Best Weekend EVER

Well I certainly haven't updating in a pretty long time. Around here it's been a lot of the same boring days with out a job and long days of looking for one. Although this last week has been pretty darn exciting. My friend Adam Watts is a singer/songwriter and is working with a pretty new artist by the name of Joel Piper. They're both pretty amazing and super duper talented. Anyways, Joel was having his second ever concert on 7/23/2011, so I thought I would go down to Anaheim and have a listen. I decided to ask my cousin along considering she loves music just as much as I do. My Mom was awesome and rented us a hotel room for the night so we didn't have to drive back the same night because it's a 3 hour drive...so the hotel was SO great. Now on to how our day went. I woke up at six AM so I could try to leave my house by 7:30 to be there to pick her up at 9AM like I had told her but one thing led to another and I didn't actually leave the house till 9AM...(mornings aren't my favorite...) I got to Santa Clarita to pick her up and then we were off to Venice Beach. I had never been there and neither had she so it was going to be an adventure for the both of us. And one small reason I chose Venice to start out the day is because the Shaytards hang out there ALL the time. If you don't know who they are you totally should. They are an LDS family that is just SO amazing. They are HUGE on youtube for making their daily vlogs. This family has made me realize what a true eternal family is, how a marriage should be, and how a wife should treat her husband and vice versa. They are truly an inspiration and a wonderful example. Now that I got that covered back to the day...We arrived at Venice beach started walking toward the shops and venders and such and I kept telling my cousin how awesome it would be if we actually did run in to Shay and his family and going on about it...lol We started looked around in the shops and then walked over to a Henna booth and started looking at the designs. (I'm LDS so we don't tattoo our bodies) My cousin decided she wanted to get a Henna design so she handed me her purse as she sat down to get it done and I mentioned again "Man that would be so cool to meet Shay and his family. (By this time I'm probably bugging the crap out of here because I keep mentioning it.) And then I turned around and saw a chubbyish man with a large beard wearing a hat standing behind a stroller messing about with his iPhone and then I noticed a blue surf board next to him, then I notice a little girl riding a bike around him with brown hair and he turned slightly towards me and my heart stopped. It was the Shaytard family. I turned to my cousin and almost squealed with glee as I told her that they were standing behind us looking at the sunglasses. All I could think was "Oh my gosh, Oh My Gosh" I knew they hung out there all the time but never did I actually think I would get to meet them in person. My cousin finally convinced me to go up to them and say hello and I am so happy I did. They were the NICEST people ever. We talked for a couple of minutes and they Shay asked if I would like to get a photo with them and I was like YES!! haha. So I got a photo with Shay and his wife and then we went on our way. We spent probably another two and half hours wandering up and down Venice beach and then decided to leave to get to the hotel and find some scrumptious food to eat. It actually took us longer to get to the hotel than expected to it was a very good thing we left Venice earlier than expected. We took everything up to our room and then sat there for about twenty minutes just relaxing and then we were on our way to Anaheim to Joel's show. We pulled into the parking lot and I noticed Joel was standing next to his car and I showed my cousin and she literally squealed with excitement. (Ever since I told her who we were going to see, she looked him up and immediately said "He's a Babe" haha. So we sat in my car for a while and then got out to see where we would pick the tickets up at and what not. Realized we couldn't do anything for another hour so we left and got something to eat so we didn't die of starvation and made our way back to the venue just in time to stand in line a couple of minutes at will call to pick up the tickets and walk in. We walked in and sat down on the only place to sit down in the whole place and stayed there for most of the night because Joel was the last to perform. The bands that went up all pretty much sounded terrible, the acoustics in the building were some of the worst I had ever heard but we were still having a pretty good time. Then about fourty five minutes before Joel was going to go up on stage my friends Adam and Natalie Watts walked in. I couldn't believe it. I had no idea there were going to be there and was completely surprised. I hadn't seen them since December so I was pretty darn excited to see them. And my cousin is a HUGE fan of all of Adam AND Natalie's music so she was literally coming out of her skin. I yelled Adam's name and they turned and I must say Adam's expressions make me laugh out loud. They were excited to see me and I introduced my cousin to them and we all started talking. Then Adam introduced me and my cousin to Gannin Arnold, another GREAT musician and songwriter, Adam went to do something so he handed his gigantic amazing beautiful I wish I had one Canon 5D Mark II camera to Natalie and did whatever he was going to do and I mentioned to Natalie that I LOVED his camera and wanted one SO bad and she was like "Have you ever held this thing? It is SO heavy!" and she handed it to me and I got to hold it!!!! That was almost as great as meeting the Shaytards. I couldn't believe I was actually holding my dream camera AND it was Adam's camera. HE IS AN AMAZING PHOTOGRAPHER!! HAHA Right there my day would have been complete. We all talked a little more and they mentioned Joel Piper and then they asked if Carissa and I had ever met him and we had not. And then they said oh we'll have to introduce you to him. I though Carissa was going to just die. For Joel's set we went up to the stage to get some photos and hear the great music. I did get some great shots and the music was really great. His voice is amazing and he has great stage presence. After the show we went and talked to Adam and Natalie again and then Adam took Carissa and I up to meet Joel before he left and Joel was really nice and easy to talk to. After all the amazing fun from ALL day we made our way to In N Out which is a tradition of mine after ever live music show I go there and then we made our way back to the hotel. And finally had a wonderful nights sleep. The next day we went to Santa Monica Pier and 3rd Street Promenade. I SO wish I had tons of money. I could have spend thousands and thousands there. I got some great photos and it was beautiful.

Here are some snapshots of the amazing weekend.















I'm so thankful God gives me weekends such as these. Makes everything worth while.