Music Monday

This week's Music Monday doubles as a congratulations to my friends Taddy-Long-Legs and J-Money who got married this weekend.

Congratulations kids!!

Happy Birthday Emily!!

She's super sporty,

got a heart of gold

and just a touch oneriness.

She's EMILY and it's her birthday today! She may be my third oldest niece, but she holds a very special place in my heart because she is my first and only goddaughter.

One of my favorite Emily stories is from when she was probably about 3 or 4 years old. Kim, her and I were back home at mom and dad's house and that whole weekend she had been wearing these cute butterfly jammers to bed. Dad, being dad, teased Emily every time she put them on saying, "Hey, those are my butterfly jammies." And after about the third day of this treatment, Emily had enough. Dad had gotten his hands on the jammers and was teasing her and teasing her that those were his jammies and not hers. She yanked the jammers from his hands and yelled, "I'M TAKING MY JAMMIES AND GETTING THE HELLLLL OUT OF HERE!"

Hand to God, it was the funniest thing I've ever heard a sweet little girl say. And what spawned from that was a great tradition with her and Papa, exchanging butterfly gifts they made for each other.

Happy 14th birthday, Miss Emily!! I love you!

Would it kill you to throw me a warning bark?

Thank you eTrade and eTrade baby for this gem.

Full of GLEE

New episodes of Glee start tonight!! If you aren't watching it yet, what is your problem? It's awesome.

If only real life could be like a musical.

The great escape: Day 4

On day 4 we took a leisurely stroll through Boulder Colorado.

Highlights included:

• a street performer dressed as a dog (sadly not pictured)
• some awesome coconut/chocolate chunk ice cream from Ben & Jerry's (also not pictured)
• playing with stuff at a toy store
• and trying to find the football stadium (even though I'm still a little salty towards CU for leaving the Big 12)

Then that evening we went to the Taste of Colorado festival with the rest of the city of Denver. There were easily 2,000+ people there to see Bret Michaels play a free concert. I don't think festival planners planned on that big of a crowd, because we started really far back and the sound was muffled by the row of trees between us. They didn't have nearly enough speakers/amps. We tried to weasel our way up closer, but this is as close as we got.

I must of been really excited since it's so blurry.

As we were walking back to the car I saw all this commotion coming up behind us with a red SUV and tons of police around it and a few 40 year old women losing their shit. I knew he was in that vehicle. So I grabbed my camera and hoped the window was rolled down on our side, but it wasn't. But I can say with 98% confidence, Bret Michaels is in these two pictures.

And that pretty much concludes the vacation because the next day I came back home. Oh, well, I guess Gleason did take us to her neighborhood dive bar for a drink after the show where she was petted and described as "soft" by a young lady who lives on the east side and "keeps it real," but she may not want me sharing that.

Whoopsees.

Thanks for a great time girls!

The great escape: Day 3

The farther we get into this vacay recap the shorter the posts are going to be I think :)

Saturday was a pretty relaxing day, we went to the art museum saw some bamboo purses and headed back to the house to watch the KSU-UCLA game.

Here is Gleason leading us in a K-S-U cheer.

My friends Alison and Cindy and their respective men folk came over and watched the game with us, but I failed to take any photos with them the entire weekend. :(

After the Wildcat victory we went to a concert at Red Rocks. I knew a few songs by one band, the Avett Brothers and I knew nothing about the other band, Gov't Mule.

The Avett Brothers were awesome and I'm now in love with them.

Here is a sample of one of their songs, I and Love and You.

See, I knew you'd like it.

Here is a picture of an awesome hippy beer vendor.

Then came the headliner Gov't Mule. They are a jam band. If you don't know what a jam band is, consider yourself lucky. They extend a perfectly exceptable 3 minute song into a 12 minute song by "jamming." In small doses I probably could have handled it a little better, but 3 hours is too effing long for that mess.

Don't believe me? Here, try and sit all the way through this video 20 times.

I didn't like it one bit. In fact, at one point I think I looked over at Becca and told her this was the longest 3 hours of my life. Luckily, we were at one of the prettiest places to listen to bad music at so I took a few night time pictures, drank some beer and sat on some stairs with Becca and another one of Gleason's friends who talked about how talented her boyfriend was for 17 minutes straight, without interruption (that's not an exaggeration, Becca actually timed it).

Up next...the night I almost met Bret Michaels.

The great escape: Day 2

When God made me he ran out of sporty spice and gave me an extra dash of personality. I've never been known to be extremely athletic, outdoorsy, coordinated or down with manual labor.

Come to think of it, there is a Billy Currington song that covers that part of me in a nutshell.

However, I like to think throughout my life I have become less vocal about my general dislike for activities that involve playing sports, the great outdoors or coordination when paired with a great payoff like spending time with friends, drinking beer or getting to see something really pretty.

And so begins the story of the day Gleason, Becca and I went hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park and I earned my Wilderness Badge ala Troop Beverly Hills, the second best movie ever made (Overboard = undisputed winner).

During our drive up to Estes Park, I taught and slaughtered the other two at a rousing game of "Dingo." We ate lunch at some sort of local sandwich/pizza shop where our waiter's name was Lance. He didn't strike me as that great of a waiter, but from the looks of our ticket, he's only waiting tables until his drawing career takes off.

We proceeded to drive through part of RMNP until we got to the bus stop that would take us to the trail we wanted to hike.

I feel it deserves mentioning that Becca and I had told Gleason we wanted to do the handicap accessible hike of Bear Lake, but once we got there, Gleason and some foreign lady with a beautiful accent were apparently in cahoots, and quite quickly convinced me that doing the Nymph, Dream and Emerald Lake hike was a better choice.

While there were at least 4 times during that upward hike I regretted abandoning that original plan, because I was breathing so hard, I think you'll agree from looking at the pictures it was totally worth it.

Nymph Lake.

View between Nymph and Dream Lake.

You'll notice an abundant amount of pictures that have Becca walking in the water features because she had some sort of fancy pants water resistant shoes she bought for their trip to Costa Rica. She was hoping to brag about having dry feet while I complained of soggy socks, but there was one hole in her plan...I don't "do" water features. Point Erin.

Dream Lake.

Cool twisty tree.

Emerald Lake.

Wilderness girl Schlegel and Troop Leader Phyllis Nefler (Gleason).

Wilderness girl Garrett and Troop Leader Phyllis Nefler (Gleason).

Before agreeing to go on a hike I told Gleason I needed her to do research on how to survive a bear attack. Together we were equipped with the knowledge that in general you don't ever want to sneak up on a bear (duh). However, if you are being attacked by a brown bear you are suppose to play dead unless it starts to eat you, then you are suppose to fight back (and ultimately die). If attacked by the much smaller and apparently smarter black bear you are suppose to fight back immediately (before ultimately dying).

Unfortunately, or fortunately, we did not encounter either the brown or black bear. We did however see a chipmunk eating bread left behind by another hiker,

this badass blue bird,

a spotted rainbow trout

and these lady elk.

I didn't say I earned my animal identification badge, people.

So, all in all, an awesome day. Although, I did leave the mountain with physical proof I might be allergic to hiking.

Look at my fingers and how they turned in to little smokies! Becca's swelled a little, but nothing like mine. I felt like that obnoxious girl in Willy Wonka that eats the gum and turns into a blueberry "Violet! You're turning violet, VIOLET!"

Up next...the day I discovered I do not like jam bands.