Two Busy Weeks

The last two weeks have been pretty busy. It started the Wednesday before last when I had to go pick up a friends dog b/c they thought it had bitten a child (turned out not to be the case) but she wanted me to keep Bruce(the dog) until she got back in town that weekend. It also happened to be the weekend that I had agreed to watch another pair of dogs for the weekend and following week. On top of that, I had agreed to go to the Hangout Music Festival with Jillian So basically I had agreed to be three places at once from Friday to Sunday. Fortunately, I have two brothers willing to do favors.

The Hangout Music Festival was a lot of fun, but extremely hot; being at the beach didn't help. I was able to see a few bands that I really enjoyed. "Dispatch" brought back some favorable college memories. I heard "The Lumineers" play my favorite song (of their making).We missed the "Alabama Shakes" because they were an early Friday show but I managed to catch "Skrillex", "Sound Tribe Sector 9", "Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros", "Julian Marley" and ended Saturday and Sunday night with "Red Hot Chili Peppers" and "Dave Matthews" (Jillian's favorite and the reason we were there).
Here are some Photos and Video of the festival. The video is actually of Jillian fist-bumping Gary Clark Jr after a private show for the VIPs:

The following week consisted mainly of driving back and forth across the bay to work and take care of dogs/house sit.I would say there wasn't too much to the week, but I managed to lock myself out of the house I was watching, resulting in a nice $75 bill from a locksmith. I also learned that if I ever get a dog, it will be trained to NEVER jump on anyone.
I took that Friday off,, handed over the house sitting duties, and Jillian and I made our way to Atlanta for a rehearsal dinner and wedding. Gavin and Jessica were gracious enough to let us stay at their house yet again while they were away and we arrived in Atlanta with just enough time to shower change and make it to The Capital Grille in Buckhead. The free wine was nice, but the Filet Mignon and cheesecake were phenomenal. It was a nice dinner followed by a number of very well spoken toasts to the future bride and groom. This was a room filled with many of Jillian's best friends from high school so I made it a point to befriend as many of them as possible in the little time I had. I managed get to know one of them before I was drunk.
We had a little more time to prepare for the Wedding the next day, and unfortunately the day started with Jillian getting a real terrible migraine. Fortunately, she was able to get a bit of rest before we ran off to Panera Bread to get food for the rest of the weekend and then went out to the pool to relax. I managed to get a nice sunburn on my shoulders within an hour and squeezed in a delicious ham, bacon and cheese bagel sandwich before getting ready for the wedding.
The wedding was outdoors and the invitation said it was a relaxed atmosphere, but I was told to act like it was a normal evening wedding. I showed up in a coat and tie like half of those in attendance. There were many who decided to ditch the coat and tie and some who took the "relaxed atmosphere" to heart and showed up in polo shirts and shorts. It being a 100+ degree southern day, a part of me had wished I had done the same..  especially with it being an outdoor wedding.
The service was short and simple; with an 3 piece band and a cycle rickshaw to carry the bride around. It was the kind of wedding you would see in a southern living magazine... with some extra sweat mixed in. Post wedding we went to the reception, ate some bbq, got our drink on and danced the evening away. It was a pretty rockin' party. Jillian tried to get the band to play a song I could Karaoke to but they didn't take too kindly to requests and/or her being so close to their Ipads showing song tableture (which I thought was cheating). At some point, I wandered off with a stranger and we took shots like we were 21 again. It didn't work out too well for him. I survived but regretted it. After a few conversation with new friends, Jillian and I took our party back to the "Hotel".
That Sunday morning, we got up, finished off our bagel sandwich leftovers, left our hosts a letter for their suggestion box, and took to the road. The drive back home, as always, was unbearably long. There was a silver lining though b/c the next day was Memorial Day, which meant we had one more day off work.
Monday wasn't all relaxing though. My youngest brother, Andrew, had decided to enlist in the Army and we decided to throw him a surprise going away party. Jillian decided to make it something extremely memorable so we went to WalMart and picked up some ridiculous items including SpongeBob Party hats and Vienna Sausage to give to him as a gift. The party turned out to be a lot of fun and I hope it was as memorable as we hoped. The picture below is of him opening a gift from my mom:

Tuesday was a productive day at work so I was free today to study the Alabama Motorcycle License Manual in my office before going to the DMV during lunch. At least, I though it would just be my lunch hour. Of course, it turned into a two and a half hour venture. It took me 3 minutes to pass the test giving me a DVM class license. I'm just short the Commercial license now. I also found out while I was there that Class A RV's don't require a commercial license even though they are as large as a school bus. I found that very interesting but nice to know considering I would one day like to have one.

I think the bulk of excitement has finished for a while. There may not be many things to write about until my next vacation takes Jillian and I to Gatlinburg, TN.

April Beach Trips

Jillian recently convinced me to go to the beach (twice) for the first time in several years. It was a lot of what I remember from my childhood: A relaxing breeze, interesting people watching and a fierce sunburn, regardless of how much time I actually spend out in the sun. I actually stayed under the sun blocking umbrella the entire second trip and still burned. I am far too white for the beach.
Having said that, I'll be spending this coming weekend there, out in the sun for a collective 24 hours, for The Hangout Music Festival. Jillian bought us tickets so she could go see Dave Mathews as the final band on Sunday. I'm hoping to catch a few more artists throughout the weekend; like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jack White, Randy Newman and The Lumineers(being the lesser known band).

I'm sure I'll have more to talk about after the show... and hopefully a few nice pictures in accompaniment.