Best Mother’s Day Ever!

This post might be in two segments… Just a warning.

My daughter and I went to see Jason Aldean in concert over the Mother’s day weekend. Country music, rocking like the classics. It was a blast. Need I say more?

My hubby insisted we stay in a hotel in town so we wouldn’t have to drive home after the show. The whole trip made for a weekend we will remember for a loooong time.

Our hotel sat in the center of town. Our city has a very tourist friendly downtown district and made our experience even better. We checked in fairly early to have time to get dressed.

After getting all dolled up for the concert, we took a stroll down the main drag to find a place to eat. We ended up at a favorite eatery where we sat outside to enjoy the awesome weather we had that day.

While sitting there waiting for our food, the girls at the table next to us were talking about the concert.So much excitement coming from that table I couldn’t help but be my nosey self and eavesdrop. It was so much fun to watch them having fun. Then one of them asked my girl if we were going to the concert. They got a good look at her boots and made a likely assumption. Those are some great looking boots. Turns out the girls were out here for a bachelorette party. Making their day even better, they were given backstage passes by Jake Owen’s band members! I think Jake even stopped by himself to say hi. They were all hyped up and couldn’t wait to get to the show.

The girls were enjoying the sun and several beers, glasses of wine, whatever. Before long we were exchanging numbers and they were trying on the girl’s boots.

This is Leslie and Jackie. Leslie is sure my girl will be the perfect mate for her little brother (same age as my girl). This, as the mother, is way too early in life to be making that sort of decision.

This was such fun. My girl had a blast talking these young ladies, swapping numbers, taking pics. She didn’t even finish her meal she was so busy having fun.

The came the concert itself. We got to the arena early, plenty of time to find our seats. Only we sat our bums into the wrong seats and didn’t find out until the original owners of those seats wanted to sit there about 5 mins before the show! We felt a little stupid, having picked the wrong side of the aisle to sit. Turns out, our real seats were more awesome than our mistake seats.

As you see, we got there really early… empty seats and a vacant pit.

Our hearts ratcheted up when the lights went down and the place looked like this.

Opening the show was Thomas Rhett.

Cute dude who can really rock it. He’ll be a headliner one of these days. He only performed for about fifteen minutes, though. Short, but still long enough to play a few tunes we’d heard on the radio. One of his titles is “Beer With Jesus”. A personal favorite, I might say. If Jesus drank wine, why not a good ole beer?

I need to add a disclaimer to these pictures. Cameras with detachable lenses were forbidden inside the arena so I was limited to phone and a point and shoot camera. It wasn’t easy getting that camera to get good shots, but here they are. They weren’t too awful.

Jake Owen was the next headliner. The crowd roared, the music blared and we were swept into it like a tidal wave sweeps sand from the shore. It was wonderful.

My girl describes Jake as a younger Matthew McConaughey with dark hair. The girls went wild for that smile and that hair. Jake wore a Razorback tee-shirt through the whole concert. In Arkansas, that alone will endear him to it citizens. Half way through his performance he had a fan do Woo Pig Sooey – the Pig Call (spelling undetermined). Jake is an Arkansan for life now.

He really played to the crowd. He moved so fast on that catwalk, taking pictures was a real challenge. The girls in the pit had him taking pictures with him on their phones, shaking his hand. He’s signing something here. He was awesome to watch. The energy it takes to perform for an hour and a half like that is something else.

Jake’s band was awesome. His songs are country, but the music has so much rock and roll in it. Some awesome musicians.

We sang along with every hit he sang. It was freaky how many songs I knew. We couldn’t hear each other by the end of this set. Totally deaf. I had to watch out what I said, because I couldn’t even really hear my own speech. Didn’t want to say anything embarrassing.

That is enough for this post. The main attraction to follow…… Jason Aldean!!

Thank you for sharing this slice of heaven today.

Love,
Jeannene

It’s Really All About Riley

I have just one thing to say….

A picture says a thousand words and that one is packed with a thousand words of cuteness.

This weekend we visited my son and his sweet wife and our newest family member, just turned 1 year, ole Riley boy. He is the epitome of baby hugableness.

Being the mother of my son, I am the only resource to testify that this little guy is the spitting image of his daddy. I kid you not. From the color and texture of his brown locks to the sparkle of his blue eyes. That includes his ready smile and open joy of the world and all it contains.

His little smile is infectious. He makes Grandpa smile.

This is his daddy.

Today was his first trip to the park… ever. Can you figure out what he thought of it?

All that space to run around with no barriers blocking his way. He ran ….

… and slid and …

… and crawled…

and ran some more. The park was his undoing, though. Before we knew it, ol’ Riley started tuckering out. He ran at home, his aunt chasing him all over, giggling and laughing. This little guy finds joy in everything and makes everyone around him happy.

We loved seeing Riley, and his mom and dad of course. But really… it was all about Riley.

This is my little piece of heaven this week.
Love,
Jeannene

Homecoming 2012

This post is so late in coming, considering the date of Homecoming was in October. So many varied interruptions poked at me this piece never made it to the world. Never the less, this will see the light of day today.

This post is really for my daughter. It is about my daughter. Truly, it is almost nothing but my daughter.

When you get a look at these pictures you too will understand why it features … my daughter.

I am new to most girly things, being the mother of first three boys and lastly, of a girl. When I was sixteen, I was a tom-boy struggling to be feminine and getting very little help from my mother. As wonderful a person as she is, my mom was not the girly-girl most mothers are. I tend to lean toward her practical and stoic outlook of femininity.

My beautiful daughter, on the other hand, intuitively knows the requirements needed to accomplish the epitome of femininity. She dragged me to all the right places until we found the perfect dress.

After which we found the most stunning pair of shoes.

Hers are the pair on the far left. Studded with rhinestones. This picture does nothing to enhance the wonderful sparkly nature of those heels.

The whole experience swept me away in exuberance. I love shopping and shopping for shiny things is just that much more fun.

Then she found a hair stylist close to home to do her hair. It turned out beautifully.

And then there are more shots of just the girl…

So sorry. She’s my kid and this moment will never be here again.

Then of course we have the young man who is her “date”. We met up with him and his buddies where I also met his very nice mother. We are ever the protective parents, so we have to know everyone who touches our child.

He is a gentleman and made my girl feel elegant. Way to roll Keith!

And…. even more important than the guy… All the girls!!

Aren’t they all so pretty!!

These are the males to the females. All of them are so grown up and they clean up pretty darned well.

One new friend added here.

Had to include this one too.

And I had to get my mug in there with my lovely daughter.

This was so much fun taking the pictures – practice taking head shots and all sorts of people shots and making use of the light in these lovely settings.

This is my little piece of heaven today.

Love,
Jeannene

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 3,300 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 6 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

A Blast From the Past

Every month my daughter must visit her orthodonist for adjustments to her teeth. His office is so wonderfully fantastical what child or his mother would begrudge the visit? You have to see this wonderful place. Dr. Meyers designed the entire building, combing the country for the nostalgia I am about to show you.

The consult office is a soda shop with an original coke machine out front. I remember pulling glass bottled colas from this sort of machine in the sixties as a kid. (I am dating myself here, I know.)

This marquee marks the rest room.

The back room is designed to resemble an old Sinclair gas station. OMG this is like walking into the past. The dinosaur on the sign makes history come alive.

This room (I’m sure it has technical term) is where the patients sit in seats for Dr. M to inspect their progress. The chairs and tables were designed to resemble the inside of a garage. The shiny aluminum table tops mimic the tool boxes and the chairs are like racing seats.

Dr. Meyers desk is the front end of an old, I want to say, Cadillac. Correct me anyone. I won’t take offence. Whatever it is, it is gorgeous.

On either side of the work station area are 2 benches. Mom’s usually wait on these. They are awesome.

This one really is the back end of a nineteen fifty something Caddy. I love the raw-hide covering. Not only it this aesthetically pleasing to the eye, it is really comfortable.

This Woody is the reception desk. Above the desk hangs a large surf board.

Something that brings back far too many memories is this Big Boy. I am
one of those who found themselves often in a Big Boy as a child and as a young person loving the food.

And scattered throughout the office are cases with memorabilia, or old toys. Some of these my brothers had out in the sand box.

A couple of loose antiques lying around on counter tops are peppered throughout the office.

Two dimensional photos hardly give you the impact this place has on you in real life but, I’m so glad to put this down for my posterity. In a few months my daughter will have completed her sentence of tooth adjustment and I may never get another chance to walk through this charming place.

That is my little piece of heaven this week. Let me know if you have any charming places in your community that take you someplace else.

Love,
Jeannene

Family Wedding

This post is so long overdue, but I don’t care, I’m doing it now anyway. This past August my daughter and I attending a family wedding in Alabama. It was awesome.

Our daughter hadn’t meet all of her cousins until this trip. For her it was the highlight of the summer. All the people she has kept track of through pictures over the years came to life for her. The commonality she shares with them all is fun and full of life. She connected with them completely.

Even more astounding is this is the first opportunity for all of my siblings to be together at the same time in the same place in years and years. It was a blast. And at a wedding too, because we all know weddings for our family are just plain awesome parties.

That brings us to the family pics, which is the primary reason for this post. I hope to put up some party shots later.

Here are all six of us. We are a great looking bunch of adults if you ask me.

And this is Mom with all of her grown kids. She is pretty stunning herself if I do say so myself.

Just another shot… you know, to get the full effect.

Such a nice shot of Mom. Our Dad passed away a couple years ago, but we still feel him with us.

In order of our age, oldest first with their family members…

Me with our lovely little girl.

My sister with her lovely daughter and her daughter’s husband.

My next sister with her beautiful kids and their charming spouses, and her wonderful husband.

My brother and his awesome wife and wonderful kids.

My next sister was all by herself this trip. She is the looker in that beautiful dress and fabulous shoes on the end (not the pink dress end).

This is the baby of the family and his witty, charming and beautiful wife and really wonderful boys.

And we have to have all the cousins present stand together. They are a nicely dressed bunch here.

Then, for posterity sake, those kids have to be seen with Grandma.

We clean up pretty well if you ask me. I loved taking these pictures. I have hundreds more. A bunch of these have been emailed to you all, so check your boxes and expect a gigantic file ’cause I sent them all from this day.

Woo woo!! Have fun. I hope everyone has as much fun at weddings as we do.

Thanks for sharing this little slice of heaven with me.

Love,
Jeannene

Kids! Have you seen these?

One of the additions to our farm this summer was a set of twins. They are baby goats! These are the first babies of their kind we have ever had on our farm and they are such joys to watch.

One is a buck and the other a ewe. The sire is a full blood Boer goat and the mama is a Nubian, a milk goat variety. These little guys are so full of frisk watching them will coax a smile out of you whether you want to or not. Believe me, you have to try it.

This is just a simple picture of the feeling they give you. They are only a couple weeks old here, so they are no bigger than our full-grown shitsu. Easily caught at this age, they are no different from babes. Hence the expression on the girls face. They just make a body happy!

And to watch them hound their poor mama to nurse is amusing. But not quite as entertaining as watching them actually nurse. They grow so fast they are on their knees to reach the teets now, but here they just bend a lot. These two go after milk voraciously. To watch this in action, though, really makes a body smile.

They wag those little tails like crazy. Back and forth, back and forth they flick in a furry blur. It is so cute.

Close up of the female, whom I have tentatively named Rosie. She has a wide stripe on her nose… in horses we call this a blaze. Not sure how to refer to it in goats. I am still a novice when it comes to goats.

The male has a narrower stripe. He is growing faster than Rosie, by the way. So fascinating to them mature.

And there is this last picture of unmitigated pleasure these funny little things can instill in any unsuspecting human.

So fun and fabulous! Baby goats … aka kids.

What came into your life this summer?

Another tidbit from my little piece of heaven.

Love,
Jeannene