Symphony Concert in the Park

Last summer we decided to brave keeping the boys up past their bedtimes for the first time ever. We were nervous. In the months after starting to sleep through the night, their routine was very precious to us. Now that we'd had a taste of sleeping normally again, we were reluctant to try anything that might screw that up. But with some prompting from friends, we risked it. We took the boys to their first ever concert in the park held by the Austin Symphony Orchestra just south of downtown.

And they loved it.

That same summer series kicked off again a few weeks ago. Last night the woodwinds played, and we were there to enjoy it.

Joseph immediately ran up to the stage with his buddies Connor, Dorian & Roman.

Hi, Mom!

Luke hung back with Ethan and got a few snuggles from Nina while he took in the scene at his own pace.





Joseph's best dance move, jumping.



My attempt at getting a cute shot of Luke with the Austin skyline. Ha! Grapes took priority.

Me, hanging out with my handsome, hungry men

I love this man. Happy Father's Day, Greg.

Hugfest on the dance floor. Joseph cozied up to the little blond girl in the pink dress, this kid and his father.



Luke did a little dancing, but he was much more interested in running up and down the hill that makes up the concert park. And tossing balls with Daddy.


Joseph thinks there needs to be less ball-throwing...


...and more dancing!

It worked. Briefly.

The floor has lighted tiles. Joseph was enthralled.




Charlie thought it was pretty cool too.



A bunch of the kids felt like the middle of the dance floor was a good place to lie down and take a leisurely break. I stood by the side, resisting my helicopter parenting urges, just hoping that no one would fall on him. Amazingly, I didn't see one kiddo get clobbered or cry the entire night.


Ah, the symphony. Where the mosh pit is so much more considerate.

This was as good a time as any to take a quick pretzel break for Joseph and a sitting break for Mommy. The temperature wasn't bad once the sun set, but look at poor Joseph's flushed cheeks! He was partying hard out there and loving every minute of it.


And then right back into the action!


It was a great Father's Day weekend, action-packed and full of fun. As challenging and exhausting as daddy-hood can be sometimes, days like this really make you appreciate the awesomeness that is parenthood. Hope you had a great one too!

The boys are 2 and 2 weeks.

Serenade

Greg plays the boys a love song.

And tames a wild beast. :)

The boys are 1 day shy of 4 months old. Already!

This Is How We Spend Our Evenings...

I'm downstairs with George, catching up on some much-neglected blog reading.

He's upstairs on the desktop, going through 228 gigs of music from our friend's hard drive. I've just been informed that there's a folder called 'Porn Soundtracks'. Greg sampled two beautiful tunes for my listening pleasure - 'Porn Base' and 'Deep Throat'.

QUAAAAALITYYYYYY! Thanks, babe.

ACL 2008

Austin City Limits Mustic Festival this year was two weeks later than usual and still hot, but bearably hot for a change. We had 3-day passes but only did half-days on Saturday & Sunday, a good strategy considering this was the first year that I wasn't sick for an entire week after the festival.

Early on Friday - this is actually a small crowd now

Allison Krauss & Robert Plant were awesome!

I love the music at ACL fest, of course. But there are a few other things I love just as much, including...

1. Overpriced festival food

$7 "turkey & brie panini" Ummm...

2. Interesting fashion senses

Batman

Old dude wearing a skirt

Her feet must be boiling!

3. And the ingenuity of festival goers

Ample bicycle parking


Happy ACL fest, everyone!

Ani Worship

Ani Difranco's music moves me deeply.

But I am a sad excuse for a fan compared to my friend Mar who has been known to go on multi-state, groupie road trips to catch show after show after show. Luckily whenever Ani is coming to town, I receive instant notification from Mar and have a concert buddy since Greg is slightly intimidated by the raging lesbian crowd that Ani's shows draw. (FYI, most of the lesbians I've seen at her shows are not so much raging as mooning. Big difference. Nothing to fear, Greg.)

So Ani made another breeze through Austin last month - this time sans baby belly. It was an amazing show as usual! But what made this one even better... Mar brought her most adorable 9-month-old Hadley to the show, and as we walked through the entrance we were asked if we wanted to sit in the VIP section! Because of Hadley!

**All concert moms! Bring your babies to Stubb's! You can't beat the perks!**

Mar & sweet Hadley, who melted Greg with her smiles

SXSW Hipster Style - a Pictorial Tutorial

Gentlemen:

• slightly greasy, unkempt hair
• chains and other metallic accessories
• tight jeans that accentuate a complete lack of any butt whatsoever
• ironic t-shirt, again, tightly fitted

Ladies:

• flowy summer dress
• cowboy boots
• huge, no, I mean HUGE earrings
• extra eye liner
  

Everyone:

• disaffected look of boredom and/or counter-cultural superiority
• tattoos
• stretched lobes
• sometimes when feeling extra-specially festive, it may be necessary to bust out the furry, multi-colored go-go boots with matching bikini

Obviously this festival afforded us an inordinate amount of people-watching opportunities, one of my all-time favorite pastimes. It was awesome. But, seriously, I've never seen so many super-skinny boys in my life. Eat something! My sister and I, who unfortunately both inherited the 'ghetto booty' gene, have enough to go around. We were walking around trying to find one decent visible butt amongst all these hipster boys but, realizing the utter futility, soon gave up. After abandoning our search, my sister turns to me and says, "You know, between the two of us, we could probably ass 5 or 6 of these guys." And you know what, it's so true.

Double Date Fun

Looking for a unique date idea? Allow me to suggest dinner and a concert inside a natural cave! That's right - in a limestone bedrock cavern. The inspired music lovers at Longhorn Cave State Park have organized various concerts throughout the year. Most of them are vocalists from what I understand, but last night was the first ever piano concert that they've attempted. It took a few enormously beefy men an hour and a half to schlepp a grand piano down the 52 stone steps, through the cavern, and into the big room. I shudder to think how long it took them to get it back out...


We, along with our friends Mark and Brianna, reserved tickets to see Joseph Cordi, an Austin jazz musician, perform some of his own inventions plus a few oldy-but-goody standards. After the regular tour and a fajita dinner, it was a lovely way to wind down the evening. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.

The regular cavern tour helped us build up an appetite too. Thanks for the find, Brianna!

No Love from ACL

I did not win the super special $50 tickets for the 2008 Austin City Limits music festival. Same as last year. But I remain optimistic. Surely one of these days I will be that lucky one in... what?... a thousand that wins out in the drawing. But I did cough up the money to buy 2 tickets at the earlybird price (I think that saves us about $15 per ticket so not terribly impressive). If we're feeling uninspired next year, I'm sure we'd have no problems selling them off.

To be quite honest, Greg and I weren't terribly enamored with the festival this year. It was boiling hot, which is nothing new but this year the weathermen were predicting a cold front to blow in Saturday morning. Liars! I can handle the heat. No problem. I'm a Texan. I'm used to it. But when told to expect lower temps that just don't arrive, I'm mentally beaten down. Cruel, weather dudes, very cruel. I think Dilek had it right when she said the ACL officials pay off the local stations to get a high turnout.

Besides the weather though, we weren't really inspired by any unknown (to us, anyway) bands like we have been in the past. But the acts we really wanted to see were good. Paolo Nutini was fun, although he seemed high/drunk/disoriented when we heard him on a radio interview earlier that morning at 11 a.m. Maybe that's just the way he talks. Or maybe he really was wasted before midday. He sang most of his set doubled over in an awkward hunch. That just can't be good for his 20-year-old body (damn, am I showing my age?). He sang a song about pot-smoking. I wish I could remember the words because they were pretty funny, but that was the most animated he performed in the whole set. I was crushed up close with the standing-room-only crowd because Paolo just so happens to sing my personal theme song New Shoes. (Do you have a theme song? You should really work on that if you don't.) So I thank him for making that the second song in his set so I could retreat back to the more open, cooler spaces in the back. The next big act I was waiting for was Andrew Bird. Loooove him! And he did not disappoint, although I have to say I slightly prefer his solo act when I first saw him opening for Ani Difranco. He was amazing at that show, looping recorded sounds to make a one man band! Then for the last act of the night, we caught Arcade Fire. We fell in love with these guys when they played at ACL a few years back. I'm happy to see that their fan base has grown considerably since then. We did sneak out early though. I hated missing the last of AF's set, but I just cannot stand to be in the crush of people all filtering out of the narrow gaps at once at the end. I get entirely too claustrophobic and anxious. Too many other bodies touching me. Breathing too much recycled air. Too much body heat and sweat transfer. Ew, no.

But I have our tickets for next year. Now all we have to do is wait another 10 months to see who's playing. Patience is a virtue, right.

Gearing Up for ACL

Its finally here! We have passes for an all day musical lovefest at the Austin City Limits festival tomorrow. This will be my fourth ACL. The first couple of years we bought 3-day passes, but after the festival in 2005 when Zilker Park was transformed into one huge, brown dustball from crazy heat and grass pummeled to death, we downgraded to the one-day passes. Three days killed me both years - the heat, dehydration, massive crowds and brown boogers for the whole of the following week... I just can't hack it anymore, and it was not enjoyable. A few of our friends even said they were coughing up blood after inhaling all that dust in '05. Ew. Who wants that?

So we're going on Saturday. I'm a bit disappointed because Amy Winehouse, one of the big names I wanted to see this year cancelled. Apparently, she's worn herself toxic from all the booze, heroin, cocaine, horse tranquillizers, and heaven-knows-what-else that she regularly pumps into her system. Gotta get yourself to rehab, girl! And then just last week The White Stripes cancelled too. Boo. But its sure to be a great day nonetheless. Besides, this festival has always been about discovering new music for us so I guess its good that our schedule is more open now. I'm still super stoked to see Paolo Nutini, Andrew Bird and Arcade Fire though!

Ok, I'm off to hydrate and mentally prepare myself for brush-ups against sweaty strangers' limbs. Wish us good weather and TP in the portapotties!

Why Do I Love Andrew Bird?

...because words like 'mitosis' and 'chemical reaction' and 'electrons' pop up regularly in his songs. :)

Oh, and because his music has a unique, quirky sound that appeals to me.

KGSR is playing his songs in anticipation of his ACL appearance. Can't wait!

So Excited!!

I just bought our one-day tickets for the Saturday of ACL fest! Yay! I'm so excited! Check out the lineup!

Here's our plan of attack so far:

Raul Malo
Paolo Nutini
Andrew Bird (saw him open for Ani Difranco - he was awesome!)
Damien Rice
Amy Winehouse
Muse
Arcade Fire (saw them at ACL 2005 - amazing!)
White Stripes

Yeah baby!

Rock On!

I love it when a relatively tame night of celebrating 1/2-birthdays and happy hour martinis at 219 West turns into an '80's hair band tribute and rockin' out to the forgotten tunes of Headbanger's Ball. Don't you?

Metal Shop at Cedar Street.
Don't forget your sparkly pants and Aquanet.

Concert at the Parrish

Under the Influence of Giants were coming to Austin. They were going to put on a show at the Parrish. Greg and I were super-excited about it. We even talked Kenan and Dilek into going with us. And then Greg got an email...

Apparently they cancelled at the last minute and will now be doing only local shows - 'local', as in L.A. Boo! But we already had the tickets and the show was going to include 3 other bands so we decided to give it a shot. First was a band called Liam and me. They were alright. Nothing special in my opinion, but nothing wrong with them either. Next came Play Radio Play, the solo project of a 17-year-old kid from Fort Worth, and this is what he has to say on his MySpace page:

Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.
I dont drink, smoke, do drugs, or have sex, and I am proud to say I am still a virgin.

A little in-your-face with the goodie-goodie image for my tastes, but to each his own. Nothing wrong with that, and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the music. Last was a band called Young Love. I'd never heard of these folks, but apparently they're alright by the 18-25 crowd in Austin. I can't remember the last time I was out and about with underaged minors, but they were abundant judging by all the big black X's marked on waving, gyrating hands. Band adoration is contagious, however, so we ended up having a blast, drinking entirely too much, and hopping over to Maggie Mae's, where we were surrounded by a huge graduation crowd and got to see an amazing bit of hip action from one of the dancing drunk girls. All in all, fab night. :)

Now I must go sleep it off and enroll in belly dancing classes tomorrow.

p.s. Hope you're having a great time in Mexico, Mom!