Danity Kane...Show Stoppin'

So one time (Wednesday night) I was flipping through radio stations and randomly stopped on Z90, which is the local hip-hop/rap station. I don't listen to it much because it gets a little to gangster for my taste. But they were playing the best song of all 5 of my radio presets, so that's where I landed. I must have stopped listening once my song was over because I left it on that station. I hear a commercial not much longer for Danity Freaking Kane. Not only are they back together (last I heard, that was just a rumor) BUT THEY WERE ON TOUR! I texted Lime ASAP and told her we absolutely had to go. 

Side story. Caroline and I met playing ball at PMar. Obviously all most of the girls became friends, but the thing Lime and I bonded over was our love for DK. On our long practice days our schedule was morning workouts from 6-7, morning break from 7-8, study hall from 8-9, and practice from 9:30-1:00. During that morning break, most of us girls would either go grab burritos or McDonald's, bring them back to campus and have tailgate parties while bumping Danity Kane in the parking lot before study hall. It was mine and Lime's soundtrack to our life at 17 years old during our freshman year of college. 

Back to the main story. We didn't buy tickets that same night because Chels wanted to go but we needed to wait it out and see if anyone picked up her work shift. No dice. Whomp. So I bought mine and Lime's tickets Thursday morning and was pretty amped for that night.

We get to the place where the concert is being held (Humphrey's by the Bay) and had a couple of drinks before we chilled in our seats waiting for everything to get started. No "professional" cameras were allowed (not that I have one) so all we've got are iPhone photos. You're welcome :]

View from Humphrey's was a lot sweeter than it looks.

Pre-show best friend selfie with Lime!

After having to sit through 2 opening acts, it was time for the main event! 

The 4 girls. Drea, Aubrey, Shannon, and Dawn. #sweetresolution.

Dawn, Shannon, Drea, Aubrey. #betterresolution. #notreallythough.

Ahhhh. It was seriously the best thing ever. They did leave out some classic songs. And they went and announced that DK went from 5 members to 4 (leaving D. Woods behind) to 3 (Aundrea bailed) so now Danity Kane is a trio. That made me a little sad. But whatev. At least I got to see a majority of them. And it was incredibleeeeee. I'm still on such a high from the show!

And then there were 3. DK3. Aubrey, Dawn, and Shannon. 

Sad faces after learning the news that they're now a trio.

They announced that they'd be at one more show in LA this weekend...and Lime and I seriously considered the trip for a quick second, but the existing plans we each have for the weekend trump the trip just a little. It's all good. This concert was just the start of a bomb.com weekend! 

Little Big Town & Keith Urban

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY FRIDAY! [Yes, I am watching Duck Dynasty as I type this]

Today is a good day. After a few hours of work, I'll be headed to the Jason Aldean Concert. I'm super excited about it because if his show is anything like it was last year...it will be nothing short of amazing. Unfortunately, this is the last show of country concert season for us San Diegans...or at least for those of us that aren't going to Zac Brown Band in a couple of weeks.

Anyways...tonight's concert is setting the mood for today's post. Let's talk about the last country concert I was at: Keith Urban.

Keith is one of the HUGE reasons I bought the mega ticket earlier this year. It guaranteed me tickets to Jason, Luke, and Keith. I'm not too in love with Keith Urban's looks, as most of his fans are...but I do love his music. His opening acts were Dustin Lynch and Little Big Town.  

Of course...we started off with some tailgating. 

Some of my favorite people <3

What's a post without a selfie?!!

After a few hours of that, it was time to go in...that in itself was a huge mess that's too lengthy to explain.

After running around like crazies, we all met up inside the amphitheater. We ended up missing Dustin Lynch...I assume, since we didn't see him. 

We caught some of LBT singing Tornado.

Also saw them sing Boondocks! If you listen to this video, you'll hear how much of a mess I was between saying bondukes instead of boondocks which had me highly amused, the spaceship launch sound boop boop boop-ing is totally me, and that chaaaaahooo, me too. Sorry. Ha!

Once it was time for Keith, I took off from my friends to get a better less obstructed seat...check out some vids:

You Gonna Fly-

Sweet Thing-

I wandered back hung out with the group, and then saw Emily take off...so I totally followed. Keith was leaving the main stage and making his way to the lawn!!!!! There was a small stage towards the back and he performed for us. I got 1 song recorded before my phone died...check it.

It was an amaziiiiing concert, and a great time despite the couple of hiccups we had. So far it's been my favorite show of the season. Way to go LBT & Keith Urban. 

This post was brought to you by Jason, Keith and Sarah over at Venus Trapped In Mars. Rules changed a while ago and posts weren't limited to sports, but now you could write about anything you're a fan of...country music and Keith! Boom.

Make it a good day folks! I know I will :]  

River Float

So one super cool event that I left out of the “life lately” posts a couple weeks ago was our river float. It’s something I had never done before and felt like it deserved its own post.

Right after Rascal Flatts we headed home and packed up Marcus’ truck with everything we’d need for the float/weekend and hit the road to Vegas.

 

I think we made it in about 4.5 longggggg hours.

We hit up the grocery store at 5:30 am and stocked up on our lunches and drinks we’d be taking on the hike/float.

It was probably 6:00 am by the time we finished and made it to Marcus’ friends place. We took about an hour or so to pack everything in backpacks, cake on the sunscreen, and head over to another house to meet everyone that was going on this float. There were probably about 15 of us and we headed out to the Colorado river near the Hoover Dam.

Once we got there, we unloaded the backpacks full of floats, booze, food, water, and climbing gear our of the cars and headed off on our [3-ish hour] hike to the river. It was super intense and but kind of a lot of fun repelling down rocks, jumping over little streams. It wasn’t too difficult until we hit like the last 1/3 where the drops off the rocks were bigger and we has lost traction in our shoes from the streams we didn’t make it over. I think at one point I hit my head on a rock because it hurt for most of the float. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of this hike because I left my phone behind. I didn’t want to risk losing it or dropping it in the water. Just trust me when I tell you it was fun. I actually think I liked that part more than I did the float.

Once we got to the bottom of the canyon we had hiked, we took a little break and began to inflate our floats. After like an hour of that we were ready to hit the river…or so we thought. Apparently it’s common knowledge that the water is FREEZING. Sitting in that for 4 hours was not pleasant. We all tied our floats to each other and began floating down the river…except we had some assistance and were pulled by a boat who was occupied by a couple in our group who chose to fish instead of float. Smart. We kind of just chilled in the floats…tried to fall asleep because I was exhausted but couldn’t. There were a couple of exciting moments when Caroline had to jump in the water after we lost our beach ball and camera, but it was mostly floating. There was one wake that caused Marcus’ float to pop and he couldn’t party anymore so he had to jump on the boat. About an hour and a half later, I kind of got over the cold water and floating so I gave up my spot to Marcus and chose to be in the boat for the rest of the ride back.

The boat pulling us!

Lime getting back into her float after getting the beach ball!

My swap with Marcus was perfect timing because the boat was due by 4:00 and at 3:00 the float still had about 5 mile markers left to travel at a rate of 2 MPH, lol. We pulled them for another 30 minutes and let go at 3:30 which was when they were SOL. The floaters had to paddle in using oars, arms, and feet…all while being a little boozed up. Haha. As much as I would have loved to see that, I’m glad I wasn’t there. Once they got in earshot of those of us on land, we could hear them and Marcus' singing even though they were still like a quarter mile away.

We finished up the float at like 6:00, headed home, ate some grub, and passed out.

It was a super cool thing to do, and I’m excited for next year! BUT I might choose to bring a jetski [anyone have one?!!] and pull the float instead of being stuck on it.

Life Lately...Part 2

Whoop. Part 2! No lame-o intro like yesterday, let the good times roll!  

Del Mar Races-

Horse races happen every summer out here and this was my first chance to go in a long time thanks to a work event that was being held there! Bet on random horses mostly because their name related to something in my life. Ended up picking a lot right, but somehow bet wrong and left the track being down $20. Oh well. It was super fun!

Baconfest-

My friends and I had been looking forward to baconfest for months. We are lovers of bacon. Even bought some super sweet day of the pig shirts from Butcher & Baker for this event! Unfortunately, it was kind of a letdown. Extremely hot day, too many people, not enough vendors which led them to run out of food an hour and a half into the event, lots of beeeeer (which sucked for someone like me who doesn’t drink beer) and ran out of water. Our group of 6 probably got about 7 samples out of the 40 advertised food vendors and that was because we split up a couple of times and were in different lines and got samples for everyone. Lots of people were upset, complained on their facebook and twitter. I wrote an e-mail to the organizer and threw a fit because it wasn’t worth the $60 they charged us. They’re working on righting the wrong and offered unsatisfied people VIP tickets for next year…I’ll keep you posted on how that works out :] We went to a friend’s beach BBQ right after and that was cool, but the best thing about that was we all got to see a random couple get engaged! How sweet is that?!!

Our awesome shirts!

The sweet proposal we got to see!

Birthday-

I turned 25 last week. Had some drinks with my friends the night before the big day! Couldn’t hang for a midnight drink because I’m a grandma and was in bed by 11:00 pm. Went to 6 flags with a few people on the day of my birthday. That was tons of fun, but very exhausting. And the drive was kind of veryyy long! Might need to get a hotel in the area next time. Not many pictures of that since I left my phone in the car all day…didn’t want to risk losing or dropping it! Also, one of my biggest goals for myself was to have my degree by the time I turned 25. I graduated in May and got my diploma in the mail the day before my 25^th! Just in time :] Birthday gift to myself was a new watch...I’ve been on the hunt for one for months. Loved this one, pulled the trigger and got it :] 

OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL!

Rascal Flatts-

Wasn’t too excited about this show, would have been the 3^rd time I’ve seen them and the other 2 times were very unimpressive. The only exciting thing about it was The Band Perry was the opener and I’ve loved them and the energy they put into a show for a while now! The Band Perry was great, and Rascal was better than the 2 other times that I’ve seen them, but still…nothing special. Whomp.

Fireball Jello Shots!

Most of us! Including Jessica's crew!

Okay, I think that’s it…or what’s noteworthy at least. There’s a couple of concerts and last few baseball games in the schedule before life settles down a bit. As fun as everything has been, I’m cool with some down time!  

Life Lately...Part 1

It’s been 20 longggg days since my last blog post. Oops. Life’s been a little crazy and school started…so blogging took a back seat. But, I’m sure you’re all having Marty withdrawls. Riiiiight. Ha. Anyways…I’ve done lots of cool blog worthy things, just never had the time to write about it. Gonna split it into a couple of posts though, because it's sort of a lot.

Luke Bryan-

I had been looking forward to this concert for months! Luke has a comfortable spot in the rotating top 3 favorite country music artists alongside Dierks Bentley and Lady Antebellum. A buddy of ours hosted a tailgate that started 7 hours before the concert! Got there around 1:00 pm and partied until 7:00 pm when the concert started! Florida Georgia line was the the 1st opening act and they totally won me over as a fan! I was kind of meh about them before this show, but they lit up the stage, and they had the lawn area filled up like I’d never seen it before…for an opening act! Thomspon Square came on stage after them and rocked some, but not as hard as FGL. Luke Bryan was the main event and I think my super duper high expectations of this guy blew it for me. It was a good show, he preformed all my favorites and shook his booty…but I was left a little underwhelmed. Oh well. Not a lot of pictures from this night because they were mostly on my camera instead of my phone.

SELFIEEEEE.

LIFE SIZE INFLATABLE BALL!

The crew :] Jessica and her peeps chilled with us too!

Padres v. Mets-

The season tickets crew (minus Ashley because her job is lame) caught a Thursday night game against the Mets. I got a call from our ticket rep while I was at work asking if we wanted to do “Friar Feud” and I said I’m sure one of the five of us would be down. I ended up being the one that did it…was asked to name two brothers that have both played for the Padres. I ended up losing and won this random consolation prize. You’ll hear more about this injustice on Friday…

ON TV/THE BIG SCREEN!

Random consolation prize for losing. Haha.

Stone17 Beerfest-

Stone is a local craft brewery in San Diego that tons of people love. I don’t drink beer, so I’m kind of meh about it…but their restaurant is pretty beautiful. They do an annual beerfest fundraiser for the local Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, Surfrider, (and a 4^th organization I don’t remember) as their anniversary party. I had a friend who volunteered to be a beer pourer but couldn’t do it. It sounded like a cool event so I said I’d be down to do it! I learned that beer people are super serious about their beer. Haha. It was a lot of fun, hopefully I get to do it again next year! And I totally recommend any beer drinker friends to buy a ticket for next year…super fun and super cool event!

Padres v. Mets-

A friend from NY was in town for the week and we arranged to catch a Padres game together. We had brunch on the field and all the players and coaches were out to sign autographs for everyone. We got to meet Padres manager Bud Black a second time, 1^st baseman Yonder Alonso again, and our favorite bullpen catchers Justin Hatcher and Griffin Benedict! The NY-ers in town got lucky because the players rarely come out to say hey. Haha. It was a good game, Padres won with a walkoff!

Brent & I

Lime & I with Bud Black!

With Yonder Alonso!

Lime & I with Hatch & Benny

Oh! And met this super hot Mets catcher!

Mmmmkay. That's enough. Good stuff, right? Check back tomorrow for part 2!

Bruno Mars...Damn

Damn, indeed. That's all a man needs to say to a woman to let her know he's feeling her...according to Bruno Mars. But it's totally true.

His concert was f-ing amazing. AMAZING. 

Caroline and I on our bestie date!

Ellie Goulding opened up for him, she was a little meh-ish. Reminded me a little of Ke$ha without the craziness. I was left a little underwhelmed with her performance. I couldn't recall any of her songs, but at the end of her set, I realized I knew 3! That was probably my highlight of her performance. Didn't get any pictures or video worth sharing...you're welcome.

selfie sesh during intermission.
you only get the good one. no outtakes.

After like an hour of intermission, it was time for Bruno to take the stage. I have a sucky camera, but it gets the job done. Sort of. Be prepared to be jealous, check out what you missed...

So I have learned how to not sing crazy loud when I'm recording, but unfortunately I've mastered a shaking technique that makes you feel like you're in an earthquake. Either way, I'm glad I have these videos to look back on. He's so amazingly brilliant <3

Marry You 

Runaway Baby

When I Was Your Man

Locked Out Of Heaven

Saving the best for last...

Pony

It was such a great show. He was an amazing dancer and even better singer. I also loved how his band was able to keep up with playing the instruments and be his backup dancers with such quick paced numbers. Another great show in the books! I can't wait to see him again :]