Josh Gracin and Sarah Buxton

Nick and I had the opportunity to go to a concert Wed. night at the ole planetarium! Jason, who works for Nick's dad, and his wife happen to hang out with Steph from 95 fm! Jason got 4 tickets to the concert and invited Nick and I to go. Nick called me to let me know that we were going and I screamed so loudly! I had found Sarah Buxon on myspace like 3 years ago, and think she is such an awesome artist. If you haven't heard her sing any songs, you have definitely heard Keith Urban sing one she wrote. Sarah wrote Stupid Boy and Keith picked it up. Anyway, I also have recently fallen in love with the work that Josh Gracin does, so I was pretty excited about that as well.

When we got there, we got to go stand at the front of the line with Jason and his wife. We were let into the building and were already signed in and went to the front of the next line. Steph then came up and took all of our coats and went and reserved front row seats for us!

The concert was amazing because the artists just walked right around in front of you. It was a personal experience, and we were able to get to see their personalities as well. They both seem like such grounded, wholesome people.

I know that there are a lot of pictures for the small area, but I wanted you to see them all. Skoie asked what the shirts were about, and they were shirts from Big Head's Deli in Grand Blanc.

They were one of the sponsors at the show.

All in all, we had a great date night! We strongly recommend the planetarium anytime you have the opportunity to see a concert there!!!

Blog #1

Just to warn you, this will be quite a long blog!  

Nick and I got back from sunny Florida last night.  We were both sad to wake up to 40 degree weather in Michigan today since our trip was full of weather in the 80's.  Even though we both had to bundle up today, it is so refreshing to feel the crisp air of the fall season.

Our trip started off at 6 am on Friday morning with a 2 1/2 hour direct flight from Flint to 

Orlando.  We arrived to the very tan Mr. and Mrs. Pennington!  That surely put a smile on my face since I was as pale as an October ghost!  After the warm embrace (pun intended) we wrangled up our luggage and went in search of our rental car.  

Once we found our car, we struggled to get the car seat into the vehicle.  Poor Lily!  The back seat did have childproof doors, but didn't have the childsafe seatbelt locking system thingy!  As Kyle and Amanda struggled to secure their beautiful little girl, Nick began the struggle with the childproof door!!  I am still surprised he fixed it (it would have allowed him and Kyle some control over the girls!).  

Finally, we were on the road (air conditioning cranked!). 

We then met Nick's friend, and soon to be best man, for lunch.  After lunch Mike joined us in our excursion to the most magical place on earth, DISNEY!  Disney was a great time.  I was like a kid in a candy store.  We were all disappointed that the characters were not wandering around the park, but instead were at the end of thrill-ride-style-winding lines. 

 

One of the highlights of the day for me was the splash mountain ride!  Once we reached the front, we staked claim on our seats.  These claims ended up with Mr. P in the front, Nick and I in the second seat, and Amanda and Mrs. P in the third seat (Kyle, Lily, and Mike chickened out!).  After the fun winding turns, we began climbing the hill for the big fall!  I started out with my hands up on the climb..... then began screaming realizing that we really were going to get soaked.  Mr. P was not happy about being in the front and reminded me that there were still 3 days left of the trip.  Then it happened.  The belt pulling us up the hill let us go and we made the decent to the "thorns".  Nick and his dad had their hands up the whole time while I became a coward and ducked in front of Nick.  I sat back up after the water was thrown all over everyone and looked back at Amanda asking if she got wet (she was sitting directly behind Katy the Coward).  She was soaked!  I couldn't stop laughing.  I still don't know how I was the only one to not get soaked.

The last ride was the Haunted House which Nick, Mr. P, the stroller, and I all sat out.  Nick and I went souvenir shopping for the nephews and niece, then came back to people watch with Mr. P.  Our magical day in Disney was sadly drawn to a close, and rode the monorail back to where we could get to our cars.

We ate some great burgers at 5 guys then went to the new most magical place on earth, The Villages.  It was crazy!  We drove through small towns with nothing in them, and farmland as far as the eye could see.  Then, all of a sudden all you could see were hundreds of thousands of millions of houses (ok maybe a LITTLE exaggeration).  We made our way through tons of subdivisions until we got to the Pennington's cute stucco house.  We got to sit on the lanai (and the boys got their much anticipated beer), until we couldn't keep our eyes open.  Well, you can all imagine that that didn't last long!  

Waking up to 70 something weather with the sliding doors open was my first realization that I was ready to become a renter from the Penningtons.  I was already sold, and didn't know that it was possible to get much better!

Nick, Mike and I all wanted to take a little drive around so Mr. P took us for a ride on the golf cart!  We went down to their time square where there really was a small town!  It was adorable!  I can't believe I didn't take pictures!  Once we got back to the house, we all loaded up in the car and drove to Daytona.

Little did we know it was Biketober week in Daytona!  Saying that we saw some interesting people would be an understatement!  We finally got through most of Daytona and met Mike's parents at an adorable restaurant right on the beach!  The "kids" knew it was time for a margarita and Nick and Mike knew it was time for 20 WINGS each!  After the awesome lunch, it was time to burn off some calories by wave jumping!  I instantly remembered how much salt water BURNS your eyes!  AHHHH!

Time to drive home!  I tried to sleep, but Nick and Mike were jabbering so much!  Gosh, Boys!

We got home, showered, cleaned up in 20 min and jumped on the golf carts to go down to the Spanish Springs downtown.  Mike, Nick, and I were in Tom and Connie's golf cart while Amanda, Kyle, Lily, and Mr. and Mrs. P were in theirs.  Tom and Connie's golf cart doesn't have much pep, and Mr. and Mrs. P's is supercharged so it was quite hard to keep up with them let alone make it up any sort of hill (Nick and Mike had to Flintstone it a few times).  We surprisingly made it to Spanish Springs without the battery dying on us.  There was an old car show, and more margaritas inside Spanish Springs town square (Just like an adult Disney!)!  We had to wait to get into the restaurant for dinner, so we walked around the show and took Lily out to dance where the band was playing.  It was so cool to see this little town in the middle of these subdivisions!  It's too hard to explain, you'll just have to go see it for yourself.  The dinner was alright, we got to watch two servers have a beer chugging contest with a 65 year old and listened to some people try to sing karaoke.

We got home around 9/10, and the young kids decided to go out to the cool bars.  We drove down to the town square and went to one of the bars.  There was a bar outside and one inside.  We went inside and watched the baseball game.  I was with Nick and Mike and decided to meet some friends.  The selection was unlike any other!  The choice was between 50 and up, or two young couples.  I started talking to one of the young girls, and hung out with her until the bar closed at 12.  (Quite early!)  We went down to Spanish Springs for a quick minute then went home.

The next day was filled with shopping for the girls (where I broke some of my fashion rules), and golfing for the boys!  We cooked out at night with Tom and Connie, and the kids wrapped up the night with a midnight movie on the couch.

We woke up early Monday morning to drive the carts over to Tom and Connie's for a delicious breakfast.  After getting home from that we went down to the rec. center and enjoyed the bathwater warm saltwater pool.  I mostly took pictures and tried to get a tan.  

We had to sadly go home and pack up around 1, then take off for the airport.  

Security went fine, and so did dinner.  Somehow we were the last ones on the plane, and were there 4 min before the gates closed.  (early departure!)  

We arrived home in Flint to have quite the opposite weather as our first landing that week! RAIN!  We had a very firm landing and a rude awakening when we walked out to the cold weather.  Should we have expected anything else!?!?

All in all we had a great trip, but it sure is great to be home.  It was great to see Ty and Cole with their Mickey ears, and to curl up in your own bed (even though the ones in Florida were comfy).  We surely can't wait to go back down, but are glad to be back on our normal schedules here in Michigan.

And pictures of Nick's new car as well as some of the house will also be added.

We are looking forward to the next blog!

love, 

us