The Erwins

Wednesday was a bit of a chaotic, crazy, exciting, scary, happy, EXCITING day. :) It started out good, got better, got a little worse, and then got amazing. So here's how it went down! Sierra and I got up a bit early, left Evelyn with Grammy for the day (YAY! :), and headed off to Kansas City! Whit was in town with her husband for a conference so we picked her up and she spent the day with us.

First headed off to Independence Mall. I really needed an oil change and why not do it there and shop while we're waiting? Great idea! We dropped the car off and started shopping! We hit Old Navy first which has AMAZING deals (50% of their clearance, score!). I got some good deals for the whole fam, I love Old Navy! Anyway, after that we went to New York & Co., another favorite store of mine, and while checking out we were instructed to leave the store and head to Dillard's because there was a tornado warning. Just what you want to hear right? So we went over there and stayed under this big spot under the second floor for a looong time, didn't hear anything else that was happening so I resorted to my trusty iPhone and Annie! She told us what was going on and where the potential tornadoes were and kept us informed for the duration of the lockdown.

Hanging out in the basement!

Just how you want to spend your vacation right?

After a long while it got a little more intense and they made us go down to the downstairs bathroom/back hallways of Dillard's and we sat there for another loooong while. And then it finally cleared and we were let go but man! That was a little freaky! Luckily nothing happened in our area but unluckily not too long after our ordeal was over, a tornado hit south Sedalia (the town right next to us, about 10 miles away). It did quite a bit of damage to some residential and business areas but luckily it wasn't the main part of Sedalia and even LUCKIER there weren't any causalities and hardly any injuries, just a lot of damage. So that put a little damper on our day but the weather stayed clear after that so we stayed in KC and finished out our day.

Next we went to JoAnn's did a small amount of damage there (joking Mark...) and by then we were STARVING so we headed downtown to an....interesting...area and ate at a famous BBQ joint called Arthur Bryants. So you always hear about Kansas city being the BBQ capital of the world and all that but I've never truly eaten real Kansas City BBQ, the only places I've been are chains like Rib Crib and Famous Dave's. So this was a fun, interesting, and Yummy experience for us. It was really really good though and I'd totally go back again...mainly just so I can try their ribs! We got pork sandwiches (they had sliced and pulled, YUM), and after we were done we saw this guy get ribs and man did they look good! SO I'm gonna have to go back :)

So even with our long delay at the mall, we still had three hours to waste before we had to head to the concert so we went out to the Legends Outlet/Mall area in Kansas City, KS and had a fun time there. I've never been but it's a cool little shopping area. We got some good deals there too, my favorite being a pair of Gap jeans for $8! They are SO comfy and amazing too. I love them. :)

The three of us all prettied up! :) Whit had a banquet to go to with Rich.

Anywho....it was finally getting time to go so we went to Whit's hotel, did a quick change and touch up and headed to the Sprint Center (which is pretty cool looking btw)! We were SO excited! It took forever to get in though and then we had to wait awhile for the opening act to start but it was all SO WORTH IT! The opening act was some guy named Elew who plays the piano in a jazzy/rock/crazy type of way but he was really good! He played a lot of popular songs and put his own twist on it. Very cool. And then he was done and then time for Josh!

We were all looking at the stage cuz his band was playing an instrumental intro and then all of a sudden the lights spotted a small stage in the middle and Josh was sitting at a piano and playing and singing. It was awesome. He is such a PHENOMENAL performer and singer and musician....it's just amazing. I absolutely love him! It was truly the most amazing concert I've been too, even the other one I saw of him! :) He's just so talented, first of all, and so funny and entertaining as well when he's not singing. He did a spot-on impression of Stewey from Family Guy which was hilarious and he's got a real quick wit about him that made him very entertaining.

The best thing about him, besides his voice, is his real connection with his fans. That's one thing about celebrities that bother's me sometimes, sometimes they just don't seem to appreciate their fans when it's their fans that make them what they are, ya know? Without fans they wouldn't be anything. And Josh just isn't like that, he's so appreciative and so nice and amazing :) I know Mark isn't going to like this post with me going on and on about Josh Groban, he already thinks I'm obsessed completely with him but oh well! I LOVE YOU more Mark so just forget about your little jealousy thing :) anywho...back to Josh :) With this concert tour he made a new stage which allowed him access to the audience and he, multiple times, went out on the floor, talking to people, shaking hands, taking pics, and it was just SO AWESOME! We were SUPREMELY jealous that we weren't one of the lucky ones but someday!!! I've already decided to make Mark promise to get me in the front rows on his next tour, if not the very FIRST row... :) I'm gonna meet him someday!!!

Anyways, I just thought it was so cool that he interacted so much with the audience. The best part of that was near the end when he went out and found a couple that were celebrating their 20th anniversary that very day, grabbed this girl that was recently engaged, and then grabbed this adorable little 8 year old that he had talked to earlier, brought them up on stage, had them sit on these blow up couches they brought out, gave them wine to drink (milk and cake for the little girl) and then sang to them all for two songs!!! How COOL is that? I was SO jealous! He also let another girl earlier on in the show come up on stage and sing with him. Sierra was SUPER jealous of that.

So ANYWAY....it was a WONDERFUL WONDERFUL WONDERFUL night. I'm SO sad that I didn't get to spend it with Mark (he had promised to take me to this concert when I couldn't go to one on his last tour but since he's out of the country I decided to go anyway :). But I'm super glad I got to spend it with Sierra. She went with me to see Josh in St. Louis (along with her mom and dad) when I was in high school so it was just fitting to go with her and she's going to be moving to Alaska this summer for three years!!! So I'm putting in a lot of Sierra hours :) Well hope you all got through that ok without getting sick of me praising Josh Groban but I can't help it! If you've ever seen him in concert or just heard him sing you would understand :) So I promise I'm done! Have a great Memorial Day Weekend! My next post should be some projects I've done recently so keep tuned! Here's some pics!