Spoon Full of Sugar

My family once talked about what our "dream concerts" would be. Like if Rascal Flatts opened for the Beatles. Or REO Speedwagon opened for Elton John. (That would be Tay's dream concert, by the way, not mine.) Something to think about. What would your dream concert be?

I have to say that my dream concert for the Summer of 2011 would be if Sara Bareilles opened for Sugarland. And she did! At Usana. On Saturday night. It was awesome!

My friend Sara introduced me to Sara Bareilles when I stayed with her on a trip to New York. (Introduced me to her music. Not the real Sara B. Although I know we would all be good friends if we actually knew each other. And Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland would probably want to hang with us too.) So listening to Sara Bareilles always reminds me of being with Sara in Manhattan and what a great time we had.

Listening to Sara Bareilles perform live did not disappoint. I love her voice, love her emotion, love her lyrics. I mean really. Don't you wish you could write lyrics like, "You sound so innocent, all full of good intent, swear you know best. But you expect me to jump up onboard with you and ride off into your delusional sunset." And then you could introduce the song at a concert by saying "This is for all the girls out there who have a d-bag in their life they need to get rid of." Pure genius. I would sell my soul to the devil to be able to write things like that.

Moving on... Sugarland was amazing as well. Very upbeat, very raw, very real. I was on my feet the whole night and didn't want to leave when the concert was over. If they came back tonight - or every night this week - I would be there.

Love This Kid

Love this kid! She is cute in her "eat seat," cute when she's crawling, cute when she's playing and cute when she's screaming bloody murder. (For the first hour, then it starts to wear on you.) So glad Tay & Heather moved to Farmington and we get to play more regularly.

Seattle

Tricia and I were able to make a quick trip to Seattle last weekend. We had our traditional banana splits with Patsy, Hal, Jilene and Mike (aunts and uncles) at Shari's on Friday night. Saturday morning we went to Pike Place Market with Jilene. You can tell by the picture below that the market was crowded with tourists. (Said snobbishly. Technically Tricia and I are not tourists, since we have family in Seattle and We Belong.) But I never pass up an opportunity to watch hot guys throw fish at each other. We had lunch at Ivar's on the waterfront. There is nothing better than eating fish and chips from Ivar's in downtown Seattle, sitting on the water and throwing fries at the ever-present seagulls.

Well, ok, there is ONE thing better than lunch at Ivar's. And that is a family picnic later that night! Saturday night we were joined at a park in Redmond with a wide assortment of our aunts, uncles, cousins and related kiddos. We lucked out because our Uncle Barry from Texas happened to be visiting Seattle that weekend as well. It was great to see everyone - and laugh hysterically at cousin Kimmy's stories, as I always do. Thanks to everyone who made time to spend with us last weekend!

Parable of the Parking Lot

Last night I was pulling into the parking lot at Albertsons... I mean A Fresh Market, since that is what we are calling it these days. Anyway, there was a shopping cart someone had left out in the middle of the lot. From the corner of my eye, I saw a woman walking in that direction with her cart. I had the thought, "Yes, because two carts left out in the middle of a parking lot is better than one. Just because somebody else did it, doesn't make it right. Why can't you just return your cart?"

And then the woman pushed both carts to the designated "cart return" area. And I felt really stupid.

So I would like to apologize to Parking Lot Lady for my snap judgment. She is clearly a much better person than I will ever be. And since I am offering up apologies, I would also like to say sorry to a guy I work with. When I saw him walking through a grocery store parking lot on Monday, I thought about how fantastic it would be to run him over with my car. What, you've never had a co-worker you wished would suffer an unfortunate accident? Come on now.

The moral of the story is that I am not as nice a person as I would like to be. But maybe I can try harder to "focus on the positive" today.

Shakespeare Festival

Earlier this year, my friend (and college roommate) Teri suggested that we were the World's Worst English Majors since we had never been to the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City. I conceded that she was probably right - and we decided to visit the Shakespeare Festival this summer to correct this horrible wrong.

We drove to Cedar City on Friday afternoon and watched "Romeo & Juliet" that night. I loved the outdoor theater (which is a replica of The Globe) and the acting and staging were amazing. I may have cried a little at the end of the play.

The next afternoon, we saw a matinee performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." So funny! We had such a good time at the festival and I'm thinking this may become an annual tradition. It was fun to embrace my inner "English major nerd" and spend a weekend talking about books and Shakespeare and why junior high teachers who insist on having their students diagram sentences should be drug out into the street and shot. (Diagram that sentence, I dare you!)

I laughed, I cried... Thanks Teri for a great adventure!