Miley vs. Hannah

I took the girls to see the Miley Cyrus concert in SLC on Sept the 29th. I keep saying Hannah Montana and they come unglued because that wasn't Hannah it was Miley!!!

I took them out of school early and headed south to Utah. We stopped in Tremonton at my parents house for a potty break and then went to SLC. We arrive at the Delta Center (oooh sorry the Energy Solutions Center) at around 5:30 and wandered through looking at all the Miley Cyrus crap they were selling. I just couldn't bring myself to pay $35 for a t-shirt, I feel a little bad about it, although not bad enough I guess because they came home with a $10 glow stick each! Even the programs were $20 bucks! I am too cheap for concerts I guess. We did see a friend of Cierras from Idaho Falls there, Whitney Bennion, I guess she was with her grandma. And we saw their Aunt Tammy and her family. I also thought it was kinda funny how they had more than half of the men's bathrooms converted into women's! We went up to our seats, when I say up I mean up. We were on the second tier, you know the ones above the box seats, on the second row. I thought for $59.95 we'd be closer...my mistake!! Although it was really cool the way the tickets worked. They were paperless and when you showed up to the door, you showed the credit card they were purchased on and ID and it printed your tickets for you. The guy who let us in the door said the system belongs to Miley to prevent the outrageous ticket scalping that happens at these types of shows. The only problem I see is that if you can't make it you can't give your tickets to someone else.

Anyway, we got to our seats and of course had to buy a $5 bag of Cotton Candy for each girl and a bag of Kettle Korn, then of course a drink and later on a cup of Dippin Dots ice cream. For Cierra the event is all about the snacks you buy her!

The opening band started at 7pm and was Metro Station which is Miley's brothers band. Now if you think of a Miley Cyrus concert 1/3 was teens, 1/3 was pre teen, and the other 1/3 were the preteens parents! I thought the music of the opening band was a little wild for the younger kids, but it was still pretty good. I am a harsh critic though, because I don't really care for live music, its way too loud to enjoy. The usher gave me and the girls earplugs and you could still hear the music perfectly.

They finished about 7:40, then they set the stage for Miley and she came out and started at 8pm. She didn't look right and I told the girls that it looked like something was wrong. Part way through I think her second song (it might have been her first) she ran off the stage. A manager of some sort came out and apologized telling everyone that Miley is sick and she needs a few minutes. About 20 minutes later she came out and finished her show. Some of her costume changes were a little long and they had a break in the middle where they were promoting her new movie that made me wonder if she normally does something there. The concert finished up about 9:20 and her last comment was that she wouldn't be coming back out on the stage...I think it meant don't ask for an encore. It was great that she went on with the show. Bill and I went to Vegas and Cher didn't have the same courtesy, maybe she needs to find out who Mileys Doctor is!!! I heard that Miley ended up rescheduling her next two concerts. It was a pretty good show, and because I went with a 7 and 10 year old who didn't have anything to compare it with it was awesome to them. I think it would've been longer and more energetic had she felt better, but considering they could've cancelled at the last minute and I would've had to come back, I thought it was great. Cierra liked sitting in her chair and listening to the show while eating her spoils, Abbie on the other hand wanted so badly to get out of her chair and sing and dance, but was embarrassed I wish now that I would've taken a friend for her. Oh well live and learn right? I would have tried to find someone to come with us, but I thought I was ridiculous to spend that kind of money on 3 tickets I couldn't imagine asking someone else to spend it!!! All in all we had a pretty great time. We were back in Tremonton and the girls were in bed by 10:30 not too shabby! I sure love spending time with my girls. I think they are such great kids and I love them very much!

Seattle Trip

Geez I haven't blogged forever it seems like!! I have a few to catch up on so hopefully I can get that done this week. It's so hard to blog a whole vacation we had so much fun!! And took quite a few pictures. I am not sure I can get them all on here so I'll do my best to keep it short!

In mid September we took our family on a vacation to Seattle. It's one of our favorite spots and we can do it quick and a little less expensive since we have family we can stay with. We left on a Wednesday right after the kids got home from school, we went through Pocatello to Boise and on to Baker City where we spent the night in a motel that was a little scary!!! The thing looked like it was built in the 50's but the sign on the front called it the newest Motel in town...yikes!!! But it was just a nights sleep and on we went. We grabbed breakfast by the hand (its what my dad always called breakfast at mcdonalds) and headed out. We drove up through the tri-city area (Yakima and such) and stopped for lunch in Ellensburg. Its a really cute town. On our way out Bill said to the kids we'd better make sure we're headed to Seattle and not Yakima. And Cierra pipes up and says "Yeah, we don't wanna go to some place named after PUKE!!!!" It was funny at the time! We arrived in Seattle, Kent actually, that's where Bill's Aunt Mary lives, around 3pm. We visited, and the kids looked in every nook and cranny of Mary's house (much to my horror!). She fixed dinner for us and since the kids didn't want to be in the car much longer we decided to go and see a movie with Stan and Mary. We saw UP! It was very sweet, I recommend it to everyone!

Friday we got up and had breakfast and head up to Seattle. We drove to the Fremont District and saw the Troll under the bridge. Very Cool! Then when and watched the boats go through the Chittenden Locks.

We went into Seattle and parked, it cost us a ton of money to do so too!, down by the pier and had lunch at Ivars, another favorite, and fed the seagulls our fries. The kids had chicken of course!! Bill had clam chowder and I had the Cod fillets. I love it! Walked up to Pioneer Square to do an underground tour but it was sold out and we would have had to wait 2 hours for the next available tour so we decided to nix it. The last time we went to Seattle we took the kids to the top of the Space Needle, this time we thought we'd take them on a different perspective. We walked up to the Bank of America tower and went to their observation deck and looked at Seattle from the highest building in the city. For the price of one admission to the space needle we got our whole family to the observation deck. I really liked the view it was beautiful, only the day was a bit cloudy so you couldn't see Mt. Rainer very good. But you could look right down into the Mariners and Seahawks stadiums. Which was way cool! After that we walked down to Pikes Place Market. On our way Abbie ended up as part of a street show, it was so cute and she was completely embarrased!!

We went and bought our Medium Salmon and some flowers for Aunt Mary and then headed back to her house to have fresh salmon for dinner!!! YUM!!!! Then relaxed there for the rest of the evening. Whenever we've gone on vacation the kids are just as content to sit back at the hotel room or the family members house were staying at rather than go site seeing! This makes me grumpy!

On Saturday morning we woke up to rain, but if you don't do stuff in the rain when your in Seattle you don't do much!! Uncle Stan fixed us pancakes and eggs for breakfast, thank you Stan it was yummy! First we went to the Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent. It was very neat to see. It hasn't been there long, but there were still a lot of military buried there. Then our plan was to go to the Seattle Center and take the kids to the hands on childrens science museum. We parked and of course paid to do so, and walked over just to find out that it was closed for the week. They had another childrens play museum type thing, if you've ever been to the treehouse museum in Ogden its very similar. The girls played in that for a while. Bill and Jesse sat and listened to a Spanish game/performance that was going on that day. Then we left and drove around Seattle for a bit. We then went to a Japanese market, Uwajimaya, and looked around for a bit. It was time to head back to Kent and pick up Stan and Mary and bring them back in for the game, on our way back we stopped in Renton and checked out Jimi Hendrix's grave then headed back to Stan and Mary's house. They ordered pizza for dinner, we watched a little football...Washington Huskies won...BYU lost. Then headed to the game. The mariners were playing the yankees. It was very fun, it started to rain so we got to see them close the dome and that was pretty cool. The kids got cotton candy and I ate kettle korn for the first time in my life...and I liked it!!

Sunday morning we got up, had some breakfast and headed home we left around 8:30am (9:30 idaho time). This time we came through Spokane, Coeur d'Alene, and down through Montana getting home about 9:30pm. It was a very quick trip, but a very fun one. And we appreciate Stan and Mary for letting us use their home as a hotel!