WOW

...is all I can say. Last night was amazing!! The Robert Plant & Allison Krauss concert was absolutley fantastic. Sharon Little opened up for them -- and if you don't know who she is you need to go check her out. Her new album is called Perfect Time for a Breakdown, and she has one of the most spectacular vocals I have ever heard. I am a very lucky girl to know her. She started working with Scot Sax (who my dad has known for over 10 years), they wrote a bunch of songs together... actually they wrote a bunch of really really good songs together. Sharon was hand picked by Robert and Allison to go on tour with them, which is one of the coolest opportunities of a lifetime.


Sharon went on at exactly 7:30, and Ryan and I were dead center 12 rows back. My lucky dad and sisters got into the 6th row. She sang a set of 7 songs, which all were amazing. She wrote the song 'Child in a Storm' for my sisters and I. It's about my mom... and she could barely get the words out to dedicate it to us... But Scot helped her. Sharon said "This song is very close to my heart....**pause pause pause**" and then she and Scot said together "this is for Evann, Caitlin and Meghan". And next thing you know I am crying uncontrollably. It was beautiful. She finished her set and the entire crowd in front of me stood up and applauded. It was wonderful.


They changed sets and then Allison and Robert came on. Their voices together are awe-inspiring. Robert played a few Led Zeppelin songs, and Allison sang backups. T-Bone Burnett was AMAZING as well. And of course, they played quite a few songs from their album together.
My dad came back over with the backstage passes and we hung out in Sharon's trailor and watched the show on a big screen on the side of the stage. Caitlin and Evann had so much fun hanging out with Sharon 'The Rockstar'. Hahhaahaha. Evann was 5ft away from Robert when she went out to got to the bathroom. But everytime Robert or Allison would leave stage we would all have to go into Sharon's trailer because they didn't want to be bothered.

I came back into work today and talked to a few co-workers who were also there who said that Sharon was better than Allison, and she would have rather watched Sharon perform the whole time.

I will have more pictures coming soon!

My Family Says I Need To "Update"

So here I am... updating... My 'vacation' was not much of a vacation, that's for damn sure. Ryan and I had a great time, but there was very few minutes that I was able to relax and sleep. Our drive down the 395 was beautiful. It was my first time ever going through Mammoth, Bishop and Mojave. We stopped a few times to use the restrooms and saw the highest gas price EVER -- $5.19/gal -- of the medium grade... It's CRAZY! We made it in to Valencia a day early because Ryan and I both had the day off and I got an employee rate at the Best Western I used to work at. We surprised our families and hung out with friends that night. The rest of the weekend was a whirlwind of friends, family and fun.

The wedding was beautiful. Our friend Victoria looked like a princess, and Carlos looked very handsome. The ceremony was short and sweet, the pastor is the same pastor who orchestrated her father's funeral, so we heard a lot of stories about what V's dad wanted to say to her on her wedding day. I cried (granted I always cry at any wedding... it's just so beautiful, I know I am a major dork). We stayed in Pasadena since the wedding ended around 1:00am.

The next morning we got up a little late and drove back to Castaic for the family brunch. I was a little nervous because it was the first time that Ryan's mom had met my dad (after dating for almost 2 years and living together just about the same amount of time). Jan is one of the sweetest women I have ever met, and she adored my dad - whew what a big weight lifted off my shoulders, lol. Otherwise the brunch was delicious and it was great to see my family. All of my favorite aunts and uncles. I met my aunt Linda's new roommate who had the CUTEST little chiuawha EVER. It was so nice to see my dad and my uncle Vince and his kids too! Then we drove to Saugus to pick up our friends Wendy and Troy. They drove back up with us and helped us save on gas.

We got back around 10:30pm, and we are driving down the main road and all the sudden fire trucks are rushing down the street followed by ambulances... We heard there sirens for another 2 hours, which is a big deal up here in this small town, which means stuff is going down... I got up the next morning at 6am to get to work by 7am and sure enough come to find out it my work on fire! A dryer has some combustable material in it and when it was turned on it got hot enough and combusted!! The fire was contained inside of the dryer so nothing was damaged, but boy did I have to comp a bunch of rooms the next morning!