I was only a baby but I still love them

Friday night I went to the Journey, Heart, and Cheap Trick concert with Keri and Shelli. When I told people that I was going to this concert that would say, "You were just a baby when they were popular" or "You weren't even born when they became a band." Both of those statements are true but that does not mean I am not still a fan of their music. I have loved Journey since I was born. My mom said I have always been a fan of them (and music of all kinds) since I was little. She would dance with me in front of the TV while we watched and listened to MTV. Journey has always been one of her favorites, in turn, one of mine. I learned to love Heart because of my big sis. Although she is young, she taught me to love the "oldies", if you can consider them to be oldies.

None the less, the concert was amazing (even if Steve Perry isn't the singer anymore. The new guy sounded just like him.) We were crazy fans yelling, screaming, and hollering their songs as loud as we could. We danced to every song that was played. It was a blast! And we weren't the only youngin's there. There were plenty of people our age that came to enjoy the music.

Going to this concert made me realize how much I really love the 'older' music. I can always turn my radio to 103.5 and hear a song that I love and sing all the words and just jam out! I love listening to live music, and I am so excited for the many concerts that I will be going to later this summer.

Pics and stories from the concert:

We got one of our churros for free because we didn't know how to add and didn't have enough money for all of the food we ordered and so the nice worker gave us one of them for free. We felt like idiots, but I sure enjoyed my churro.

We were really far away, but still had a great time.

This lady was a true Heart fan. She had on a heart t-shirt from their tour in 1984. She also was very serious about the concert and saving her spot. We had laid our blankets around her and she made sure we knew that where she was standing, and the surrounding 4 feet around her, was her spot. When it came closer to the concert starting and more and more people were crowding around her, she noticed we had an extra blanket and asked to borrow it to save her spot. We let her borrow the blanket thinking she would sit on it like the rest of the crowd. Instead, she plops her big ol' boots right in the middle of the blanket and stands there! I looked at her with surprise because she was standing on my new blanket! Who does that?! All of her work went to waste because by the time she got a hold of her friends, they had saved a better spot and she left.

The new Journey singer. He was really good.

Is there anything better?!

Guess what today is?! FREE SLURPEE DAY! That's right. My nephew called me at work to share the news! So me and co-worker took off down the road to 7-Eleven to partake of the free slushy goodness. Of course when my other co-workers heard it was free Slurpee day and we were going they wanted us to get them one. Being the nice person that I am I said sure, not thinking that we wouldn't be able to. When we got to 7-Eleven the worker told me that it was one per person. Lucky for my co-workers I think quick on my feet so I explained to the worker that it was for the doctors that I worked for that couldn't leave the clinic. She was more than willing to let me fill up more than one. Gees, it seemed like she would let me have the rest of the cups in the pile. What a nice worker! And it wasn't entirely a lie...some of our doctors wanted a free Slurpee too. One of our newer docs, Dr. VanStaden (who is from Europe) couldn't believe that they were free. He kept asking me if he owed me money. Thinking back I should have just taken the money, made a little profit on the freebies. We all kept wondering why they were free, then I saw the ounces on the cup which was 7.11 and then realized that today's date is 7-11! It took me a bit but when I cracked the code I shared the info with some others who were just as astonished as me. Looks like I'm not the only one that isn't quick with common sense. Either way, best three words I've heard today "Free Slurpee Day!" So thanks, Skyler. That free cherry Slurpee made my day!

We're all American now

Last night Gordon and I attended an Ogden Raptor's baseball game. My dad's girlfriend, Brenda, is a season ticket holder and they couldn't go last night so they offered the tickets to us. We eagerly took them. Neither of us are big baseball fans, but it was due time for us to have a date night. It was a good game with the Raptor's winning 11-3! We even have a favorite player, Gordon. We don't know what his first name is, but we don't care. His name is awesome. He also turned out to be a pretty good ball player too!

Of course being at a baseball game we had to partake in the baseball game rituals, meaning eating a big fat hot dog with all the fixin's! It was delicious!

I don't know if we'll go back to another game this season, but going to a baseball game made it feel more like summer to me. Hot summer night watching a good baseball game. Yep, that's summer.

And it was wonderful to spend the evening with my husband. He's such a stud!

No fireworks for the 4th of July?!

I love fireworks. Ever since Gordon and I have known each other (which is over 3 1/2 years now...WOW!) we have made it a point to see pretty much every firework show in the Wasatch front each year. So this year when we decided to go camping over the Fourth in the Uintahs with my family it meant no fireworks. None the less it was still a wonderful Fourth of July. We played all weekend up there riding four wheelers, going on a bike ride, and taking a hike. We hung out with my step-dad's family and had a big dutch oven dinner one night (in a past post I have talked about how much I love dutch oven cooking). We even took our dogs for their first camping trip! They loved it...well Abbi had to get use to the out doors but once she got over herself she enjoyed it. Briggs was in heaven. He must have worked too hard on our hike because the next day he was sore. He wouldn't even stretch! So we gave him some Ibuprofen and in a half hour he was back to being himself again.

My niece, Jade, came up too. It was nice to be able to spend time with her too. I have missed out on a lot of her life but it's nice to get to know her, and spend some girl time with her. Gordon taught her how to ride the four wheeler, basically just how to steer it herself.

My nephew was there too. He's so much fun! We're very close, so close he feels like my little brother and not my nephew. Him and Gordon hung out a lot too. They went on rides together, and fishing. Skyler even caught a fish! Gordon did not have as much luck. Either way, they both had a lot of fun fishing and getting mosquito bites (the mosquitoes were horrible up there! We never went anywhere without bug spray!).

Although my mom had her trailer up there, we decided to tent it. Our camping spot had a river outside it so we slept amazing hearing the river sounds. It was very cold at night, but we enjoyed it. It's been so hot lately! It was a nice change to shiver at night.

It was nice to come back home. We did have the trailer amenities, but we all couldn't wait to get in the shower! Uintah camping is dirty camping...dust flies everywhere. But it was a lot of fun and nice to get away for a few days.

Breaking News: Murder in Margaritaland!

We were having another wonderful day in Margaritaland. I had just gotten done performing for the resort guests, and my new husband, Tatum Tat, had finished a long day at work tattooing almost everyone on the island when we got the news that Jack Daniels, a co-worker and bartender on the island, was murdered! All of us were suspects and at the same time all of us were detectives trying to keep our good names out of this murder mystery. I banned with a few of my friends from the island, co-worker Shelli the Swim Instructor, and an island native Katherine to solve this mystery. We had fallen into a lot of money and were able to bribe the other suspects into telling us what they knew. It seemed to be working; we felt like were getting someone in our search. We were getting evidence that seemed to be pointing us in the right direction when all of the sudden the main detective announced he had solved the mystery. He showed us his evidence, which made our evidence seem meaningless. It was the lifeguard! He was the last person we suspected! Although we didn't solve the mystery ourselves, we're glad that the lifeguard is getting the punishment that he deserves: banishment from the island!

Gordon's sister Jodi held a murder mystery dinner party this weekend. It was a BLAST! Jodi has such a talent to organize things like this. She put so much work into that night and it showed. We had never been to a murder mystery party before. It was fun to dress up in a costume and act like someone else for a few hours. It was like we were putting on one big play except we were never going to have an audience. I think that Gordon had the most fun. He was Tatum Tat, a tattoo artist from New York that had moved to the island to get away from the city life. His costume was perfect. From the moment we got there, he was in character. He tattooed pretty much everyone at the party. He set up his own tattoo parlor and everything (which was the end of our table, and consisted of a bowl of water, a sponge, and many temporary tattoos). Everyone was impressed by his costume. He was nervous to show up looking the way he did in fear that someone at the party might actually look like that (which is not a bad look, it just would have been a bit embarrassing because his was a costume.) My costume was not as elaborate as Gordon's. I was a fire dancer. The best part of my costume was the props I brought as my fire: sparklers. But I was unable to use them because the party was moved inside because of the heat outside.

We mingled with a lot of fun people that night. Because we were all in character, we didn't get to really meet the people, but we sure know their characters well. Some of our friends, Katherine and Marc, and Shelli and Tim came too. Marc and Tim were surfers, Katherine was an island native, and Shelli was a swim instructor. Shelli and Katherine were my partners as we tried to solve the mystery. The massive amounts of money we had was thanks to the people that didn't come to the party. We stole their money out of their envelopes. Dirty money, but it got us the information we needed.

The party was such a success, and I can't wait for Jodi to have another! Or at least a themed party that we get to dress up for. I love to play dress up and be someone else. It brings out my creative side that I don't get to use that often the older I get.

Gordon's Tattoo parlor

He's concentrating so hard on his next move...

All of us got together to share info...

Me and Jodi (aka Coconut Jane)

The Murder Mystery guests

The Men showing off their sweet tats!

Katherine, Shelli, and me

Me (the fire dancer) and Gordon (aka Tatum Tat)

Smooth, Smelly (Good), and Pink

As if my mom did not do enough for me on my birthday, she told me she still had one more surprise for me. She took me to get my very first pedicure! We went to an Aveda salon. I LOVE Aveda! I use their makeup, hair products, lotions...and the best part is that they are environmentally friendly (which is the main reason I use their products, although my hair and skin have never been so healthy).

So pedicures are amazing! I've have now given in to the part of me that is so high maintenance and it feels good. Our pedicures were only suppose to be 50 minutes long, but our estitians went 20 minutes over (we didn't pay extra in case you were wondering). HEAVEN! The whole experience was so relaxing and stress free. The environment was heavenly. We had our own private room. The workers kept asking us if we needed refills on our drinks which were given to us while we were waiting. High class treatment from the beginning to the end. I loved every moment of it!

Doggie Friday: They grow on ya

While Gordon and I were camping, Abbi and Briggs had a vacation too, although they might not have thought of it that way. They stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Hardcastle (Gordon's parents). Aunt Jodi was who agreed to take care of them for us while we were camping; It's easy to volunteer when it's not your house they will be staying in. At first it was rough for them. I'm sure they felt like they were being abandoned or passed around. LeeAnn said they whined at the front door for a few hours, but then slowly started to warm up to their family. When we got home, it was like they had always lived there. They were very comfortable. Jodi said they pretty much ran the house, which is what they do. They did not like it if they were confined to one area; they need their freedom.

Gordon's family did not want them to leave (however, Jodi and LeeAnn both said that the novelty would wear off). The most surprising to me was Gordon's dad who's first words to me were "Hi Jessica...You can't take 'em." I told them that they could watch them anytime we needed them too. Their home is now their vacation home.

I think it broke Jodi's heart a bit that they adjusted to our home so quickly (as in right as soon as they got back to their home). To me, that was a relief. They recognize our home as their home.

I missed them terribly, but it sure was nice to have a break and sleep through the night.