Please Don't Go, Girl

While I'm a couple weeks behind on this entry, I still wanted to talk about the fact that the New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys (NKOTBSB) concert was, no lie, probably the best concert I've EVER been to. I was literally like a 12-year old girl throughout a good portion of it, and I'm not afraid to admit it. ;) Anyway, there were 6 of us girls, all of us with varying levels of appreciation for these guys and their music, but to say we had a blast would be quite the major understatement. Before the concert, I couldn't believe how much money I'd spent on my ticket. After the concert, I was like, "I would pay that much again in a heartbeat!" It's hard to explain why it was so good - it was just overall very entertaining, they were on stage for a long time, and they played all their main songs. Awesome! I took several videos (see below), but unfortunately, I ran out of memory space. Sad day. I apologize for the blurriness in some of the videos, and also the shakiness (especially towards the end of the night). It was combination of a few too many beers and a little too much excitement! ;) My personal favorite song is "Please Don't Go, Girl" by NKOTB. That's always been may fave, and then to top it off, Joey had his own little solo at the end of that song, and I was lucky enough to capture it on tape. That's my favorite video I took. I hope you enjoy, folks. Although, no video will compare to the real thing. As I mentioned, I'd go back in a heartbeat!

NKOTBSB - The Entrance
Oh my God, was I ever excited!!! :)


NKOTBSB - Larger Than Life


NKOTB - Please Don't Go, Girl
(Really blurry, but at least you can hear it!)


Joey - (Finishing "Please Don't Go, Girl")
This video seriously melts my heart. LOVE this song.


BSB - Show Me The Meaning of Being Lonely


BSB - Drowning


NKOTB - I'll Be Loving You Forever


NKOTBSB - Hangin' Tough

HBD, Jacob!!

Stating the obvious here, but I've been REALLY behind on blogging. I've had so many things going on these days (excuses, excuses), so unfortunately blogging took the first hit. I have tons of things to update you on, but for right now, just wanted to get out a quick entry to wish my brother Jacob a happy 28th birthday! Yes, I am a day late, but better late than never, right?! Anyway, I have posted a series of pictures of me and my bro (older pics first), most of them completely lacking any ounce of seriousness. But to know my relationship with him, you need to know that ridiculous pictures are our signature thing. I don't know about you, but these photos crack me up every time! Well, minus the one or two nice ones that we sneak in once in awhile! Here's to you, big bro! Hope you had a great day! :)

Heading to get family photos taken! Workin' on our good smiles. :)

Undergrad graduation. Special. :)

Being a nice bro carrying me in NYC when my feet hurt!

Ellis Island in NYC

Random night in La Crosse. Gets me every time! :)

Christmas '09
(Anyone besides me think he freakishly resembles Ace Ventura?!)

Celebrating my Master's graduation. Our most special series. ;)

Also Christmas '09

Smith Bros. Christmas party!

Las Palmas Mexican Restaurant!

Bloody Mary's at Chili Lili's in Milwaukee!

One too many shots of tequila at Alejandro's birthday party. ;)

Milwaukee Summer!

Look at me. Two blog posts in one day. Unheard of! ;)
Anyway, I just wanted to do an entry about the awesome weekend I just had here in Milwaukee! The first thing many people told me when I moved here was that I was going to LOVE the city in the summer. Nothing makes me happier than having fun things to do when the weather's gorgeous and the night's are long! Much to my dismay, however, I have spent very little time here during the past few months (on the weekends anyway). Don't get me wrong, I've loved all the happenings I've had going on, but aside from nights during the week, I haven't had the opportunity to really soak in the summer in "my" city, and it kinda bums me out. Fortunately, this past weekend changed that for me a bit! I'm not sure how familiar you are with Summerfest, but it's a HUGE 11-day music festival that takes place in Milwaukee every summer. I've been to it before, but didn't quite realize its magnitude until moving here. Quite a few months ago, I was hanging with a couple of my girlfriends and we happened to start talking about it once we noticed Sugarland was performing. We decided to get some tickets, and it seemed like foreverrrrrr until it came time to go. This weekend, it finally arrived! Lucky for us, it also happened to be my bestie Erin's birthday, so we got to jam-pack a lot of fun times and celebrating into one weekend. I've posted some pictures below to highlight some of the fun things we did. If you're not jealous, you should be! ;)

PJ's and a wild game of Phase 10 on Friday night. Yeah, we're old. ;)

In line for the Milwaukee Zoo!!

I don't get to a zoo too often, so I was kinda picture happy! :)
(Click on the photo to see larger images of the animals.)

Post-zoo, post-nap, pre-bowling!

Not sure if you can tell, but we're professional bowlers. :)

A cop on a bike just strolled on in. We forced him into a photo.

Brad, our awesomely entertaining bartender at the bowling alley!

The woman taking our photo suggested this pose. Cute! I like her. :)

This dude was juggling 5 flaming torches. For real?!
(How do you even discover you're good at something like that?!)

I found Justin Bieber!!! Enough said. :)

Anxiously awaiting the concert!!!

Sara Bareilles. Love her!

Sugarland. Such a GREAT show!!! Definitely seeing them again! :)

L to the A to the X

As I mentioned in my Weekend Bliss post, I was lucky enough to spend about 5 days in La Crosse over the 4th of July. Heaven! I must confess, Milwaukee is definitely growing on me (shhh, don't tell anyone!), but La Crosse still holds an extremely special place in my heart that I don't think will ever be replaced. I was actually there so long over the weekend that I have a hard time keeping track of my days and all the things I did. Here's my attempt at a recall.

• Drinks with a friend on Thursday night.
• Coffee with my former boss on Friday morning.
• Tubing on the Upper Iowa River on Friday afternoon.
• Grilling out with friends on Friday night.
• 8 hours on the Mississippi (and MAJOR sunburn) on Saturday.
• Grilling out again Saturday night.
• Meeting friends at Riverfest and getting sick from the heat.
• Restless sleep since I was sick.
• Rest on Sunday.
• Movie watching on Sunday morning.
• Riverfest with a few peeps on Sunday afternoon.
• Going to bed early Sunday night. Tired from heat exhaustion.
• Sleeping in on Monday.
• Helping cook (well, mostly helping EAT;) a delicious meal.
• Playing BINGO at Riverfest. (One # away from winning $56!)
• Grilling out. Again. We like to grill, okay?!
• Fireworks on the River.
• Bed.
• Driving back to MKE on Tuesday morning and going to work.

As you can see, many of the things that I predicted would happen DID happen, so it was a fabulous weekend! Well, aside from getting sick. Clearly that was not part of the plan. Then my "host" got sick on Sunday night. Doesn't help when he lives in a loft without air conditioning and it's over 100 degrees with the heat index, but that's a whole different subject! ;) Anyway, leaving LAX and coming back to Milwaukee, just to go straight to work on Tuesday, was not an easy thing to do. The drive was literally painful because I was THAT sunburned, and I was also exhausted! Overall, though, it was a GREAT weekend with some of my favorite people, and I'm already itching to go back! I get a brief little teaser on Thursday night as I'm making a pitstop there overnight on my way to the Cities for the NKOTBSB concert on Sunday. Exciting! I'll take what I can get! Anyway, sorry I don't have any pictures to show for the weekend I was in LAX. You wouldn't have wanted to see how sweaty and gross I was anyway. Ha! Well, I hope you all had a very happy 4th of July! :))

When

Hey, ya'll! ;) I just felt the need to share something really crazy. When I was in grad school, I went to a concert event on UW-L's campus with my friend Tiffany. She was an advisor for Campus Activities Board and helped plan the event, so she encouraged me to come. The singer was Javier, who I'd never heard of at the time. Unfortunately, there were very few people in attendance (I'm talking like 20-30 total), which is a shame for multiple reasons, the biggest reason being that it was an AMAZING show!! At the time, I was going through a pretty tough time in a relationship, so when I heard the song in the video below, I literally started crying. Tiff caught a glimpse of that "special" moment, but lucky for me she's a good enough friend that she didn't judge me! :) Anyway, as hard as it was for me to listen to that song, I just fell in love with it, not only because it rang so true, but also because it simply sounds beautiful. At the show, Javier told us that the song would be released soon. I faithfully checked, month after month, but no luck. So, for my fix, I just went to his MySpace page (wait, people still use MySpace?!) and listened to it over and over. Yeah, I probably have a good chunk of those 19,000+ listens. ;) For whatever reason, I thought of him today, so I was listening to that song repeatedly (yet again) and felt the need to tell Tiffany about it. Every time I listen to him, I think of her, so I told her that. She wrote back and told me a bit of a shocker. I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with the show, "The Voice," but it debuted this year, and here it turns out he won the whole damn thing?!?! I never watched it, so obviously I had NO clue. I find it really crazy and random that I thought about him and listened to him again today without knowing he was now "famous." I love weird stuff like that, and feel pretty proud to say that I liked him a long time ago for reasons other than the fact that he just won a reality show. Anyway, LONG story short, I am still just as in love with this song as I was then, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. I guess I should be thankful that he was on the show, because now, almost 2 years later, I was FINALLY able to purchase "When" on iTunes. :))