of alcohol around).

Going to breakfast, we got all the fun of dressing up too!  I made my oldest daughter’s hat, can you spot the Sarah Jane fabric on there?

I will say that I thought the breakfast was a bit crowded so we had to wait a bit for food in the buffet line but other than that we LOVED IT.  After breakfast, we went down to the track to watch the horse’s warm-ups. We saw many Derby contenders run by.

All in all, it was a BLAST, and we will be back next year for sure.  It was fun to dress up but not necessary; about half the people dressed up the other half were in business clothes.

Today is the Kentucky Derby, turn on your TV and watch the most exciting 2 minutes in sports.