She and Him and Me and Them!!!!

This is me, hands clasped in rapture at the thought that in less than 3 hours I would be seeing ZOOEY DESCHANEL!

I was trying to think about where to start with getting back into posting, I feel so far behind that I couldn't decide on anything. Argh.

Then I decided I would wait until the day after the Bird and the Bee, She and Him, and The Swell Season concert at The Hollywood Bowl! What better event than THAT to come back with a bang.

Soooo....we are still trying to figure out our new camera (ISO, Shutter speed, Aperture, all lost on me) but we were able to get some good shots. A former student of mine, Mark, moved to the LA area and said whenever we wanted visit we were welcome. We finally took him up on his offer and decided to drive down to see the show, spend the night at his family's house, then back up the next morning. It was wonderful! Mark greeted us with a BBQ, chocolate, wine, and this gorgeous pup.....

We had a lovely time hanging out for a bit before the show and the boys were all smitten with the coolness of Mark. He is an amazing person! I'm sorry to have lost him from my class!

This is O. He is a newer acquaintance but we have spent many a summer's evening playing Boggle recently and when the opportunity came for him to buy someone else's ticket he jumped on board and we all had a blast.

The Mr. and the new camera has created a plethora of pictures of inanimate objects and me. (Seriously though, so many pictures of things like, his feet, and random objects on the floor or the sky. AHHAHA!)

Eating...I am too good at it.

This is our other friend, we call him Panda, we met him several years ago at a Summer camp that The Mr. was playing music for. He is legit and we are glad we got to be together on this trip since he lives out of town and we only see him when there is a movie coming to our IMAX which he drives up for.

Stoic...I think he was thinking about wine...

...And I was thinking about Zooey and M. Ward.

This is a picture of O. being thoroughly smitten with the awesomeness of Mark. O. wants to be him when he grows up.

Rusty Pup!

45 minutes on the bus, standing room only. Egad!

Btw, look who got a summer crop...I don't particularly care for it, but he's still a handsome gentleman.

Whilst we were waiting for the show to start we entertained ourselves with spotting regular folks that looked at least mildly, like celebrities.

(Blast, I wish I'd gotten better pics.) This guy seriously looked like Jason Mraz.

Bobby Lee! When this was stated out loud, an Asian man in front of us said, "Ooo, that's racists!" Fortunately, O was the one that said it so we pointed at him and the guy forfeited. Whew. ;-)

Taylor Momsen. AHAHAH!

Ryan Gosling, (again, wish we'd gotten better shots!!!)

Plump Vin Diesel with hair.

(We did spot one actual "celebrity" when we were walking in, didn't get a photo, but it was the guy that was dating Cuddy this last season on House. And apparently Colin Farrel was in the audience somewhere, so Marketa said)

Pondering.

The Panda, The Mr., The Me.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

This was the ridiculous expression on my face through most of the show...mixed in with crying. Pathetic.

Mark sent a bottle of wine with the dinner he packed. I don't drink but O. said it was amazing.

Yep.

Sadly, when The Bird and The Bee were playing it was too light out for good pics on the screens, then when The Swell Season played it was too dark. :-( But they literally gave us chills. The passion and power behind Glen Hansard's lyrics and vocals, the charisma, the soft charm of Marketa Irglova....I literally cried, not bawling, just quiet tears of awe....it was breath taking.

People were obnoxiously loud for the first two acts but once Glen and Marketa starting singing you could literally hear a pin drop, in a crowd of ???-thousand people, that's really saying something. They even taught the audience special ooo's and ah's to sing at certain points of songs for them to sing over the top of....it was a gorgeous glimpse of heaven, to hear that many people singing together....I am out of words.

On the bus, heading home....we were tired....

but deliriously happy.

It was a wonderful night, it will be one of my fondest memories of my life. The venue is amazing, if you ever have the chance to see a show there, GO! They let you bring in however much you can carry, food, wine, blankets, etc. And there is no smoking IN the amphitheater (though that didn't stop the guy in front of us from lighting up a joint at one point, oddly enough it was right after I was talking to Panda about how the smell of pot makes me throw up, I guess it reminded him, "oh yeah...I forgot I had that on me....LAME!") I had to run away for a while.

Well, there you have it, a wonderful evening with wonderful friends captured on a wonderful camera that is way out of my league of expertise.

I hope you are blessed and joyful!

Lovies and LA LA LAAA,

-K

PS. even though we were tired when we got back from the show we decided to go see Inception at 11:50pm. I am paying for it today! I have to say, technically that movie was pretty impressive...but other than that I am fairly indifferent to it. I was expecting to be "blown away" (that's what everyone has been saying) and I was super disappointed to find that it didn't. :-( Hopefully those of you that have seen it were able to enjoy it more than I.