Big Post

So much has happened in the last week…time to get caught up!

Especially…my 40th birthday extravaganza with Steinvic and Paul Mc Cartney! Who cares if there were 40,000 people there along with us?! But first, Steinvic and I headed downtown midday and checked into our hotel room.

He'd reserved a junior suite and it was so fantastic. Flowers. Champagne. Chocolate covered strawberries. Lovely and luxurious!

We went to Rock Bottom for a very late lunch/very early dinner. Warning: do not get the nachos unless you bring lots of friends with you! Good golly… we each ate only about a corner’s worth because we didn’t know how big they’d be and we’d ordered actual lunch, too. But it was a nice meal and once we were through there, we headed to Macy’s to spend our gift certificates we'd received for our birthdays.

After some shopping, we headed back to our room for drinks, relaxing and then getting gussied up to go to the show!

And WOW…how amazing were our seats?! We were in row P on the floor level of the Great American Ballpark. This was the first concert the Cincinnati Reds has hosted and it was a huge success. The place was packed and everything still ran smoothly.

You can read more about the concert and see a slide show here. Words can’t describe how unreal getting to go to that concert was…enjoyed every minute, knew every song, and were surrounded by happy music lovers of all ages. We had a blast, and Paul Mc Cartney is fabulous and his voice is just as clear and strong as ever (and please, quit being surprised by this, people! He is ONLY 70!) I loved the David Bowie concert that was our first date in Ohio, and I loved the Arizona U2 concert when we got engaged...both were awesome and unforgettable sentimental and wonderful. But I will definitely remember and hold dear this concert for my entire life, especially all the time, effort, love and thoughtfulness that Steinvic put into making it happen.

The next day, we headed out to pick up Houdini (this is what I’m calling our Pup here now, since we discovered that he is able to escape his gate without disturbing it...we've since figured it out, but it's still fun to call him that...) on Friday, which I had off, thanks to Steinvic! Houdini stayed at my folks’ for the night, so when we left there, they followed us home with an awesome butcher block table that they didn’t need.

We got that all set up and then worked on house things Saturday and Sunday, and bought chairs to match the table at IKEA

Have you ever been to IKEA? It’s neat, but it’s not a quick get in/buy stuff/leave experience, even if you want it to be. But, we got great chairs for $40 each (thanks to my folks...birthday gift from them!) and trust me when I say, we’ve been chair-shopping for a while and even the simplest chairs ain’t cheap, so we were thrilled to get these so reasonably. So, we’re set. We have a table and chairs that are lovely and our house is ready for our guests who will arrive this evening.

Audition tonight...will post about that tomorrow!