"Something To Believe In" And One Fun Night!!

This post is mostly, well okay, about 90% dedicated to the Bret Michaels concert Ry, I and a friend of ours went to the other night, but first I just wanted to share just a little bit of my Christmas with you guys.

Phew...it's been a crazy busy last few days. Christmas was so, so good this year. Totally different than any other Christmas I have ever had before, but different in such a great way. It's really different seeing Christmas from the eyes of children. Kind of melts your heart just a bit. Obviously, this was the first Christmas that either myself or my family has had a Christmas with kids around. I have to say having Ry and his two kids there for Christmas was a great addition to our family. Ry the kids and I spent Christmas Eve at Ry's parents house, and then Christmas day we spent the whole day with my family. It was great! There were a few times over the two days when I was kind of left "breathless" with how good the day was. It was a totally different kind of "breathless" that I have had the last two Christmas's. It was so amazing to have a Christmas filled with love again. Ry and I set a limit for our little gift exchange and I have to say he did a great job. He got me, a medicine ball (we are going to start working out together), a jewelry box, hats and gloves, UofM slippers, Bath and Body works shower gel, a UofM sweat shirt, and a paper shredder. (I know boring, but I wanted one). I think he did amazingly well in the gift department if you ask me. Our first Christmas was truly great! You want to know another wonderful thing Ry did with me on Christmas day? Well for the last two Christmas's I have gone to Shawn's grave. I knew I wanted and needed to go again this year but was trying to figure out a good time to go with all of the running we were doing. I asked Ry if he wanted and would go out with me and he did. So the two of us went out there, it was the first time Ry had gone to the cemetery with me, so it was kind of a big deal. We went out, Ry wiped the snow off of Shawn's head stone and the two of us just stood there for a few minutes. Then Ry asked me if I wanted a few minutes alone and gave me a quick hug. I could not have asked for Ry to respond in a better way. I was also so happy that I got to go and spend a few moments with Shawn. This Christmas was really one to remember and I'm glad that it was not as sad as the last few have been.

Here is a picture of the four of us plus Bo. As you can see by the picture none of us, including Bo could get our act together and take a decent picture. As bad as this one is, it's the best one that we all took. Yes, that is my mom's hand holding up the tennis ball for Bo to look at. He will do anything for a tennis ball.

Okay...now onto Bret Michaels!!!! Holy cow I was so excited on Monday I just about could not even stand myself. For those of you who don't know I LOVE Bret Michaels. Poison was one of the first tapes that I ever bought and I listened to it over and over again. Something to Believe in is probably one of my favorite songs of all time. Well that and Ever Rose Has It's Thorn. I'm not lying when I say that I wore out my tape. I'm not usually attracted to guys with long blond hair, or guys who wear eye liner, and skin tight jeans, but I'm sorry Bret Michaels is just plain smokin hot!!! I have always wanted to see Poison, and Bon Jovi in concert but have never been able too. Well, a few months ago it was announced that Bret Michaels would be coming to our local casino with two great other 80's hair bands, Firehouse and Warrant. I read it on the casino's web page and about jumped right out of my chair. I called Ry immediately and told him we were going. The day they went on sale I bought our tickets and have been looking forward to the night ever since.

Well, this past Monday the night finally arrived!!! Ry and I went with a friend of ours. Funny side story...we went with our friend Mary. Who I actually went to school with, her and I went to prom with the same group of people, although the two of us were never really friends. Anyways, Mary and Ry met about three years ago and have been great friends ever since. So when I met Ry I was re-introduced to Mary. Mary and I hit it off instantly and now the three of us do stuff together. So Mary went to the concert with us. Alrighty, back to the concert.....We left for the show at 7:00 because the show started at 8:00. On the way the three of us talked and listed to a Poison. We had to get ready for the concert!

We got to the casino and went to the concert hall to find our seats. For $65, I was shocked as to how good our seats were. We had GREAT seats. We were in the second big section back from the stage and we had just about center stage seats. Not to mention the huge jumbo tron screens that were also right in front of us.

The first bad to play was Firehouse and they were super great and totally full of energy. For those of you who don't know some of their famous 80's songs are "Don't Treat Me Bad", "Don't Walk Away", and perhaps their most famous "Love of a Lifetime" They played all of those plus more and put on a great show.


"Love of A Lifetime!"

Mary, Ry and I in between bands.

After Firehouse was Warrant. They were also really really good and totally rocked the house. Their all time famous song is "Cherry Pie" I'm almost sure if you like 80's music you remember that song.


"She's my cherry pie...."

One of Ry and I. Good picture besides the fact you can totally see up my nose! Ha!

After both Firehouse and Warrant, there was about a 20 minute break and Bret (yeah, I just call him Bret) finally took the stage. I was so dang excited!!! I was a little nervous because I had heard from people that when he tours without Poison he mainly plays his new stuff. However, much to my surprise he played only a few new songs and totally rocked out on old Poison. I was as giddy as a school girl. He sang, "Talk Dirty to Me," "Look What the Cat Dragged In", "Nothing But a Good Time", "Fallen Angel", and thank you God he sang my two favorites, "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" and "Something To Believe In" I tell you when he played those songs I got total goose bumps. It was AWESOME!!
Bret taking the stage for the first time.
Bret singing away....
Ya see that...Bret is pointing to me. (NOT! but I can pretend he is)
A half way decent close up
The hat comes off and the famous bandanna goes on. He can totally rock that!
Telling us the next song he is going to sing is "Something To Believe In"

Amazing!!!!!

Bret coming back out on stage for his encore!!

Ry, Marry and I had such a great night!! We all were so happy we went to the concert. However, we all wished we could go back in time and live in the 80's. I think we all decided we could rock it 80's style for a while. I was singing the songs I heard that night for the whole next day. Who am I kidding...I'm still singing them in my head!

Okay, am I the only crazy one or do some of you happen to thing Bret is darn sexy and secretly in love with him. I know I'm not the only one...tell me I'm not!

Phew!! Here is a Big Bulleted Update with Lots of Pictures!

Holy Cow!! I'm actually sitting down on the couch with the laptop on my lap writing a blog post! Can you believe it?? I'm so so very sorry for neglecting my blog lately. The month of December has just been crazy busy. It seems like when I have time to sit down and compose a post I just get tired and end up dozing on the couch. Lame I know, but what can I say? I think what it comes down too is that I just need to have better time management skills. Then I think I would have enough time to write a post a few times a week. That is going to be my New Years Resolution, to manage my time better so I have more time to write my blog. I can not believe that this is only my second post in all of December. Totally inexcusable if you ask me! I love, love writing my blog, I love reading yours and reading your comments to me. With that said, I'm going to try much harder to get my stuff together and be on here more for you. Thank you for those of you who have understood that life "got in the way" and who have stuck with me during the last few weeks of absent posting.

I had a crazy long post all wrote out in my head, but after thinking about it I decided that nobody really wanted to hear all about my Thanksgiving beings that it was over a month a go. So instead what I'm going to do in this post is catch you all up of what has been going on during the last month in a picture/bulleted post. Hope you don't mind.

*So ya, my Thanksgiving was pretty great and totally different that any Thanksgiving in the past. However, it was totally different in a totally great way! Ry and I were going to spend Thanksgiving day with his family and then the day after with mine, doing our family traditions. However at the very last minute we got invited by one of his best friends who lives in Columbus, Ohio to go and visit them and watch the OSU vs. UofM football game and spend the weekend hanging out. Ry and I jumped at that chance. I mean really who would turn down a chance to see the OSU vs UofM football game versus going shopping on Black Friday. I mean I love to shop and have always, always gone with my Mom and Sister, but I just could not pass this opportunity up. So, we split Thanksgiving Day between both of our parents houses. Then on Black Friday we loaded up the car and were off for a weekend of SUPER FUN!!

As we were just about 45 minutes from Ry's friends house he called and asked us if we wanted to go to a hockey game. It just so happened that the Red Wings were playing Columbus. Holy Cow are you serious?? Do we want to go see the Red Wings. Uh, hell ya we do!!! So we got to their house, unloaded the car, hung out for a bit then we jumped back in the car and headed to the arena. We didn't have tickets so we just figured we would "scalp" crappy tickets once we got down there. We found some guys selling tickets and they said they just wanted to get rid of them and to offer them something. The guys told us they were lower level seating, which typically are good seats but he didn't think these tickets were the best. So between the four of us we paid $160. We thought it was a huge steal considering the tickets we got were $90 dollar seats. So we walk in and keep going down the stairs to our seats. We kept going and going and going. Little did we know our seats were ON THE ICE!! I kid you not our seats were one row off of the ice. Ry and I about crapped our pants. We couldn't have been more excited. We also had a great time and to top it off the Red Wings WON!!

You see the glass in this picture, we could reach out and touch it. Holmstrom and the team were so close to us you could see the beads of sweat on their faces. It was truly amazing!

Here is a picture of the Head Coach and the team, we were sitting right a crossed the ice from their bench.

Last but not least a picture of Ry and I at the game.

So the hockey game was on Friday, on Saturday the four of us got up kinda early and then spent the day at the football game. Unfortunately, UofM did not come up with a win like the Wings did but the four of us sure did have fun at the game. After the game we were all pretty tired so we went home, chilled out for a while and then we headed to a local sports bar for dinner and drinks. We went back home, watched a movie and were all sleeping by midnight. It was a fun, amazing day, but it was also long and the four of us were beat. On Sunday Ry and I got up and headed home to our families.

*Okay, so that sums up our Thanksgiving weekend. The next weekend we went to a winter ball. One of Ry's friend's dad suddenly died a few months ago. They found out that he died from undetected heart disease. Well, his daughter in law, who I have gotten to be great friends with has to put on a charity ball every year. This year because of her Father-In Laws passing she teamed up with the American Heart Association and the money from our tickets went to that cause. Obviously, with Shawn dying from a heart attack the cause was near and dear to me. So Ry and I and a bunch of our friends all decided to go and support Nicole and her family. It ended up being another, totally fun, amazing night. It was one of those nights that you really did not want to end because everyone was just having so much fun. We all sat around our table, talked, bid on silent auction items, had a few drinks, and danced our feet off. Awesome, awesome night, it was three weeks ago and our group of friends are still talking about it and the fun we had.
Ry and I

Us again.

Here is our big group of friends. See we had fun! I'm so glad that Ry's friends and their wives have embraced me and have welcomed me into their big happy group! I love each of them!

*The weekend after the ball I had to go to Ohio for two purposes. One of which was to take care of some things dealing with Shawn. Not fun at all and was a totally stressful day.Once again the love and support from Jennie, Lora, Meg and Ry totally got me through the day. I really have the best friends and the best boyfriend ever! Even though I had a stressful day it all ended great because I got to spend time with Jennie and Lora. Since I was already there Jennie, Lora and I decided to have our third annual Christmas party. It was cut kind of short and Lora and Luca had to leave a little early because Youngstown I swear to you was experiencing a blizzard during my three day stay. Despite the snow we all had a great time. We all tried to be crafty this year and make our gifts to each other. Lora totally blew Jennie and I out of the water by making us Christmas wreaths made out of garland and Christmas bulbs. With her "crafty-ness" we made a rule for next year. We each have to make our gifts. Nothing pre-made or bought at a store, we must make it! We are all slightly competitive so it should be interesting. I'm about sure that Jennie and Lora have already started thinking of their ideas...I know I have.
Here are the three of us in our matching winter happy scarves, part of our gift from Jennie.

Well, that takes us to last week. Since then I have been doing all things Christmas. I have shopped, and shopped some more. I have written out over 45 Christmas cards...all by hand mind you. I decided not to write my annual letter and just write in each of them so it took me forever! I just have to put the darn things in the mail box. Last Friday was my work Christmas party and Ry and I went. It was fun and guess what my Christmas bonus was? Okay, I will just tell you because you will never in a million years guess it. We each had to play these little games and after each person won we got to pick our prize which ended up being our bonus. Well, for some crazy reason I actually won the first game, so I got to pick the prize. My boss took me to this room and told me to pick a prize. I could not believe my eyes. I was totally expecting a bottle of lotion from Bath and Body works and maybe $25, which would have been totally appreciated. However, much to my surprise we could pick from a variety of "big" items. I picked the 32 inch flat screen hi-def t.v. I could not believe it!! I jumped up and down and told my boss thank you so much. She thanked me for doing such an awesome job and loved what I was doing in the baby room.

Today I took a grave blanket to the cemetery and put it on Shawn's grave. With working so much I got it out there later than the last two years and I felt kind of guilty about that, but it's there now and I got to have my little talk with Shawn and I guess that is all that matters. Boy, I sure do miss him, but I also can still feel him with me and I'm so grateful for that feeling.

The rest of this week I will be wrapping about a million gifts for my family and friends. And then this weekend Ry and I will be splitting the days between our families. It should be fun, but a little bit busy and crazy. However, I'm looking forward to Christmas this year and that is something I have not been able to say the last two years.

I have some time off coming so I will have more time to update my blog the next week or so. Thank you for sticking by me and for reading my blog even with delays between posts. I love you guys!

I'm Alive!!

I just wanted to let you all know that I am indeed alive! I know it has been a while since I have last posted. It has been a CRAZY last few weeks. I do have a fun post for you. We have been doing lots of fun things the last few weeks and I can't wait to share it all with you. However, tonight I need to get stuff around for the week and also go out to the blizzard and scrape of the mounds of snow on my car so I don't have to do it at the ass crack of dawn tomorrow when I have to go to work. I also have a sick puppy sitting right on my lap making it hard to type. I promise you a post sometime in the next few days. I hope I didn't lose any readers or turn any of you off to my blog since I have not posted in a while. I just needed to step away for a while and get somethings done and take care of a few things. I'm also sorry I haven't commented on very many blogs, but I have been reading. That should count for a little something. :) Please stay tuned for a post in the next few days!