Sunday, October 19, 2008

Phoenix Festival In The Desert

Over the week of October 10th - October 12th, Dave and I went to Phoenix to attend the "Festival In The Desert". This started out just as a quick little get a way for Dave and I, and ended up being a family get together. Dave's brother Bruce and his wife Gretchen joined us for the Festival and we stayed at their brother Robert's house. It was a really fun weekend. And we got to me their sister-in-law Sheryl's new fiancee'. Robert and his wife Jeanne has a cook out for everyone on Thursday night and we all sit around the pool and talked and laughed until late at night. The weather was great on Friday - 95 degrees, and the acts were wonderful, (Brian Culbertson, Jeff Kashiwa, Steve Cole, Kim Waters, Euge Groove, and Patti LaBelle). On Saturday the weather was quite a bit cooler only 78, but the acts were even hotter, (Eric Darius, Warren Hill, Dominic Amato, Ky-Mani Marley, Rick Braun, Richard Elliot, The Temptations, Norman Brown, Paul Taylor, Chante Moore, Alex Bugnon, Peter White, Gerald Albright, Jeff Golub, Mindi Abair, and Smokey Robinson). Dave and I didn't stay for Sunday's performance, since we had to be back to work Monday morning. But Bruce and Gretchen went for Sunday's acts, (Jerome Calia, Sahnas Brothers, Craig Chquico, Guitar Shorty, Chuck Hall Band, Dr. John, Los Lobos, Buddy Guy, Jonny Lang, Pat Benatar, Neil Gjraldo, and Boz Scaggs).

Dave arranged for a meet and greet with his all-time favorite sax player, Mindi Abair. He also, at the last minute, arranged for Bruce and Gretchen to join us backstage also. Earlier in the day, Dave purchased a small gold sax in a red velvet lined box and had Mindi sign the inside of the box for him. He now has it in his office. I always tease him about Mindi being his "girlfriend". Mindi's road manager even took photos of us with her, she is such a nice person. I think that Bruce and Gretchen were a little "star struck". But, Dave has done several of these Mindi meet and greets, and he is at ease around her and talks to her like an old friend. I told Mindi that Dave's starting to become her roadie stocker... she just laughed...

I bought the shirt that Dave's wearing in the photo, at the festival, as one of his anniversary gifts. Anyways, we had a good time, and when we got home on Sunday evening, we were so tired, but we have good memories of the trip.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Happy 5th Anniversary to my Lovely Wife!


Today we are celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary.  I have been very blessed to have married such a wonderful person.  We have had a lot of fun together since we met.  Barb's laughter is very contagious, in fact every time she laughs our cat Callie will come right to her.  Callie probably thinks that Barb is purring to her.  Barb has brightened up our home with her special touches; she truly has turned our house into a home.  My absolute favorite time of the day is waking up to snuggle with her.  We have been blessed with the ability to do some fantastic traveling from Cabo San Lucas to Australia to all over the U.S. including a cruise and land tour of Alaska and we are looking forward to our upcoming trip to England.  I wanted to get her something very special to commemorate our 5th anniversary so I found this beautiful Journey Vine Pendant.  Since the Alaska cruise was our anniversary gift to each other, I presented the pendant to her on the cruise.  She looks gorgeous in it (the picture was taken on our balcony on the cruise ship).  I just want to take this opportunity to say "THANK YOU FOR FIVE WONDERFUL YEARS, AND HERE'S TO MANY MORE!" I love you very much, Dave.