Aug 21, 2008

The Jonas Brothers Concert - Nissan Pavillion

Wow. Are The Jonas Brothers going to be the next Beatles? Because judging from their record sales, press, fans, etc., it sure seems like it.

Monday night, I made the normally half-hour drive to the Nissan Pavilion to see The Jonas Brothers Burning Up Tour with Matthew, Natalie and Matthew's friend, courtesy of Mom Central (whom I won the tickets from....thanks again Mom Central!). Tickets that were selling for over $470 PER TICKET because we had first-tier, premium seats and the concert was sold out. Can you imagine????

But bringing the kids there was priceless. First of all, the half-hour drive was two hours. Over an hour was spent going a half mile to the pavilion. And in that hour, tons of teeny bopper girls passed our van.

It was so hilarious watching Matthew and his friend with these girls. "Dude, check out the Acura on the right." "The blonde is mine!" hahahahaha!

But the girls were actually waving to them and blowing kisses! I think that was almost as much fun as the concert for them. It certainly entertained me as I was trapped in the hell of concert traffic.

I should've trusted my friend John and brought my camera. But I had visions of having to trudge back to my van to return it if they turned me away (they were taking everyone's signs and trashing them as it was). Turns out, though, that just about everyone (except me) had a camera.

So I was left with a cell phone that was on low battery. This is as good as it gets guys:



This was only about 1/4 of the crowd and didn't include the orchestra section in front of us. Look how far back it stretches to the lawn. Unreal. SO many people were packed in there. Imagine them all leaving at once. Yeah, not good.

Forgive my sorry attempt to edit this to protect the identity of Matthew's friend.

This photo does not do our position justice. We were in the first tier and we could see them SO well. It was incredible!

Then I got this sucky video. Cell phones don't take video very well. All of the lights just blurred. But here it is nonetheless:



That guy to the very left of the stage is a stageguy and the person directly to the right of him is Joe Jonas. They talked to each other right in the middle of the song and Joe nodded his head at him like, "Oh, okay...sure." I have no idea what was going on but it piqued my curiosity.

Here's a MUCH better video of the opening which was beyond awesome...you had to be there to really appreciate the special effects, especially all the pyro stuff:



Different place and date, but the same thing (I couldn't find a good one of the opening at our venue). There was also a point where they were each raised WAY into the air on these tiny pedastals which was way cool. Big Rob came out and totally rocked and they also brought out the Bonus Jonas...their little brother Frankie (who was beyond adorable).

Another favorite point of mine was when Joe walked down the center stage and every time he threw his hand out, the fire would burst in the background as if he was controlling it. Probably had to be there to appreciate that one. :) Oh, and they foamed the entire orchestra section with these big hose gun thingies.

One girl actually left and sat on a wall to comb her her out. Silly girl. Where's the fun in that?

There was a HUGE wait between Demi Lovato's opening act (she was really good too) and the start of the Jonas Brothers. Close to an hour. I still wonder if something was up because that seemed ridiculously long.

Then leaving? More hell on earth. We stood still...literally no movement, for over a half hour in the parking lot. And I had a killer headache at that point with no medicine.

Then, some genius decided he'd rather be in my lane and scraped his SUV up against the side of my van, then looked at me like I was an idiot. I rolled down my window and said, "Dude! What the hell are you doing??" But he just kept giving me the weird look.

Concert was done at ten to eleven and we got home at 12:30....gah! But it was worth it in the end. My kids were on cloud nine (still are) and Matthew's friend's mom told me her son was the envy of his siblings and friends. I was so happy to be able to give that to all of them!

Aug 17, 2008

There Goes My Life...

Note: Be sure to scroll down one post if you missed Matthew's birthday. I usually let a post like that sit for a couple of days, but I definitely had to put this up for Amanda

Today, Amanda heads for her new life at college. But it feels like just yesterday that she was born...



Just yesterday that I pinched those adorable cheeks...



Just yesterday that she had her first birthday cake...



Just yesterday when she still fit into her daddy's arms:



Just yesterday when she went through the tween stage:



Just yesterday when she thought thumbs up was the coolest thing you could do:



Yesterday went by so fast...



And now she's ready to spread her wings and fly...



Out of all the posts I've ever written, this is one of the most meaningful ones to me. So I ask you to indulge me a bit and share two songs with me that mean so very much at this time.

We'll never forget to remember you, Amanda....



(we really will be loading a Chevy today as we pack her up...weird....and I wish I could've made my own video with pictures of Amanda to the lyrics but I don't know how).

I couldn't find an embed code for the second song. So I couldn't post it here. But it would mean SO very much to me if you could click here and watch this video too. So much. It's incredibly moving. I promise you won't be disappointed.

That video could be our life story. It's eerily accurate since Rob and I were so young when we had Amanda. We were told we ruined our lives, that our future was over.

This video explains perfectly what it was like at that time and what it's like for us today as we send her off to college. One of the hardest days of my entire life.

"There goes our life. There goes our future, our everything. We love you. Goodbye."