Birthday, babies, and beer (not necessarily in that order...)

Gosh I have been so bad at blogging lately. Have not felt like doing much scrappy lately - sometimes it is just easier to play mindless games on Facebook than to be creative.. 

So.. the babies... HAHA NOOOO I am not having another one (no way in hell that would EVER happen!) but we have been having lots of 4 legged woolly babies born in the last few week. 2 were rejected by their mommas so they are being bottle fed. One is white, and she has a couple of brown spots on her head and her butt. She is really cute. Neither one has a name yet, other than DumDum (you bring me gumgum?) The little male has figured a way through the fence, so we'll be patching holes and putting chicken wire around the bottom of the fence to keep him in. Silly thing.

My birthday was on Sunday... which just happened to be the day that Josh Thompson was going to be in Springfield for a show. Didn't really think I'd be able to go for the show, since it wasn't until late, but then he posted on FB that he would be doing a mini-acoustic show and signing cd's at Best Buy from 2-4pm. So my daughter and I decided to go. Ended up leaving a little late, so we didn't get there in time to hear him sing, but in a way that was good, because we ended up being about 5th in line for the meet and greet.  I was hoping to have Josh sign "happy birthday" but as I was telling someone how to use my camera so I'd have pictures, she went right up to him and said "Hi Josh! My name is Rhiannan!" so he signed it to her instead. Not a big deal. We talked just for a few minutes - I mentioned that I had talked to him on twitter before, and he asked my twitter name, so I told him. He said "Oh yeah, I remember seeing your tweet earlier - Happy birthday!" Which was nice. Then we got a picture - have to say - that shirt he was wearing is the softest flannel I have felt in forever.. Very sweet guy! (but gosh, he looked so tired!)

We also saw Van-A-White in the parking lot! I couldn't get a better pic there though, because there was too much traffic.. Josh has a really hilarious "bus tour" type video about Van-A-White on his website. 

We were bummed that we didn't get to see the songs, so we thought we would see if we could find some information on the show that night. Stopped at a walgreen, got a paper and directions to the convention center. Drove over, stopped to talk to the girl in the ticket booth. Yes, tickets were still available, cost was $25 each. Ok. Had enough money. Called home to check in. Told my mom (who was expecting us home for dinner) what had happened with the show and asked if she would be upset if we stayed for the show. She said of course not, it's your birthday, do what you want. So we got tickets.. and then had to wait for 3 hours before we could get in. 

The nice thing  about having time to kill in Springfield... is that there is a lot of historical stuff to see. Unfortunately it was sunday afternoon, and a lot of places were closed, but we could still see them from the outside. We saw the old state capitol building, 

Lincoln's tomb, 

and the three war memorials. 

Korean War, 

World War II

Vietnam

Visiting the war memorials made me cry, especially the Vietnam memorial - the name of somebody my mother knew is on that wall. I had not thought of him for a long time - but remembered his name easily when I went to look for it. The letters look a little funny, but it was raining out when I took the picture. Fitting, I suppose. Rest in Peace, Keith...  

Went back to the convention center to wait to be let in.. have not seen so much flannel in one place in a while.. LOL.  We took a few pics of ourselves to pass the time.. 

We did get a better picture of Van-A-White too.

Our seats were great in that we could see the whole stage, head on, but it was pretty far back. Just as well, since I had my daughter with me, and (since it was the Jagermeister tour) there was a lot of drinking going on in the standing room only section. So the concert pics aren't as great. But it was nice to be able to sit and watch the show. The first performer was Shawn Patrick McGraw (yep, related to Tim in some way). He was pretty good, and I want to get a copy of his CD. He has a song "Cow Tipping" which was just hilarious.

Then the guy that was doing the announcing played a couple of songs (did not manage to catch his name). And then it was Josh's turn. He played almost every song from the album, and a couple of extras. Thanked everyone for the albums sales (it debuted at #9) and had a great time.  (the pics aren't great, because I still don't have a better zoom lens and we were pretty far back.. )

Beer on the Table, of course, was the last song he played. For part of it, he had the crowd singing the chorus, and we could hear it almost as loud as when he was singing it. It was really cool. Afterwards he said "I appreciate the hell out of you guys - thank you so much!!" and toasted the crowd.

We didn't stay for Eric Church - it was 9pm by the time Josh was done, we were both tired, and we had a 2 hour drive ahead of us. And I didn't want to be leaving at the same time all the drunk people were leaving.. Overall, a pretty good day..