The Bestest Concert Ever!

Ok, so some would disagree with me about the Tori Amos concert being the bestest concert ever. I, however, could argue the point. But if you're not a Tori fanatic, you probably wouldn't enjoy the concert very much. That goes with any artist though, really, if you think about it.

I went to Salt Lake City to see Tori live at the Abravanel Hall (just kiddy-corner from the SLC Temple, I had no idea it existed). I took a fellow Tori freak, Heather, to the concert with me. We left in the morning, drove down to Layton where we killed time at the Layton Hills mall. I got some items at a bargain at Anchor Blue because they were going out of business.

A highlight of our mall trip was when we got sidetracked by a salesman. He had a thick Hebrew accent so we couldn't understand him very well. I was actually laughing and couldn't stop because he was talking as if we understood him. He was selling this cool Dead Sea stuff that exfoliates your skin. It was really impressive, but I hated the feeling that I was being played. He actually started writing up a receipt and I couldn't recall ever telling him that I was going to buy some. So, somehow we managed to escape, but we left with a great story to tell.

After the mall we went to Olive Garden for some delightful Italian cuisine. Once we were stuffed, we realized we still had a couple hours to kill, so we decided to scope out the Abravanel Hall. I knew it was near Temple Square so I figured we'd be able to find something to do in the meantime.

So as we were driving to downtown Salt Lake, we decided we'd go to IKEA, but neither of us knew where it was. I knew it was right off the freeway so I just kept driving in hopes that we'd see it. Heather's GPS couldn't find it, for some reason, until about a minute before we saw it on the right hand side. Really can't miss that big bright blue and yellow building.

IKEA made me absolutely dizzy there were so many colors and sensations. I really liked it, but for some reason my head was spinning as we walked around.

We left IKEA and headed back to SLC.

We arrived with perfect timing at the concert. Our seats were a mere 13 rows back from the stage and in the center. Couldn't ask for better seats. The opening act was a group from England called One eskimO. They were really good, but the lead singer did this almost comical bobbing dance move the whole time that was hard to watch.

At 8:30, approximately, Tori Amos came on stage. The whole audience jumped to their feet when she came out. She was wearing this grey smock dress thingie with red leggings and a red belt and these incredibly high heels.

She did not stop for more than a few seconds between each song which was amazing. She kept the energy up throughout the whole concert. I recognized every single song except for two of them.

Highlights: The crazy old man in the front row dancing like a freak which distracted me from Miss Amos' performance. The encore when she sang "Big Wheel" and got us all clapping. When she sang "Strong Black Vine", really got into it, and you could tell. Her performance of "China" was fantastic.

Heather and I were both sad when it ended. By the time we got out of the hall and bought t-shirt souvenirs, it was about 11pm. I had Heather home by 2:45 am and I was home at 3:00 am. It was well worth it though, and I would love to see Tori in concert again.

I'm such a freak.

Tahoe and Freedom

My parents and Gigi went to Lake Tahoe this last week. They were gone for almost 9 days, and I was left here. I was invited to go, but the idea of having some really good me time was more appealing. C'mon, don't judge me. I'm young, single, and I live with my parents. Can you blame me? I mean...really...

Anyways...

They had lots of fun from what they said. They went to church there, went to the lake (the water was freezing...go figure...it's an alpine lake. I had no idea), went to the Reno LDS temple, and other such things. Gigi had a good time too. She got to go swimming (or as she says "wimming!"). My souvenir from there was a picture of Gigi all dressed up like an old Western saloon girl, holding a gun, with her little chubby hand on the neck of a Jack Daniels bottle. It is so cute. (Never mind the connotations of the picture...it's all good fun...)

For my "me" time, I did just about nothing. It was AMAZING! Sometimes you just need those days where you just hang out. I did that for my days off. It was awesome. I got to catch up on some reading, sleep in, work out a little bit...yeah...I was in heaven.

Don't get me wrong. It's great to have my parents and Gigi back. I missed them. But it was wonderful to have some freedom for a little while.

My Graduation Pictures! (Finally!)

Hey, so, here are my graduation pictures. I actually just barely got these from my sister, so I had to be just as patient as you to see them.











There are more, but you can check either my Facebook profile for those or you can email me and ask me to send you some.

LG enV Touch

I just got a new toy!

It's pretty awesome.

It's the LG enV Touch. At first I was hesitant about the whole touch screen on the front. Now I just absolutely love it. It has a really nice camera on it (3 megapixels) as well as the internet and VCast Videos so I can watch tv shows on it if I wanted to. I've already watched some clips of shows just because I was bored. That and I was experimenting with it. Oh and it also has GPS and basically a YellowPages built right in which will come in handy when I'm on vacation and whatnot.

Anyways, that's my latest obsession.

Gigi's 2nd Birthday!

Ok so I'm just going to post about this even though I don't have any pictures of it. My camera decided to die. We didn't go picture-less for it though. My parents' camera worked fine.

So we had a good day for Giselle's birthday. It was more fun this year because she had a little more of an idea of what was going on. During the day we didn't do a whole lot out of the ordinary. That evening, though, we went up to Kelly Canyon and took family photos. We had Lavinda take them. She did Katie and Rico's wedding photos and did an amazing job. It will be good to see what comes out of this photo shoot. We wore navy blue and a bright green which went really well with the scenery. We chose a spot next to the South Fork of the Snake River. It was absolutely gorgeous up there and all three little ones did surprisingly well. The only problem we had was getting them all to look at the camera at the same time.

Our photos went a little long so we had a late dinner and opened Gigi's presents. She got a baby doll stroller that was actually a Christmas present that we never gave her cause she wasn't old enough for it then. And she got a baby doll to go with the stroller, some building blocks, a PlaySkool house, a Book of Mormon (kiddie size) with her name on it, some pom-poms, a scarf, a purse to carry her Book of Mormon in (or whatever suits her fancy, and a random magnifying glass.

Gigi had an awesome birthday! After presents we had some chocolate cake, talked for a bit, then went to bed because it was almost 11 by the time we got done with everything.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GISELLE TAYLOR!