Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Happy Birthday, Jasper!

Happy 1st Birthday to our nephew, Jasper!

You surprised us all by coming so early... and had to spend 2 weeks in the NICU...

But soon enough you were big and strong

Not to mention cute

And funny

You look just like your daddy in Uncle BB's glasses.

We had so much fun hanging out with you at Christmas!

Friday, December 19, 2008

More Adventures in Aviation...

Earlier this month, on our way back from England, we were stuck on the plane for 5 hours while they changed the landing gear. We ended up being 5 1/2 hours late landing.
Last night, we arrived in St Louis 20 hours late!

Now that I have your attention, we set off to the Burbank Airport on Wednesday to catch our Burbank to St Louis via Las Vegas plane. We were really excited because Ashton was leaving from LAX and headed to Chicago, but was going to have a stop in Las Vegas at the same time and we were going to try to meet him there for a bite. Kind of funny.

Arriving in Burbank, we were told that our flight was delayed. I asked about if we could possibly miss our connection in Vegas. No, he said- that is also delayed. Ok, ok, we'll grab a $10 gross airport pizza and wait. Pretty soon, the amount of people standing in line at the gate desks and the overall commotion tipped us off that something was up. Turns out Las Vegas had a huge Ice/Snow storm and nothing was going in or out. They shut down the airport! Who knew that Las Vegas gets SNOW?! Our flight was cancelled.

Caleb got in the huge line to inquire and I got on the phone and we got booked on the next possible open flight for the next day (making sure it stopped in Phoenix instead!).

And here we are. With both our bags (they arrived separately, but most importantly- they arrived!) Safe and sound. Just 20 hours late.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Day 3-5: DING DING DING- The Main Event!

NOTE: This is the LAST post of our England trip.  The story is several posts back and warning- it is LONG- but chronologically, start at the story (whether you read it all or not) and then work your way back up to follow our trip.  Cheers!  (PS- I couldn't say Cheers while there, I felt like my lack of a cool accent made me sound like an idiot saying it! haha)


Rock Stars


This picture does not do it justice... the crowd was huge and the floor was packed!
I am taking it from the second tier with additional people around me



Me and my merch "mates" Ian and James... 
Not Pictured: British Caleb- he was there all Friday, but not Sunday when the pic was taken.


Congratulations to Caleb and Ashton for Rocking Out the UK and thank you for taking me along on such an awesome adventure!  Having to sit out the US tour, it was really nice to not be left out of their first international adventure.   I'm really proud of these guys!  tear tear, corny... 

Day 3, Friday: English Countryside

Don't know what this is, but it looked old, so CB snapped a pic


Pretty countryside


This is us crammed in the back of the small Euro rental car Micha drove us in, we'd all just woken up I think


Day 2, Thursday night: The Legion Show

This is the only good pic from that show- our friend Chico took it, as I was stuck getting hit on at the merch table... geez

Day 2, Thursday: Sightseeing Round 2


Riding the London Underground or "Tube"- Micha, Ashton and Chico


I have NO idea what this facial expression was trying to be- it just looks like confused, tired and maybe a little angry- definitely not what I was going for


Big Ben!


Cool pic of Ashton in front of Big Ben taken by CB


Westminster Abbey


Tate Museum


Caleb's Fish and Chips


Ashton's Fish and Chips


Day 2, Thursday: Royal Sightseeing


Buckingham Palace


We waited and waited... but they never let us in.


Ashton in front of some big royal statue thing 


A beautiful memorial for the saddest tragedy.


Crazy squirrel video- he's eating a muffin wrapper!




St Pauls something or other  (where the guards were)


Right after he stomped and yelled - woah


This one looked about 16 years old.  I was not scared of him (sorry, can't get rid of the underlining)  Note: "the Pose"


CB finally ready to get in a picture.  I am doing "the Pose" again haha- I had really envisioned us both doing it though.


Ashton with the horse guard.

Gotta get the cheesy posed phone booth pics





Wednesday- Day 1: Store show

In store show


I really like this picture of Ashton in front of the display of jeans


This is one of their records on display in the stairwell of the store- super famous! haha (needless to say, Caleb didn't want to pose for this picture)


Cheers Mate!

Hello!  

We got back late Monday night and had a great time.  It was really great that I was able to take the time off work to go with them.  I will not feel as bad next time that I don't get to go hopefully.
While we were in London, we didn't have a lot of free time- it seems like we were always either sleeping (or lacking sleep) or moving towards somewhere- but we did manage to squeeze in a little bit of sightseeing.  

Sorry if this next part is boring, but I need to recap my trip for my mom.  I will post pictures in separate posts because I hate how they get all mixed up and hard to move, etc- but here is the story of the trip to go with the pics.
We flew out of LA Tuesday afternoon, with a plan to sleep on the plane and arrive with no jet lag Wednesday morning at 10am.  Unfortunately, none of us anticipated the allure of in flight movies and about 4 movies later we landed with no real sleep...

We were to be picked up from the airport by Micha, the European representative of the band's label.  Unfortunately the Queen must've been out and about that day, and London's traffic was awful... so we ended up taking a cab to meet him at the hotel.  The cabs there are super cool though, with flippy down seats that face each other and tvs and such.  
When we got to the hotel, our room wasn't ready, so we put our luggage and music equipment in a locked closet in the lobby (common in England I guess to have this option) and walked to the store where the boys would be playing that night.  With all of us on the verge of falling asleep, we decided to head back to the room for a 2 hour nap.  Then back to the store for their show, which went well.  I ate a really good panini from a sandwhich shop down the way. yum  That is also where I saw the "Walkers" brand "crisps" (potato chips for us americans) in turkey and stuffing flavor. bleh.

The next day we met up with our British friend, Chico (who lives in LA, but is currently in London for the holidays) who took us around sightseeing.  On my request we took the "Tube" or the Underground first to Buckingham Palace to see the Queen.  Unfortunately, she must not have received the message about our date for tea, because she never showed.  We walked around on the Princess Diana Memorial Walk, which was gorgeous and I saw the most BOLD set of squirrels and birds ever.  I got within inches of touching one before I thought better of it.
The Memorial Walk took us over to St Paul's something where we saw the guards. This is what I was waiting for!  I had been practicing my pose since the day before.  When it was my turn to stand next to one, he all of a sudden stomped and walked off.  Upon following him, we found another one who was standing alone by a wall.  No one was around him, so I thought, "now's my chance!" As I was walking up to him, I went under an archway, and then all of a sudden he stomps! and yells "STAND CLEAR OF THE ARCHWAY!"  which freaked me out, and explains the scared facial expression.  Meanwhile, the first guard has returned to his original spot, so I run go get a pic with him.  Caleb refused though to get in the pic.  He was kind of scared I think... they did have swords after all.  So back outside, where Caleb decides he will get a picture, but only with the guy that yelled at me, geez.  I resume my pose, but Caleb wasn't into it... Probably cause he was on sword side.  They also had a guard with a horse that stood very still as well- Ashton got a pick with him.
We then went past a bunch of phone booths and found Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.  Nice.
Then we jumped back on the tube to go to this free museum and meet up with another guy from the label, Simon, who'd be attending the festival with us.  Since we were starving, we went to a pub to eat.  The boys got fish and chips.  I got a falafal sandwich with chips. yum
After the museum, it was time for the guys to switch hotels and get the gear to the bar for that night's soundcheck.  The bar was called the Legion and it was in East London I think.  The show went very well, despite the fact that I couldn't see them play from where I was selling tshirts and cds and also despite the relentless drunk Brit hitting on me throughout it all.  Geez.  He even knew I was married to the guitar player!  yikes.  Let me tell you, the young British guys really like their high fives!  I must have given out like 100 that night.
EARLY the next morning we left London to go across the country for the festival in Southwest England.  I slept off and on the whole way, so unfortunately missed a lot of the beautiful countryside.  I did however manage to see sheep and some old buildings and between Caleb and I got some pictures of this part of the trip.
When we arrived at the festival Friday afternoon, we checked in, got our backstage access passes and wristbands and room keys and booklets, etc.  The festival was on the grounds of an amusement park like place called "Butlins".  I am pretty sure that if we had prepared properly/ hadn't been freezing cold, we could've participated in the indoor water park, rope climbing, mini golfing extravaganza surrounding us.  But it was VERY cold and just going from our apartment to the festival main tent, was too much outdoor time.
The guys played Friday afternoon.  There were two stages and they were the 2nd band that played on the 2nd stage.  I was worried that this would mean that they would have a small crowd size, but there ended up being A LOT of people at their show.  I left when they still had a couple songs left to go to the merch area in the main tent to sell their CDs and Tshirts.  I could tell when they stopped playing, because there was a rush of people coming to buy and rave. It was great and nearly made me a little emotional, not to mention a little overwhelmed to see so many people appreciating their talent.  I sold merch for about 3 1/2- 4 hours that night and then saw some other bands play.  We sold out of all their CDs and only had 7" records and tshirts left at the end of the night.
We slept until 2pm on Saturday and then spent the rest of the day seeing bands and watched The Thing in the cinema.
On Sunday, we decided that I should sell merch again, since some people were asking that didn't stop by Friday night.  I think I was selling for 1 or 2 hours tops, and we ended up selling out of the records too!  With all the stuff we brought with- we only brought back 3 shirts!  I would've sold them too, but they were Smalls and XL... I had some Medium sized guys try to squeeze into the small, but it wouldn't work. haha
Monday morning we were up EARLY again to head back to the airport.  I was hoping that we'd get to Stonehenge, but the route that our GPS took us wasn't that way.. next time.  We made it to the airport 3 hours early, checked in with no problems, was AMAZED by the shops in the airport- looked like a fancy mall! Boarded the plane 30 minutes early, then proceeded to sit on the runway or tarmac or whatever for 5 hours!  We didn't even realize at first that we hadn't taken off, cause we had all fallen asleep!  Once they taxi'ed us back to the gate, we realized something was wrong... Once they informed us they'd be serving dinner, we realized we weren't going anywhere fast...  I watched a movie and ate dinner and slept before we even took off.  It wasn't that bad, except I was seated next to a lady that crowded my armrest and "Humpf"'d every few minutes.  After 25 hours of traveling and 15 hours on the plane, we landed.  The entrance to the US Customs was dark, dank and smelled like trash (due to the overflowing dumpster nearby)- I don't think that's the first impression we'd like to give... someone should look into that.  Got to sleep sometime between 2am and 3am and was back at work for my 9am meeting the next day.  What a trip!
Woah, that was exhausting to write, I can't believe anyone would be able to make it through that recap.  The posts with the pictures will be separate.

Monday, December 1, 2008

I should be packing...

But I wanted to get one last excited post in.

Tomorrow we leave for here


While there I hope to see this


Possibly Recreate this


Go here 


Hoping to see her


And be invited for this...


See you in a week!