Jimmy is Back!

It’s been 8 years since we were last sitting at what was then Riverport Amphitheater, the rain coming down, the tornado sirens going off, and we didn’t have a clue because we were watching the man, the legend, the only person (besides me) that my beautiful bride wants to marry, Jimmy Buffett. This past Thursday he finally returned to grace us with his music. The concert sold out in 15 minutes, but we were lucky enough to get tickets. Laura and Ashley got theirs from other sources, but they did get them, and that’s all that matters. Linda and Laura spent the preceding days preparing their hats and outfits for the big day and as you can see from the photos, they did a great job. As we drove to the concert we go lucky and were able to park the row behind Ashley, Laura, Jim and Ann. Then the tailgating began. We didn’t realize that they opened Verizon Wireless Amphitheater for tailgating at 3:00, or we may have gone out there earlier. Then it was time to head into the concert. We got a pretty good spot center lawn about two-thirds of the way up the hill. We couldn’t really see Jimmy very well, but we could see the big screens. The lines for beer and pretzels were ridiculous, but worth it since we were at the Jimmy concert. Jimmy came on stage around 8:15/8:30. He played some of songs we didn’t know, but played a lot of his main stream ones too. One of the great things about a Jimmy concert is that he doesn’t tour with anyone else. No openers. Just Jimmy and the Coral Refer Band. The concert was great. Everyone was singing along and happy to see Buffett back in St. Louis. Of course my favorite part of the show is Fins. And this year didn’t disappoint. In preparation for the concert, Linda and I taught Savannah “Fins Up!” and she will put her hands together and up in the air, it’s pretty darn cute. Everyone in the crowd stayed until the very last song was played, thus everyone left at the same time. It is quite a sight to see a sold out crowd try to exit all at once. Jimmy finished around 10:30. We walked back to our car and continued to tailgate as we were not going anywhere. It took nearly 2 hours to get out of the parking lot. We didn’t get home until nearly 1:00. Linda and Jen slept the majority of the time. I don’t even know if they knew how long we were in the parking lot. All in all it was a great evening. We sure hope he comes back again soon!

Friends, 1st Communion, Back to Work

It’s been a while since we last updated the blog and that being true, a lot has happened. Three weeks ago I played golf with Les, Steve and “Sharney” (and did the bloody marries flow). We didn’t fare to well in the tournament, but we had a good time. That evening, although I was feeling a bit rough, Laura, Ashley and Abby came over to hang out and have dinner. They are always fun to hang out with. Abby is getting so big. She is just a cutie and such a good little girl. We have a feeling that Savannah and Abby may be getting into as much mischief as their mommies did when they were younger. The following Sunday we drove up to Bloomington for Emily’s first communion. This was Savannah’s first big road trip. She did really well. She didn’t make a sound on the trip there, and almost made it all the way home. About the time we crossed the Missouri/Illinois border she started to fuss a bit, but a little food took care of that. Emily was very cute in her first communion dress. The church services were nice. They had 50+ kids on Saturday night service and another 50+ kids on Sunday morning. By Sunday evening, after we got home, we were exhausted and made it an early night. Last weekend I went fishing up at Mark Twain Lake with Joe, Mike and Jeff from work. We had a great time and actually caught some fish. I can’t remember ever eating as much good food as we did on Saturday night. We had fresh crappie, barbequed pork tenderloin, goose sausage, baked potatoes, fried potatoes and beans. It was a little ridiculous. Even with all this going on the biggest event of the last 3 weeks was yesterday. See, yesterday Linda went back to work, and Savannah got to spend the day with Miss June. Both Linda and Savannah had a really good day. Linda stayed busy at work and wasn’t calling to see how Savannah was doing every 10 minutes, and Savannah, well, she’s always happy. We are really happy that we found such a wonderful sitter. Even her children are enjoying having Savannah over for the day. So this brings everyone up-to-date. Now back off, we’ll try to do better in the future.