Saturday, August 21, 2010

Jack didn't give me any "Banana Pancakes"


Jack Johnson. One of my favorite musical artists. I have wanted to see him in concert for so long!

The bank I work for sponsors a park where several outdoor concerts are held every summer. The bank gives its employees the opportunity to get into any of the concerts there for free simply by working the bank's booth for a few hours before the main band starts.

When I heard Jack Johnson was coming to play at this park, I was thrilled! I patiently waited for the e-mail to come asking for volunteers. Suddenly, it's three days before the concert, and I realized I hadn't yet received that e-mail.

I was pretty bummed to find out all the volunteer spots had already been filled, and seeing how we would have to spend $80 for Zach and I to go to the concert, buying tickets was not an option either. My manager told me he would ask the guy in charge to let him know if any spots opened up for me.

The day of the concert one of my coworkers asks me what I was doing that night. I proceed to tell her how I will not be attending the Jack Johnson concert, but that I wish I was.

About 15 minutes later my manager gets a call from the marketing guy in charge of the booth. Someone has ditched out last minute, and there was now a spot open!

He asked me if I still wanted in, and I answered with a "Yes!" as soon as I heard the words, "Jack Johnson" come out of his mouth.

As you now know, I = Jack Johnson fan; however, Zach ≠ Jack Johnson fan. No worries, though, I have a loving and supportive husband that would go to any concert in the world just so he could spend more time with me (or at least that's what I told him...).

Needless to say, Zach volunteered at the booth with me for 2 short hours before the concert, and we in turn received 2 VIP passes in! They had a separate area where "VIP" people could hang out and enjoy free pop, nachos, music, and SHADE!

After feeling pretty dang sweet in the VIP section, we went to the car to get our blanket then headed back to the concert to await listening to the beautiful, soothing music I had been waiting for.

The only bad thing for non-smokers about outdoor concerts is the freedom for people to smoke anywhere they want. About the only spot left was directly behind 6 adults who were-you guessed it-smoking. No big deal; surely they would not smoke for the entire concert. You guessed it again-they did.

Not only did we have smoke blown into our faces, but these 6 adults progressively became drunk as the night went on. One of the ladies tried to stand up ("tried" that is) and stepped on me without even noticing. They also slowly started inching their way closer and closer to Zach and I...creepy...

I kept trying to send Jack telepathy signals to play my favorite song, "Banana Pancakes." Sadly he wasn't able to read my mind :( Since Jack wasn't cooperating and our friends in front of us grew more and more obnoxious with the more and more alcohol their bodies consumed, we decided to beat the rush and call it a night a little early.

Even though Jack didn't play me "Banana Pancakes," I still thoroughly enjoyed a free date night with Zach-Jack's other songs that he played were pretty sweet too I guess :)

Monday, August 2, 2010

Baby update from Aunt Jessica!



I'm sure most of you know by now that Katie finally had her baby boy, Elijah Lee Imhoff, on Wednesday, July 21st, at 4:38 A.M. I am finally an aunt! Yippee!

I really do think he is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. I think there's a lot of babies out there that look like aliens when they are born. They can't help it-they have little to no hair, have been living inside a woman's body for the last 9 months, and have almost no control over any body movements.

But not Elijah! He has a full head of hair, beautiful eyes, his daddy's long eyelashes, and is perfect in every way! I'm sure every mom feels this way about her child when he or she is born, but seriously, I think everyone can agree with me about Eli.

I, of course, had to go see my nephew and take pictures before he gets bigger (which I hear doesn't take very long, unfortunately). Saturday after I got off work I booked it up to SF to meet Eli.

I even got to have a riding buddy on the way up. My cousin, Jacob, that lives down in KC was wanting to go up to SF for a week, then his dad would come up and bring him back home the next week. Company always helps with driving long hours!

I bolted into my parents house at 6:00 that night and immediately asked to see Eli. He is so precious, and I am so sad that I do not get to be there for all the milestones he will go through soon. Luckily we are only 5 hours away now instead of 8 1/2.

Anyway, back to Eli. I loved being able to hold him in my arms. I felt like I could just stare at him all day long. When he is actually awake his facial expressions are just priceless!

That evening I got to meet with one of my dearest friends, Mollie. Although we are trying not to admit it, we have not seen each other since my wedding last year! After a few hours of catching up, I get a phone call from my brother saying that Katie had just left for the ER.

No worries, she is doing just fine now. Josh told me that it was just him and Eli while he waited for Katie and her mom to get back from the ER, and if I wanted to help hold Eli he would not object. Another chance to hold him? Yes, please!

After Mollie and I were done I headed over to Josh and Katie's house and wrapped Eli in my arms again.

We stayed up until 3 in the morning, but it was so worth it to be able to have that time together! Not wanting to leave Eli, after a short 24 hours and 20 minutes, I headed back home for work the next day.

Here's some pictures of my handsome nephew. Check out my Facebook page for more!

"A God thing"

I finally get to write a blog telling you all we found a vehicle for Zach! We searched for 2 months, and right when we were wanting to give up, God gave us a steal of a deal.
Zach found a 2003 Mitsubishi Lancer on Craig's List. I figured we would go look at it, and like every other car we looked at, something would be wrong. I took out all the cash from our savings account that we had been saving for a car, and the next morning we headed over to the house to look at the car.
The owner of the car got to the house right when we did, and about 5 minutes later another potential buyer also showed up with his son. It was slightly awkward trying to check out the car while two other people are checking out the same car at the same time.
Since we go there first, we took the car on a test drive. For the first time while test driving, everything seemed to run quite smoothly.
When we got back to their house the dad and son were waiting for their chance to test drive the car too. Zach and I quickly talked it over, and decided this was a great buy! It's pretty compact, but it gets good mileage (which is a necessity for Zach since the church he works at is 45 minutes away and the seminary he will be going to is 20 minutes away), is fairly new, it's a great price, and it RUNS!!
The morning we went to look at the car the owners increased their price $250 (probably because they were getting so many calls about the car). We told the owners we had the exact amount of cash that their original price was and asked if they would be willing to take that price.
The lady said she was so tired of her phone ringing off the hook that she would take it, so we got a great car for exactly how much we had saved for. I like to call that..."A God thing" :)