Nashville or Bust

I know, I know, I'm a little late on this post, but playing catch up can be time consuming. It's been over a month since I returned from Nashville, so I figured it was about time to share.

First off, the weather in Nashville is absolutely crazy! Never have I seen it go from bright, sunny 95 degree skies (with 60% humidity might I add), to a darkness of torrential rain, thunder, and lighntening. Even worse is when you are all dressed up in heels when said craziness erupts. God bless super hold hairspray....and several layers of it I must add. Brandie and I got all dressed up to attend the CMT Awards and were treated to front row seats on the Red (er, blue) Carpet where we got to see several stars up front. We even had a guest spot on the local news as we shot a clip with the local news anchor. We also learned that our mugs were on the Pre-Show on CMT. Wow!! The awards show was fantastic, that is, except for the multitude of breaks with silence in between. I always thought that when you attended these things you'd have music acts during commercial breaks. Boy was I wrong. At least I had great company to share the silence with.

The CMA Festival is a four day event with everything under the sun related to country. They close off downtown Nashville and the streets are filled with vendors, free samples, music acts, and tons and tons of fans. We were joined by Jenny, Kim, and Holly for the events and the five of us had an absolute blast!! The best of the music was in the evenings at LP Stadium where the Titan's play. Believe it or not the heat seemed worse in the stadium so we spent alot of our time sweating and singing.

On Saturday night we opted to leave the concerts early and head to downtown Nashville for some fun at Tootsie's; a world famous bar and night club. Crazy busy is all I can say. I refrained from drinking and enjoyed the sights of everyone else acting crazy and stupid. Let's just say there are some interesting people roaming around Nashville....very interesting. On the final day of the festival we stayed put at the house for the majority of the day to avoid the heat. Brandie and I spent some time visiting with a friend of her's before walking to the stadium which gave us an opportunity to save money on beverages. At $8 a pop in the stadium one drink is about all we could handle. Low and behold our night was a long one. On the way home, in the slums of Nashville, Brandie's transmission decided to stop working. We broke down in the middle of the street, on the wrong side to boot, and had to wait several hours for a tow truck. Thank goodness a local police officer was nice enough to sit with us to keep us safe. We arrived home after 2am and crashed.

Monday was spent shopping, eating sushi, and gabbing like girlfriends do. To top it off we had dinner at a local pizza restaurant, Old Chicago, and enjoyed the company of Brandie's neighbors, Scott, Kim, Holly, and Savannah. I was sad to leave, but I truly enjoyed my visit and to spend quality time with my bestie Brandie. I can't wait to make another trip!

CMT Awards Bound

Carrie Underwood

Melissa Peterman

Steel Magnolia


Jenny, Kim, and Me at Tootsie's

The ladies - Me, Brandie, Jenny, Holly, and Kim

Faith and Tim

Kid Rock

Hillbilly Bone - Blake Shelton and Trace Adkins

How Did you Celebrate?

.....at Disneyland, of course! What better way to celebrate a birthday than a day trip to everyone's favorite place. Seeing as we have barely used our annual passes this year, I thought a day at the park might be fun for my big 5 year old. I also thought that taking him solo might be fun, that is until he asked if he could bring a friend. So Wednesday morning we loaded up the Tahoe with Nana and our friend Coleman Silvas and headed out.

We arrived to fall like weather in Anaheim and were blessed with a few surprises from our friend Donny who works for Disney. Along with entry to the park and free parking, he presented Dominic with a special birthday gift, balloons, and front of the line passes for inside the park. Wow! He really knows how to treat the Riggio family and I must say that he has spoiled us for the past year since we met him.

First stop was California Adventure and a few rides. Coleman is a bit gun-shy when it comes to any type of ride so we simply dragged him on and didn't talk about what the ride was in an effort not to scare him. Every ride ended with reassurance that he liked it, but that he did not want to go on it again. And I laughed every single time. What a sweetheart he was all day. We enjoyed a fancy lunch in honor of Dominic's big day which was another surprise. Every now and then you see a finely decorated table at a restaurant inside the park that has a reserved sign on it. Little did we know that it was reserved for us on Wednesday. After learning it was Dominic's birthday, the hostess ushered us over to the reserved spot and proceeded to treat us like royalty. Wow! Our lunch was presented to us on real plates and we even got "refills" on our drinks. Dominic certainly felt like a king.

After lunch is was on to one of our all time favorite rides, Midway Mania (or as we call it Toy Story Mania). The boys both enjoyed the video game action and I was thrilled to not be a "beaver" at the end. For the first time ever I reached a new plateu on scoring AND was the top shooter in our car....yes everyone, #1 out of 8 players! We also loaded up the arcade card and took are hands at the REAL game booths. Unfortunate for us the boys won several times and had a furlough of stuffed animals in tow....wait, wait, wait...."mommy can you hold these?" I knew it was coming. A locker was definitely in our future.

The highlight of my day was the Aladdin show which is ending after next month. The boys both enjoyed the view from the nosebleed section, and I enjoyed singing along to all the tunes. It was late afternoon by the time we exited the theater so we decided to head to Disneyland for a few more rides; Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain (SOAKED!!), Big Thunder Mountain, and the Rockets. Thanks to the front of the line passes we were able to make it through in less than two hours. The boys both picked out light up swords and we were on our way.

We arrived back at the Paradise Pier (where we were parked) at 7:15pm and enjoyed a nice dinner at the PCH Grill before hitting the road. Dominic was serenaded with one final Happy Birthday song which was a great finish to his day. Needless to say we all enjoyed ourselves. Thank you, Nana, for joining us on the adventure! It was certainly easier with only two boys.

Bouncing Around

Last year we decided that we would rotate years for birthday parties for Joshua and Dominic since their big days are only two weeks apart. Mommy was getting to a point where she was stressing out way too much over planning two parties in such a short time frame.

Soooo, this was Dominic's year. His only request was a bounce house for all his friends. I dreaded this request as the thought of a bunch of 4 and 5 year old's bounding around my yard AND an inflatable filling up the space just didn't suit my fancy. How was I going to get out of this one? Leave it to the party planner, and a few last minute arrangements, to get myself out of the entire "birthday party at the house" deal. A few weeks ago I made arrangements with Dominic's daycare to bring in cupcakes for his big day. Last week, the wheels started turning and on Friday I received approval to throw a pseudo party during the afternoon snack hour. Great news for me. I visited Party City during my visit to Bakersfield on Saturday and loaded up on Iron Man plates and napkins, a #5 candle, and enough candy and goodies to fill 30 treat bags. On Sunday I visited Albertsons and ordered an Iron Man cake.....I was actually going to pull this off and avoid a big shin-dig at my house. Or so I thought.

I was excited to share the news with Dominic....he would have a birthday party at his daycare ON his birthday with ALL his friends!!! I was expecting excitement....not so much. He was excited of course, but excited at the fact that he would get two parties since he wanted a bounce house. GREAT...how was I getting out of this one? I placed a call to the daycare early Tuesday morning, yes one day before his birthday, and received approval for a bounce house. Check. I had Jim call around and low and behold the local party store had one available all day on Tuesday...SCORE!! I will admit it wasn't cheap, but it did the trick. Dominic enjoyed a fun filled day with an Iron Man birthday party along with a really cool bounce house with a slide.


Whew - leave it to mom to solve all the problems at the last minute. And to boot I enjoyed a few jumps in the house too.

Happy Birthday Dominic

Is it already time to wish my little man a Happy 5th Birthday? Where did the time go? Children are one of lifes most special blessings and as a mom of three little boys, I can honestly say that sometimes blessings can be a handful. But I wouldn't have it any other way. So today, Dominic, may you relish in the joy of celebrating your fifth year of life! Happy, happy birthday! I love you.

Finally!

I've decided it's time to get back into the swing of things and update my blog. Needless to say that time has been sparce lately, I realized that failing to keep track of our lives means I will look back in a year and wonder what the heck happened. So...here goes....