Mmm Mmm Mmm... KC!

Last weekend I enjoyed one of  the best weekend road trips I've had in quite awhile, with some of my very favorite people in the world:

Me and my little brother, Thomas

Thomas has lived in Kansas City for... well, probably three years or so?  Maybe a little more - time goes by so fast.  We always talk at holidays about getting together for a weekend in KC, and we had been planning this one, with cousin Krista and her hubby David, for the last couple of months.  Unfortunately, Krista and David had to cancel after some last minute changes at home (I was looking so forward to hanging out with them, but we are planning another trip, very soon.) and  I didn't let that keep me from going - I had really been looking forward to my weekend in KC.

I was so excited to get to see friends Garry and Heather, and their kiddos Ryleigh and Christian. 13-year-old  Ry hung out with us quite a bit, but afterwards I realized that Christian is not in a single photo - he is 17 and was downstairs playing X-Box the entire weekend.   Garry and Heather are some of my favorite friends ever- two of the many friends that I made while Dave and I were together.  Garry and I hit it off instantly the first time I met them 5 years ago, because we are both huge music fans.  Ok, I have to give him props and admit that he is head and shoulders above me, as I have had to say in this blog several times.  BUT I still do fairly well, I think he will agree.  And Heather is wonderful too (even though Ryleigh likes to give her a hard time about being a musical idiot, but that's really not true!)  She is sweet, funny and always so interesting - in the know about food, art, travel and lots of other things that we catch up on when we're together.

In addition to just being awesome people, they took Paige under their wing when she started college at William Jewell 2.5 years ago - I know they have been her family there in KC, and they absolutely adore her as well, of course.   She was over at their house every week for dinner, and I am certain that they are missing her terribly while she is away at Oxford this year.  (The bonus for next year will be that when I make any trips to see my KC friends/family, Paigey will be back there as well.  If you haven't seen it, check out her blog, Inhabiting Oxford - she is an amazing young woman, and a very talented writer, and I'm so proud to have her in my life)

Ryleigh, Heather and Garry

While I didn't get to meet up with Krista and David in KC, I did bring someone along with me on my road trip.   This is Brian, a southern boy from Charlotte, NC (hello, Annie! He's from your neck of the woods....) who has lived in Springfield for the past five years.

He and I met through mutual friends, and the best thing about him - he makes me laugh.  Other than that, we have a lot to talk about, quite a bit in common.  Both just out of second marriages, and both lost our mothers when we/they were young...  just easy to spend time with him, and I really enjoy it.  So he headed with me to KC on Friday, happy to get away for a weekend and hang out with my friends and family.

We arrived in KC late Friday afternoon, and met Garry and Heather for happy hour at Buddha, in Zona Rosa shopping center.   After we visited a bit and got caught up on the latest happenings in all of our lives, we headed back to Garry and Heather's house, to enjoy some appetizers with the rest of the family.

 Heather fixed two kinds of  pizza, plus some awesome crab rangoon (Ryleigh made those) and some fabulous "Bang Bang Shrimp", which I think H. said is a yummy dish at Bonefish Grill...  but all my shots of the food looked pretty yellow and didn't do it any justice! I am learning about white balance in my photography class, but obviously I wasn't workin' it while I was taking these shots - Next time, I'll do better.

Friends Brent and Laura also joined us for the evening - they had a babysitter for their two little ones, and could've gone out on the town for the night, but decided that we would be just as much fun - and I think they were right!

One of the highlights of the night, hands down, was this lady:

Grandma Rose....  this photo is perfect - the cheetah jacket,
the HUGE glass of red wine... and I'm sure whatever she
saying was hilarious, as always!

Garry's Grandma Rose turned 90 this year, and is, quite simply, amazing.  She is one of the most young-at-heart people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.  I've had the opportunity to spend time with her several times over the past few years that I've known Garry and Heather; I always enjoy her wit, her stories, and her love for red wine - a woman after my own heart, in that respect!   We enjoyed appetizers and drinks with her, and then we all sat down in the living room to watch the photo montage that one of her daughters had made for her 90th birthday celebration.   Rose and her husband had seven children, and she has spent time all over the world.  Garry's grandpa was with the CIA, and I've heard stories from Garry about his mother and her siblings' time in different countries, but it was amazing to sit with Rose and listen to her comments as we watched the story of her life unfold in California, Italy, Cypress, and more.

We did enjoy some cocktails over the course of the evening, including a chocolatini concoction that Garry made for the ladies:

Yum!

Later in the evening we also broke out some wicked dance moves - (note: one of the benefits of this being MY blog is that all of the totally embarrassing photos of me are - well, they seem to have gotten lost... hmmm.)  But please note Garry's fine form (wearing his wife's sunglasses) below:

The fun didn't stop Friday night - we enjoyed a relaxing Saturday morning, topped off with lunch.  The girls all enjoyed Mexican for lunch, while Brian had to have some of his 5 Guys Burgers and Fries, so he and Garry headed there.

Lunch at Jose Peppers

Then Brian and I headed down to the Plaza for the evening, and met up with Thomas for dinner.  The weather was absolutely beautiful for mid-November, with temperatures in the fifties that evening.  We had a few drinks at Fred P. Otts, one of Thom's favorite hangouts.  Thomas didn't like this photo, but I thought it was great - I know the iPhone isn't a real camera, but I love the special effects... so fun!

Drinks at Fred P Otts

Sunday was beautiful, and we started the morning sitting outside of Scooter's coffee shop on the Plaza, enjoying the sunshine, before heading back home.  (I took several photos... may try to post a few soon, but they'll have to wait for another time.)  It was a wonderful weekend and a great getaway; "Thanks! "to Garry and Heather for a wonderful Friday evening of food, drinks, family and friends.  And then for Saturday, a huge "thank you!"  to Thomas for getting us a fabulous room at the Raphael at a great price, and for showing us some of your favorite spots on the Plaza.  Had a great time, and looking forward to doing it again soon.

ZBB in KC - 2011

What a fabulous road trip! I love seeing live music - one of my absolutely most favorite things to do, hands down. This concert was a blast- great performers, AND great company, with my friend Laura, sis Tara and BIL Luke. Laura and I hit the road Saturday morning at 8:30AM, coffee in hand, ready for the three hour drive to friends Garry and Heather's house in north KC.

I made a "ZBB KC Trip" playlist on my iPod, to play on the trip up - and it was a good thing, because Laura really didn't know much about them at all. In fact, she had told someone the day before that we were going to see "Jack Brown, or something like that" ... so I had to make sure she was educated on their tunes before arriving at the concert!   We had a great time, I was so glad that she was able to come with me, and hang out with my family and other friends - she's been such a good friend to me over the past several years, and especially recently, over the past month. 

We got to Garry/Heather's house about noon, and got to catch up a bit with them before heading to the concert.  Garry turned 40 a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't get to make it up for his big birthday bash at one of the casinos... He and I had a cocktail at noon, so he could break out the glasses that he got in honor of his birthday - they say "Established 1971" and have a "40" engraved on the bottom... sweet!

Heather and 13-year-old Ryleigh - she's grown up so much!

I was so glad that Garry/Heather and Tara/Luke finally all met - Garry and Heather are some of my best friends and have met my siblings Ann and Thomas, but have only heard me talk about the rest.   They all hit it off wonderfully, as I knew they would - hopefully we'll all be able to get together again sometime.

With an estimated 70,000 people at this concert (according to Garry, who opted NOT to come and tailgate with us, for that reason),  I wondered how parking would be, and how close we would be to the stadium.  We did fine, not too far from the main entrance:

Holy smokes, was it HOT!   We put our chairs out and sat down to enjoy our lunch.  But about 30 minutes in, this was how we all felt, although Tara was particularly intolerant of the heat (and we had fun giving her crap about this picture!):

Shortly after this we took my Springfield friends Renee and Brad up on their offer to come hang with them in the shade... Luke was impressed with their set-up- the tent, table, and more.  Definitely not amatuer tailgaters like we were!

Laura, me, Tara and Luke

Thanks, Renee, for sharing your shade!

We headed into the concert in the middle of Billy Currington's set - personally, I don't know a single one of his songs, so I wasn't too worried about getting inside to hear him.   Uncle Kracker opened the concert, but we passed on him as well - I was there to see Zac Brown Band, they started at 6:20PM.  

The stadium was FULL, with the entire field set up with seating and a sandbar area right near the stage:

 

I saw Kenny Chesney with Tara and Luke about three years ago, in St. Louis, and we had a lot of fun then, but this took it up a notch.  This was probably the rowdiest concert I've been to - don't know if it was because it was a mid-afternoon Saturday concert (plenty of time for tailgating), or because it was there in Arrowhead, but everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves, including us!  And because it was so hot, we really didn't have much beer beforehand or during the concert - it was too hot to drink much other than water, and then I think we danced and sweated all that out over the 4+ hours we were in the stadium!



Luke, wallflower that he is, made friends with the guys
in front of us over the course of the evening

 I left my camera with Tara for safekeeping when I went to get a hot dog and drink, and she and Luke had a good time:

Ok, what about the music?  Amazing, both ZBB and Kenny.  Zac Brown is great, but his band is just as big a part of the show- some very, very talented musicians - they played "Devil Went Down to Georgia"
again, and it was just as awesome as it was when we heard it back in November.  As far as getting any good pictures, I was right - I've got to buy a longer lens.  I had to steal these two close-ups from Renee and Brad's FB site, they had a Nikon DSLR with a great lens, and got some awesome shots:

Kenny came on at 8:30 and played for two hours.  When he finished up and the crowd cheered him back out for an encore, Zac Brown came back out with him.   They jammed out for another eight or nine songs, including "Sweet Home Alabama" (Skynyrd), "Dixieland Delight" (Alabama) and Tom Petty's "Runnin' Down a Dream"  -  we sang and danced until they played the last chord and the stadium lights came on.  We were tired, and our feet were aching from dancing in flip flops all night, but we all agreed that we got our money's worth and then some.

Garry, Heather and the kids were still awake and had pizza ready for us when we got to their house about 12:15AM - we managed to stay up and talk for about 45 minutes, and then it was time to call it a night.  They fixed a wonderful breakfast for us this morning, before Laura and I had to head back to Springfield.

Great weekend - hopefully I'll make a return trip to KC in September or October.  We talked about taking Jace and Ryleigh to see Train/Maroon 5 in September at the Starlite. I would love to take him to his first concert - he loves music, just like his mom - and I better take him while we still like the same stuff!

College Girl, Chucks, Curry and Clinton Kelly

I felt some better yesterday, so was able to join Dave in an impromptu trip to KC to see Paige and bring her a few more things for her dorm room. We hadn't planned to visit her until Parents Weekend in early October, but it was great to see her for a bit on Saturday. She's settling in to school, and has already made several good friends in her Oxbridge program and otherwise.


As for the post title -- of course the college girl was the main reason for our trip, and the Chucks and curry were a part of our KC visit, but no, Clinton Kelly wasn't -- however, my little brother delivered room service to him at the Raphael on the Plaza in KC, and texted me about it. Sweet! Mr. "What Not To Wear" was apparently dining in a Raphael robe, and I'm sure he managed to even look stylish in it!

In what some would say is direct opposition to style and Clinton Kelly, I bought another pair of Converse Chuck Taylors yesterday. I've been talking about getting a pair of green Chucks since we were in Boston and I bought a green Red Sox ball cap; so we found some money in the Dave Ramsey budget to splurge on these babies!




I was in good company with my purchase, as Garry and Heather's daughter, Rileigh, splurged on her own pair of Chuck Taylors, in red. She was stylin' for her evening plans, a boy/girl party next door for one of her friend's birthdays. And I was stylin' for our evening with Garry, Heather and Brent and Laura, who had a sitter for their kiddos and joined us for a couple of hours.

Garry cooked us a delicious curry, and made a believer out of me. I was worried, as I've had curry a couple of times and didn't enjoy the spice (think Ben Stiller in Along Came Polly) but it was an awesome meal. I put pineapple, bananas, onions and bacon on my curry/rice, and it was absolutely delish!







Dave and Garry finished the evening with a little electrical work, wiring in a dimmer switch for the dining room light. This morning Garry fixed us his family's version of Eggs Benedict - staying with the Dykes is like our own little B&B getaway. We're excited to head back up there in a few weekends with Jace and Neil, and spend Parents Weekend with Paige, see their family again, and help Heather celebrate her "almost milestone" birthday!