Best Shots Monday--Many Happy Returns of Cadence's Birthday!

Today is our little Cadence's 3rd birthday. I'm off work today to spend the day with her, but we had the official celebration yesterday. That's also when she wore her birthday dress.

Poor thing. Her mama dresses her like a character out of Little House on the Prairie. I just hope she doesn't retaliate by wearing midriffs at the age of 9.

Ted's mom made a yummy banana cake in the shape of a flower. It was simply perfect. Although, I think Cadence covered it in her spit trying to blow out her candles. It literally took her 50 tries and then a little help from Dada to get those things blown out. Which is surprising, considering I KNOW for a fact that there's nothing wrong with them lungs of hers.

The big birthday present we got Cadence was a shiny new red Schwinn Roadster tricycle. We thought she'd be totally into it, but quite frankly, she was only interested in the bell at first. I think she was a little intimidated by the size. It took a little coaxing, but her uncles Dave and Jay got her to finally sit in it so I could actually get a photo.

Apparently, she feels much more comfortable on the trike when she's not wearing any clothes. She may be a future Naked Bike Rider in the making.

It's hard to believe Cadence was ever this little. I'm amazed at the big personality emerging from this still-growing body of hers. Thank you, Cadence, for being the best kid we could have ever asked for. We love you!

Go see more folk's Best Shots on Tracey's Picture This.

There Is a Loud Sucking Sound...

...and it's coming from this blog. Yes, lame-age abounds around here these days, I totally admit it. It's been a rough week, people.

So Monday through Wednesday, I had this meeting in downtown Chicago with other folks within the compensation world in my industry. My boss asked me to make a presentation about our company and our compensation practices. I was totally stressed out because 1) if given the choice between a root canal WITHOUT anesthesia and speaking formally in front of total strangers, I would gladly pick the root canal and thank the Lord for my good fortune; 2) I knew I'd be the LEAST experienced person professionally in the room; and 3) I just don't know my sh*t as well as I should.

To make matters worse, Cadence kept me up most of Monday night, so I went into this meeting on Tuesday with only a couple hours of sleep. Plus, I was starting to feel a cold coming on. Last, but not least, I was scheduled to give my presentation at 4:30pm, right before everyone would be heading to their hotel for the cocktail reception at 5pm.

I can't tell you how the presentation went as I've permanently repressed the memory, cuz everybody knows that anything more painful than a root canal without anesthesia (except for childbirth) should qualify for automatic repression within the memory banks. All I know is my boss didn't fire me on the spot, so it must have been okay. And no, I'm pretty sure I wasn't great.

Anyhoo, if that whole debacle weren't bad enough, I developed a migraine Tuesday night (from lack of sleep Monday night) and had to sit through Wednesday's meeting with a bruised head. Thank goodness it was a half-day meeting. I'd had plans of going on a photoshoot as long as I was downtown, but instead I went straight home and threw up. I missed our friend Erik's birthday dinner, and my head kept on hurting right into Thursday. Plus, I developed a full-blown cold by Thursday morning and couldn't stop sneezing, which made my headache worse. I stayed home from work, but I barely felt well enough to attend the Tim Lowly art reception/music show that evening.

Nevertheless, I really wanted to see Tim's art as he is one of my favorite artists, so I dragged my sickly self (actually, I should say WE dragged OUR sickly selves, as Ted is sick too) out of the house to see the show. I'm glad I did, because I hadn't seen most of the stuff he was showing, and it's pretty flippin' rad. That's Tim in the photo above, wearing the Tim Lowly ensemble t-shirt that the lovely and talented Katie Schofield embroidered. And that's my good friend Amy taking some Super8 footage.

I also took some of my favorite photos in a while, so click on the photo above for the whole slideshow. You can also see some of Tim's artwork, as well as photos of the music show that followed the reception.

This is actually my favorite photo from the night. It's just kinda wacky, ya know? Tim says it looks like a scene from a play, and I would have to agree. Katie C.(the violinist) looks like she's about to say something really poignant. And Matt looks like he's just gonna ignore her. And then there's that bottle of wine off to the side...

Tim's really nice to let me bring Cadence to all the shows. She was running and dancing and hopping around a lot, and at one point found her way onto stage. She told me she needed to talke to dada. No, really. That's what she said: "I need to talk to Dada." And she was totally serious.

Speaking of the munchkin, she's turning 3 on Monday. Another reason we're kinda stressed in this household. We're not having a party or anything--just cake w/ immediate family, no kids or anything. I'm glad we planned it that way, cuz I don't think I would've wanted to host a party w/ other folks' children in the condition I'm in right now--all snotty and achey and whatnot.

So that's the scoop, y'all. I'm sorry I've been bad about responding to comments or catching up on your blogs. I hope things mellow out in October...

Stop The Presses! We Have a Winner!!

Ok, I'm like totally swamped w/ work related stuff, but here's a short post. So we went to the Great Lakes Brewfest in Racine, WI on Saturday. And by 'we' I mean Ted and his brother David, who was turning 35 the next day. It was a 21-and-over event, so Cadence and I had to find other things to do.

While Ted and Dave were at this all-you-can-drink mayhem, Cadence and I checked out the local tourist trap, where she had her Very First Pony Ride. I didn't think she would actually get on the pony, cuz the whole time we were in line watching the other kids get their turn, she kept asking me where the 'little horse' was. I told her this was the littlest one they had, and she seemed worried. Once she was on the pony, I had to walk with her almost the whole time, which is why I only have this one crappy photo. Still, a little girl's first pony ride is something that MUST be documented.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous. Can the sky get any bluer than that? And this photos was taken WITHOUT my polarizing filter. It didn't get any warmer than 70 degrees, if that. It's really my favorite kind of weather. You know. Seattle summer weather.

It was positively nippy by the time we headed back to Racine to pick up the boys. Cadence and I visited the lakefront where the fishermen were throwing their lines, and the wind was starting to get pretty chilly, as you can see from Cadence's nose matching her jacket.

The sun set while we were by the lake, and the horizon turned a beautiful shade of pink. I love Lake Michigan right around sunset.

We went to pick up Ted and Dave when the brewfest was over, as I was the designated driver. And it's a good thing. Stinkin' drunk they were by the time I picked them up. They were running down the street pretending to be shooting at each other like they were little kids, while I was honking and honking and they ran right past the car without realizing it was me. While I was taking this picture, I didn't realize there was a guy peeing in the bushes behind them (another inebriated participant of the brewfest), and he yelled out at me, 'What are you, the PO-LEECE?!!' If he'd kept his mouth shut, I wouldn't have even seen him.

Anyhoo, in conjunction with the brewfest, there was a homebrew competition. Ted entered 4 of his brews, and we just found out today that he won 2nd place in the IPA (India Pale Ale) category!!!! You can see the results here. Scroll down to Table 17 to see the winners of the IPA category. This was the one with most entrants (19) so 2nd place is actually quite impressive. And there's Ted in the photo above celebrating with the most excellent Rogue Mocha Porter, which just became available at Trader Joe's. A well-deserved drink, I'd say.

Read more about Ted and his homebrewing obsession on his blog.

Date Night @ the Ian Moore Show

Monday night was a special treat for us. Our friend Ian Moore was in town playing a CD release show with a full band(!), so we got Ted's bro Dave to babysit, and we had ourselves a bona fide date. Normally, we would take Cadence to see her Uncle Ian play, but I happened to know that his full band shows get LOUD. Plus, it was a later show than normal for Ian. We braved the rain and the traffic on Ashland, did a Trader Joe's run for some hummus and cheap wine (per Ian and the band's request), and made our way to Martyr's where the show was.

Ted got to get a very short game of pinball in right before the opening band started. I'm not sure why there is a pinball machine in the music room, as that whackety-wack can get pretty loud.

Local act Brice Woodall opened the show. We were quite surprised to see what looked like Jim Cooper (of the Detholz!, Baby Teeth, Bobby Conn, etc) on DRUMS. Turns out it's not Jim, but he sure could be his double if he wanted to be. I mean, down to the pattern that his facial hair made and everything.

Ted and I have seen Ian play his solo acoustic shows numerous times, and they are always amazing. With all the indie rockers saturating the music world these days, it can be hard to find someone who has passion, creativity AND true musical talent. That's why it's always such a treat to see Ian play.

We were excited to see a full-band show, as this is a rare occurrence here in the Midwest, since most of the folks who play with him live in Texas. I caught a full-band show down in Austin, TX back in 2002, but Ted had never seen one before last night, so he was especially expectant. And needless to say it was a totally awesome show.

Ian always amazes me with how full his sound is when he's playing solo or w/ just one backup musician. So with a full band, the sound is even more amazing. And the musicians traveling with him on this tour are really seasoned players.

Ian's latest CD 'To Be Loved' is out on Justice Records. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by this album. It is Ian's best yet. I was happy to see that some of the songs he's been performing live for several years have finally made it onto an album version.

It was really great to be able to hear these songs live with a full band. I don't know when Ian will make it out to Chicago with a full band, so I'm glad Ted and I got the chance to see them.

The show was totally awesome. The thing I love about Ian's shows is that even as he performs, he is such a huge music fan himself, and he plays some really great cover songs. That's how I discovered the music of Neutral Milk Hotel and the solo work of Chris Bell (of Big Star). At this show, he also covered Teenage Fan Club's 'Start Again' from one of their older albums.

Here's something weird that happened during the show. While I was taking this photo above (which I have to credit Ian's Chicago merch man Gary Overstreet for asking me to take) from the merch booth, my cellphone began to vibrate. When I took it out of my pocket, the CallerID said it was Ian calling me. So there I was looking at Ian playing his encore on stage, and then I looked back to my phone which was telling me that Ian was calling me at that very moment. It was kinda surreal. I went out to take the call because I was too curious to see what would happen. Now here's the really crazy part. When I picked up, it was some woman talking. But she wasn't talking to me. She was carrying on a conversation with someone else. When I asked her who she was, it was obvious she couldn't hear me, which freaked me out and I hung up. It was like Ian's phone was chanelling this woman's phone conversation and sending it to my phone. Like how totally weird is that?!

I don't usually take photos at Ian's shows, since he normally plays at Schubas and although it's my favorite music room in the city, it kinda sucks for photos. Martyr's had better lighting, especially for a full band show.

After the show, we gave Ian his Trader Joe's loot, as well as a few bottles of Ted's homebrew. We had to hurry home to Cadence, so we couldn't hang out more, but it was good to get a chance to catch up a little. I can see that Ian is really happy with the new album and enjoying this tour, so that was good to see. It was also nice to have an evening out, just Ted and I.

You can see the rest of my photos from Ian's show over here.

Best Shot(s) Monday--Smiles Abound

For this week, I give you three of Cadence's smiles from the past week. This one above is one of her sweeter ones.

And this one is sweet in more ways than one. This smile is covered in chocolate!

And here's a dimply one. Probably one of my favorites ever. Folks have been commenting how much older she's looking. I guess that's an inevitable part of growing up...*sigh*...It's been good times, fer sure.

Go see other folks' Best Shots on Tracey's Picture This.