I’m Back!

After a short, but much needed hiatus, I’m back to blogging.  The last several weeks have been amazing, busy, hectic and exhausting, which is why I took a break for awhile.  I may have lumped in a pretty awesome Momcation trip to Turks & Caicos as well, but that’s a story for a different day.  This spring has felt pretty disjointed as we’ve been at the rink for almost its entirety.  Due to Goalielocks’ injury, he wasn’t able to get back on the ice until a couple of week ago!  While Goalielocks was anxiously awaiting the chance to get back on the ice, the Mayor took the time to relax for a bit.  Since hockey has become a year round sport, it’s not a bad idea for a kid to take some time off.

Goalielocks injury was quite scary and took two months for him to be symptom free.  He missed a lot of school, which caused a lot of stress for all of us.  In between missing work to care for him and making up school work once back, it was exhausting.  I’m grateful for his Assistant Principal and his teachers, who were extremely supporting and understanding upon his return to school.   At this point, he’s symptom free and back to normal life.

My job changed in February, the week before Goalielocks injury.  The job has been quite rewarding, but not without its challenges.  Fortunately, I have a great team that’s eager to work and improve the operation.  Nonetheless, it has taken up most of time and will continue to do so.  Consequently, I’ll be trying to post as often as possible, but it won’t be daily as it had been for much of the past year.  Speaking of which, my one year blogversary was last Thursday.  It’s been a great year!  I had intended to post on the anniversary, but David Grohl and the Foo Fighters had other plans.

I have enjoyed the Foo Fighters since their debut, but was never a mega fan that had to have their latest record.  I do have several Foo Fighters on my running and work out playlist, but I had no idea how amazing there really are… That is until last Thursday, when I surprised Jake with tickets to the Foo Fighters.  Holy cannoli batman, David Growl and company put on one hell of a show.  Not only are they amazing musicians, but they’re complete showmen.  It was awesome.

While I went into the concert liking the Foo Fighters, I came out of the concert absolutely loving the Foo Fighters.  Admittedly, after the encore I may have pulled the Wayne and Garth “I’m not worthy” move, they were that good.  I’d write more, but there aren’t nearly enough superlatives to adequately describe how great they were in concert.   There simply aren’t enough.  I’ll link to someone of the videos here, however, it is a rock concert so the language my be questionable for little ears.   Unless, of course, your kids – like mine – watch Family Guy.

Some of the highlights were Everlong, Big Me, Best of You, Monkey Wrench and Sky is a Neighborhood.  They also played some incredible covers while Grohl showcased his bandmates.  I loved this part of the show and can totally appreciate that Grohl may have needed to rest his vocal.  This portion started with an Alice Cooper cover led by Foo Fighters lead guitarist Chris Shifflet on vocals.  He was outstanding.  As Grohl introduced the keyboardist, the keyboardist began to play the unmistakeable melody of John Lennon’s Imagine.  It was at this case, Growl implored the crowd to join him in singing a song he knew could unite us all.  Jake was ecstatic thinking we were about to launch into a sing along of one his favorite songs Imagine.  If only….. In one of my favorite moments of the night, Dave Grohl launched into a cover of Van Halen’s Jump.  It was freaking brilliant! I’m not sure how they did it, but it worked and was masterful.

This was the second concert for us in the past week.  Last Saturday night, we took the boys to see Jimmy Buffett and the Eagles.  Before going into the stadium, we met up with some of my co-wokers in the parking lot for some tailgate action.  Needless to say, we entered the stadium feeling pretty damn good.  I was a bit disappointed that they sent Jimmy Buffett right on at 7:00 to a half empty house.  Most shows I’ve been to hold the acts until the building has at least somewhat filled out.  In fact, the Foo Fighters held until 8:30 because it was such a cluster getting into the park.

Even though Jimmy played to a half empty stadium at the beginning, my boys and I loved it.  By the middle of his set, as the sun went down, the stadium filled up.  There was a short break between Jimmy and the Eagles.  I took advantage of the moment to go meet my brother and sister-in-law near the bar a few sections over.  They managed to get some primo seats at the bar that were standing room only, but at a phenomenal location. Once it became clear the Eagles were about to take the stage, we moseyed our way back to our seats.

The Mayor of course was somewhat reluctant to go back to his seats as he “hates” the Eagles and doesn’t like listening to live music.  Don’t worry folks, in ten years when he’s exceedingly grateful to have seen two legendary groups, I’ll be sure to remind him of how much he hated every moment of the concert.  To be clear, even if he liked a minute, he wasn’t going to share that with us on Saturday night!

As for me, I thought the Eagles sounded amazing.  Deacon Frey is the spitting image of his father and sounds just like him.  It was obvious, however, that he’s not quite comfortable on stage yet, but that will come and didn’t detract from the show.  Joe Walsh and Don Henley both sounded great as well.  I’ll be sure to link to some of the videos from that concert as well.

It’s great to be back on the site!  I can’t wait to share the pictures and experiences of my Momcation trip to Turks and Caicos.  It was magical.  Here’s a preview. It’s an absolute privilege to spend time with strong, intelligent, professional, kind and beautiful inside and out women.  It was exactly what I needed.