Just what I wanted...a ballroom

So over the past month Mom and I have been getting the living room prepped to have it's flooring replaced.  The carpet that was in there was 20 years old at least and was refusing to be cleaned anymore.  Regardless of how much carpet washing Mom did it still stunk.  So a while back we discussed what to replace it with.  I wanted carpet back in there, since most of the floors on the main level are hard, but she wanted something easier to clean.  I finally caved when I saw the most beautiful cherry hardwood laminate at Home Depot, as long as we could get a large area rug for in between the couch and chairs.  We saved a whole bunch of money moving the furniture (and there was a lot!),  pulling up the carpet ourselves and cleaning the room to ready it for the laminate.  The past two days was the installation and it is truly gorgeous.  I think it looks like a ballroom without all the furniture in it.  Anyone need to use a fancy dress that's sitting in a closet?  We will be moving all the furniture back in shortly, but until then enjoy a slide show of the living room's makeover.  (Sorry I didn't have any pictures of it FULL of furniture.)

Josh Groban Live!

Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this, but as usual life has been crazy busy.  Two Saturdays ago Mom and I drove over to Seattle, yet again.  We have been over there so much this summer I told her we should just buy a condo...yeah right.  The reason for this trip was to see Josh Groban's Straight to You Tour at the Key Arena!  I was super excited for this trip mostly because I love Josh Groban's music.  I was also pretty proud at how I bought these tickets. While I was at work one weekend I took my break at 10 when the tickets went on sale and bought them on my iPod touch using the hospital's wifi.  Technology is pretty awesome.  :)

We drove over Saturday morning and went to Bellevue Square to do some shopping.  I got a cute hoodie and scarf from Eddie Bauer, Mom got some shirts for her teddy bear at Build-A-Bear Workshop and we both got soap and lotions at Bath and Body Works.  They also have a Disney Store there and I went looking for baby clothes with Winnie-the-Pooh on them, but alas they only had Mickey and Minnie stuff for babies.  They did have LOTS of other fun dress up clothes for older kids and I was drooling a bit.  I'd like to have a girl and a boy because I wanted to buy all the princess dresses for the girl and all the Toy Story/Peter Pan costumes for the boy.  We went to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch/dinner there in the mall and as always had fabulous food and cheesecake.  I had found a great deal on a hotel in Bellevue and we checked in and got our stuff up so we didn't have to haul it up there at midnight after the concert.  When we left I forgot the tickets in the room and we had to go back.  Then as we left for the second time I saw Mt. Rainier looking beautiful and realized I had forgot my camera!!  I think that hotel has a Harry Potter obliviate charm on it because I could not seem to remember anything!!

When we got to the Key Arena they had a really nice parking garage adjacent to the Seattle Center.  As we walked in I got a great picture of the Space Needle and EMP building.  As we walked further into the park we came upon the International Fountain in the middle of a show.  It was a lot like the fountains at Bellagio in Vegas, with music and the fountains "dancing" to it, only people could go and run under the water as it came down.  It was really quite enchanting to watch.

The seats we got at the Key Arena were pretty close to nosebleed unfortunately.  And the seats were horrible!  I had to put one hip and then another down as I sat because I literally could not sit down normally the seats were so small.  Then the next row was so close in front of me that my knees were pressing against the plastic back.  Once I got in I tried not to move.  The next time I'll pay for floor seats because they were just padded folding chairs which would have been much more comfortable.

The concert was fantastic regardless of the seats.  We could see everything and the music filled the entire arena without blowing your ears out.  It was nice to learn what the stories were behind some of the songs so you understood better what they meant.  

Josh was funny and there was a question and answer part where you could text in your questions and he answered a select few.  Like "If your life was a movie, who would play you and what sort of movie would it be?"  He started by joking saying it would be a sci-fi/fantasy and then said in reality it would probably be on Lifetime.  Or "If you were on Sesame Street what character would you do a duet with?"  He said probably Elmo, though he wants everything repeated and so he'd end up singing the chorus of You Raise Me Up a dozen times.  He has a pretty spot on Elmo impression too. 

The people in the audience though were a bit flat.  He asked a couple of people what you should do while your in Seattle.  The first said she didn't know and the second said, "drink coffee."  Mom and I had a bunch of better answers...Eat at the Spaghetti Factory...Go walking down at the piers...Shop at Pike Place Market...Go to the top of the Space Needle...Take a ferry ride anywhere!  Must be those people who live there all the time and are jaded about what there is to do.  

But truly the concert was the best I have ever been to, you didn't want it to end when it did.  All the best songs, an amazing group of musicians (who did a killer rendition of Live and Let Die), and an honestly funny, generous and kind singer who should get more appreciation than he does.  I'd go again in a minute.  And I remembered to get a video of at least one song.  Here it is.  (I loaded it on to YouTube since it was so long.  And there are a lot of better videos from the Seattle concert on there if you want to see more.)