Concerts Concerts Concerts

Hi Everyone! Last week Gus and I had a big extended weekend of concert fun.

First up, my FAVORITE musical act, The Counting Crows! They were absolutely fantastic. Set at an outdoor venue called Marymoor Park, the sun was shining and setting, a perfect concert setting. The band decided to switch up their concert format and instead of having the opening band (Augustana) play first, both bands were on stage together almost the entire show. They would jam together and alternate songs. Counting Crows' lead singer, Adam, would sing with Augustana and Augustana's lead singer would sing with Adam. It was just a really fun night of music collaboration and the crowd was really into it.

Then on Saturday, I treated Gus to a belated birthday trip out to the Gorge Amphitheatre in Central Washington to see one of his favorite bands, Slightly Stoopid. Our friends Srini and Dave joined us, and I was the only one who had been to the venue before. For those of you reading this that have never been there, it is an absolute MUST. The amphitheatre is set on a cliff along the Columbia River. You can see the rolling hills and flowing river directly behind the stage. Additionally, the sun sets almost directly behind the stage, making a perfect backdrop.

When we got out to the Gorge at 4pm, it was still 99 degrees outside! Whoo eeee. Hot. Thank goodness for a steady wind, or we all may have been quite miserable. We quickly set up our tents and proceeded to hide from the sunshine. At concert time, we trudged along the 1/2 dirt path along with thousands of our fellow concert goers. It was a very interested mixed crowd. The other groups playing with Slightly Stoopid were Mickey Avalon, Stephen Marley (yes Bob's son), and Snoop Dogg! Too funny. I never thought I'd see Snoop, but alas, I got my chance. All around, it was a very fun show. Snoop was fantastic, constantly getting the crowd to cheer, chant, and dance.

We sat up on the grassy hill for most of the evening and enjoyed each other's company and doing some major people watching. My personal favorite was the girl in a 80s workout video outfit: flourescent yellow leotard, belt, & white boots (pic attempt below). Tons of people would run up to her every time she walked by and ask to have her picture taken. After the shows, we hiked back to the campground and relaxed under the beautiful stars. None of the boys had trouble falling asleep, but I did struggle a bit amidst the everlasting array of screaming, laughing, and fireworks explosions.

All in all, I couldn't have asked for a better weekend of musical enjoyment.

Adventures of the Fourth!

After several fun visits from Gus’ family these past months, it was finally time for my parents to come for a visit! We had a lot of fun sightseeing, shopping, hanging out, eating food, and playing cards.

On Friday, we ventured down to the Pike Market to see the fish throwers and purchase some fresh flowers. I love buying flowers in the market because they are so beautiful and so cheap! My particular bouquet was $5 and is a sweet smelling mix of lillies, dahlias, daisies, and mint sprigs. Later we walked down to the Pike Brewery for lunch. In the afternoon, we measured all our windows and headed off to Home Depot & Lowe’s to price new blinds.

Saturday, we all slept in. It was great. Then we headed down to the Interbay Putt Putt course where I proceeded to beat Gus yet again. My perfect putting record against Gus still stands! Wahoo! We enjoyed watermelon and BBQ’d chicken for dinner, along with several rousing card games (cribbage and Phase10). We opted not to fight the huge crowds at GasWorks Park and instead stayed in to watch the fireworks show on the TV. Lucky for us, you could actually see the bigger fireworks from our house! We had fun watching the big ones in person and then seeing them again on the TV (5 second delay). We also lit all of the sparklers that I have had sitting in the garage for more than a year and assailed each other with snap pops and champagne poppers. What fun! Our new deck looked like someone ripped open a giant bag of confetti and threw it from our roof.

On Sunday, we ventured off to the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum at the Seattle Center. Talk about a TON of information. You could spend days in this place and not see everything. However, we did the best we could learning about the history of music in Seattle, the life of Jimi Hendrix, the creation of sci-fi stories and costumes, I could go on and on… but the biggest draw was the travelling Jim Henson exhibit! They had many of Henson’s puppets, sketches, and story boards available for our perusal. What an interesting, unique, and creative mind that man had! We even got to put on our own puppet show, in the Henson style, featuring the song, ‘Mahna Mahna,’ pics below. Gus and I plan to go back to the museum some time soon in order to spend more time there! We ended the night over at our favorite Sunday dinner spot, Duke’s on Alki Beach, enjoying some chowder and mojitos/margaritas.

Sadly on Monday, Gus and I both had to work. My mom and dad hung out at the house where she baked and baked and baked. I think I have enough goods for a sale! Thanks mom! After work, however, we all met up downtown to head off to the Mariners’ game vs. the Orioles. As Gus and I are ‘season ticket holders,’ I got $10 off each ticket for this game, so we opted to sit in the fancy seats near the field. This was so much fun! The players were so close and the foul balls came even closer. The night ended perfectly with Washburn pitching a complete game and the Mariners winning 5-0.

And with that, ended our long weekend of fun. My parents left early Tuesday morning on the long drive back to Montana. It was only mildly bittersweet, though, as I’ll be back home in Montana during the second week of August for a family reunion.

Here are some of our pics: