A Very Busy Weekend

This past weekend was jam packed and very busy. We had a wedding shower, a baby shower and two concerts over a three day weekend. Saturday night we saw probably my all time favorite band Athenaeum at Amos' Southend. They played an awesome 2 hour show! I could only find one picture from that show on Flickr, but it's a good one since it's a close up of Mark, the lead singer!

The other concert we saw was the Stone Temple Pilots on Sunday night at Verizon Wireless. When I heard that they were getting back together earlier this year I bought our tickets as soon as they went on sale! We were lucky enough to see them in 2001 on the Family Values Tour and they were just as good as ever. My only complaint was that there was an hour of waiting between the opening band and STP, but once they came out they totally rocked! I found a lot of great pictures from that show on Flickr too.

Here's a picture of Scott Weiland at the beginning of the show.

Here's a picture of Scott with the megaphone.

Here's a picture of the whole band at the end of the show.

More Baby Shower Pictures

Here are the guests working hard on one of the baby shower games:

Here is Becca opening her gifts:

This is Jackson, my co-host Kelly's son, holding Braden:

A Long Awaited Baby Shower

As I mentioned earlier in the blog some of our friends, Becca & Jason, were recently able to adopt a baby boy after waiting over two years. My friend Kelly and I threw Becca a baby shower last weekend. You can see the cake below:

Here's a picture of mom Becca with baby Braden.

Another picture of Sandy in the sun

Sandy loves to lie in the sun. Here she is on the scratching mat stretched out in the sun.

The Biggest Roses I've Ever Seen

Chad got me the most beautiful roses last week. They just kept opening up bigger and bigger every day! I love roses, but particularly white roses and these were some of the most beautiful roses I've ever seen!

Here's a close up of one of the roses.

House Lust by Daniel McGinn

I just finished reading a very interesting book, House Lust by Daniel McGinn. He basically explores our society's obsession with newer, bigger and "better" homes. McGinn does a great job of exploring all aspects of this issue, from the increasing size of new homes, the increased popularity of house "flipping", all the HGTV shows and how realtors also play into this issue. I am willing to admit that Chad & I got sucked into house lust when we bought our house. By the time we bought our house we had been married over 4 years and I felt like we were the last married couple who didn't own a home. We also got sucked into wanting a new home so that we could pick the flooring, appliances, etc. We have a very nice townhouse, but now we would choose something completely different. We didn't think we'd even still be in this house now, but with the housing market falling apart we're pretty much stuck here for now.

I think most homeowners can relate to some parts of this book. Although I cannot relate to one homeowner McGinn profiles in his book. This family consists of the 2 parents and 3 children and their house is 9,000 square feet. Compare that to probably the same size family in the 1950's where the average house was 983 square feet. I think the housing issue is just a reflection of what our society values now - quantity over quality and bigger = better. I also think that the people who live in 9,000 square foot homes, along with all the Hummer and other huge SUV drivers out there, are just trying to compensate for something that they lack in their lives.