There’s a small artsy, fartsy town in central Utah called Helper. That’s where Vickey’s becoming famous artist brother, Charley, lives. It’s chic and hip if you’re into the whole art thing.

Charley bought a home in downtown Helper (I don’t even think there are two stoplights there) a few years ago and has been making it into a cool little pad with an awesome studio with a loft behind the house in the back yard.

We were there from Friday to Sunday afternoon.

Here are the kids, lounging in Charley’s living room.

And here we are walking to the annual Helper Arts Festival.

This year there was even Helper Idol, where contestants competed for $1,000. If we had planned our trip differently I could have stopped in a couple weeks earlier to secure my spot in the top 10 and compete with the bunch of misfits who timidly sang to the not-so-interested crowd. What a trip!

There was a car show as well.

And the kids rode, three times, on a makeshift train pulled by a tractor made over to look like an engine with a dozen or so 50-gallon water barrel train cars.

The kids got their faces painted and Eliana climbed her first rock wall.

A minute or two after Ellie called it quits on the rock climbing a downpour began, with thunder and lightning and about five minutes of solid, hard-hitting rain. It was crazy. We were glad Ellie was down from the rock climbing wall and unharnessed and with us when that all began.

It was a fun couple of days at the fair.