VIVA! - One great rock show CAN change the world!

This Tuesday Seth and I got to got to the Coldplay concert at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, or the Q, as they call it. It was the best concert I've ever been too in my life! They have been my favorite band for 6 years, and I have been waiting that whole time to see them in concert. I now have decided that, unless it's on Sunday, there is no way I will miss another tour. I wish I could follow them on the road, it was so amazing! Seth even loved it so much, he came home the next day and said, "I am going through Coldplay concert withdrawls."

This was about where we were in the crowd. Not quite in the back, in the first section from the floor. I thought we were going to be closer, but I didn't care. I was just so happy to be there.

This is us waiting with anxious anticipation for the show to start. The opener was a girl from the UK named "Duffy." First of all, what kind of a name is that? Almost as bad as 'Buffy.' She is supposed to have the number one spot on the charts in England, so I suppose that is why she is touring with the best band in the world. The sound was so loud you could harldy make out what she was saying, but even if it were good, I think it was awful. We didn't like her at all. Seth said "Not only did we have to pay so much for these tickets, but we have to endure this to see them?" Well, even thought it was pretty awful, it was well worth it!

Overpriced Coldplay shirt: $30...

Second overpriced Coldplay shirt: $30...Sheer joy from going to a concert of the best band in the world; PRICELESS.

In the middle of the concert, I just thought we should take a picture of our utter happiness. This is my biggest smile.

This video is the beginning of the concert. They picked a great song to start. It just built up and up until everyone was going crazy. The second song is called "Violet Hill;" the chorus says "If you love me, won't you let me know." At the end he gets all quiet, and sings that a'capella twice, but he sang instead, "If you love me, won't you let me know. We're so happy to be in Ohio!" The crowd went wild! Unfortunately this video cuts off right before he says it, but it's still a great song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIKQkJTT1G8&feature=related

Will Champion, the drummer of the best band in the world.This person had a great seat, and got some way good footage. These are small parts of a lot of songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbv1ptQDZfo&NR=1

Chris Martin, the lead singer in the best band in the world. He is so talented, he plays a ton of different instrument, writes his music. He's an amazing performer....wow. I just can't say enough about how amazing of a musician he is.

During the concert, they finished a song, and then Chris Martin said, we'll see you in about 30 seconds. We thought they were tired and needed a break or something, Then they appeared near the back of the stands with their guitars, and said "Ha! We fooled you! You thought we were just takin' a break or something. We just thought we would come to the back and give the people in the front a rest from looking at all these ugly musicians." We were about 30 feet from them, we couldn't see too well because there was a row of people in the way that were making me very aggravated, but here's a video of one of the songs they did from the back (with a few audience members singing along, somewhat poorly...) Here are some pictures of them in the singing in the crowd.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of Guy Berryman. He is on the right. He is the bassist of the best band in the world.

This one is from further back, but got some really funny comments from Chris Martin during the show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGqBxUMviwM

Johnny Buckland, lead guitarist in the best band in the world.

It was so clever, He changed some of his lyrics during the concert to fit us. It was so cool. This is one of the changes he made.

These are the original lyrics: Give me one 'cause one is best In confusion, confidence Give me peace of mind and trust Don't forget the rest us Give me strength, reserve control Give me heart and give me soul Wounds that heal and cracks that fix Tell me your own politik.

This is the change he made:

Give me one, cuz one is best,

In confusion, confidence,

Give me peace of mind, and wait!

Give me a concert in the Buckeye state!

Give me strength, reserve control,

Give me the right result in the presidential poll!

Wounds that heal, and cracks that fix,

Give me an audience just like this!

This video is of the song "Lovers in Japan." The sound isn't perfect, but it shows the cool video and special effets they had.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjdTAYpVIg0

Chris Martin kept saying what a great audience we were, and he said "We really didn't expect you to have such good form on a Tuesday night. It was true. It was such a fun crowd. But really, it was such a good crowd because we were watching Coldplay of course. It just doesn't get any better than that.

This video is a good overview of the whole show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKQxD5Fbfms

I would just like to say I love Youtube! If you wanted to, you could pretty much watch the whole concert if you just looked up "Coldplay Viva la Vida Tour Cleveland", which I may or may not have done already...

Yellow was the encore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsz-EeNZBkI

This is a song called "See you soon." It is one of my very favorites. I am bummed that they didn't play it, but I figure, might as well attach it to my blog as a bonus track.

The best band in the world takes a bow...

And two very happy fans went home after a rock show that changed the world.

Go Buckeyes!!

So Seth and I had a 3 day weekend, and we decided to go down to Columbus to visit family. We went down to Upper Arlington to see my Aunt Diane, Uncle Scott and my cousin Joshua. We had lunch with them, and they gave us a graduation present of 40 yard line tickets in the A section! Those were amazing seats! Thanks Aunt Diane and Uncle Scott!

It was so fun to see the team come out on the field. Both my parents, and my aunts and uncles, and grandparents went to Ohio State, so I was pretty much raised as a Buckeye.

The crowd just went crazy when they came in! Thankfully we were in a section with old people on most sides of us, so no one got too crazy, and the only drunk people we saw were on the bus.

The marching band was amazing! They were just like an army.

The band made a P for Purdue. That was cool. But then when the team ran out, almost all the 100,000 fans boo-ed really loud. That was disappointing. Not exactly good sportsmanship....

I just loved the band. I am sure my mom would have loved it. They did the Ohio script. This is the Ohio script upside down. Pretty much everything was upside down because we were on the other side.

Here's Seth, a Buckeye too. He's converted, and now he's really part of the Shepard family.

It was cool, they had the big O's on both sides of the stadium full of student cheerers. They started all the stands going O!-H!-I!-O! and they started the wave. It was really cool.

During half time, the band did a tribute to TV Land. they did formations of all the shows, the Simpsons, Family Guy, Happy Days, Gilagan's Island - They formed a boat and curbed it up on the side of an island, Star Trek - They made the ship and a planet that changed into an M for Michigan and then shot lasers at it, and they all broke up; It was so cool. If you can't tell, I loved the band!

The first quarter of the game was very exciting. The Buckeyes intercepted, and ran the ball back for a defensive touchdown. Then nothing happened offensively for the rest of the game; a couple field goals, and that was it. The whole time I was hoping Purdue would score so OSU would try harder. The most exciting thing that happened in the second half was that after we bought a $4 bottle of water, we found out that we could get ice water in cups for free! which we did because it was 80 degrees outside!

We got to see my Grandpa and Grandma Pat at church. It will be nice to be able to visit more often. Then my Aunt Laura threw a barbeque and we got to spend a nice evening outside on their porch with a view of the pond in the back with a fountain. And we roasted marshmallows and made s'mores, and then we watched some videos of Guatemala.

This is my Aunt Linda and my cousin Christine.

This is my Aunt Diane, and cousin Josh.These are my Aunts Candi and Laura. We got to stay with them for the weekend. We had a great time visiting and playing Wii. Seth beat everyone in everything, and got 175 at hoopshot!

This is Laura and one of their dogs, Patch. Patch is my favorite dog, I think. She's so good!
Yesterday, Candi and Laura took us to Graeter's, and icecream place they have in Columbus that has AMAZING icecream! It is super good! I am sure we will go there every time we go down to Columbus.


We got to visit my Grandma Shepard too. We didn't get pictures of her, but we got to have a nice visit before she had hand surgery on Monday. The surgery went well, and I'm glad. All in all, we had a great trip!

I love the ZOO!

Last Friday I got to go to the Cleveland Zoo with my 3 year old nephew, Hyrum, his Grandma, Christy, and his Great Grandma, we just call her Nana. The Cleveland Zoo is awesome! It is huge, and the paths, and plants, and trees are so beautiful! The autumn trees just made it even more amazing, and the weather was perfect!

Hyrum is so cute! I love that kid. I pushed him around in the little umbroller stroller (which is made for people who are 4 feet tall! We just had a blast talking and laughing. We went by the butterfly pavillion, and I mentioned one of Brian Regan's (a comedian Seth and I, and Hyrum's parents like a lot) acts about Butterfly pavillions. I started saying it, and Hyrum chimed in "and the purple one was fluttering AROUND and AROUND!" It was awesome. Then I taught him to say the whole thing, so he could do it for Uncle Seth, and his family that night, but he was too shy. That was a bummer, but it was so cute to practice with him. If you click on the following link, you can see the act. It is way funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L56IdlTbrpQ

These monkeys were way fun to watch. They were swinging all around by their tails, or just one arm. It was cute.

Here's our Galapagos, Tortis picture. Hyrum seems to be poking out his eyes.

This is the snow leopard, my favorite animal. Hyrum's favorite animals are elephants, but they are renovating the elephant habitat, so they've moved them to Columbus for 2 years. Hyrum talks about it everytime he talks about the zoo.

When Hyrum saw this coin spinning thing, he asked me for a coin, and I gave him one. It was just awesome to see how mezmerized he was by it.

After the zoo, we stopped at McDonald's to get some icecream. Hyrum got a big one because they don't do kiddie cones anymore, and he was doing a great job, he got half way done, and then fell right to sleep with half a cone still in his hand. He didn't spill at all which was amazing. It was cute to see his head zonked over, and his mouth still covered in ice cream.

While we were sitting, eating our icecream, I saw gas for $2.89. I was amazed! Now I have seen it for 10 cents less even. But this is still pretty awesome. I am so grateful the price of gas has gone down, and hope it stays that way, and least for a little while.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures with Christy and Nana because my camera was acting up, but Nana has some, and I will try to post them later.

This is the way we work outside!

That title is for you Leah! So, this was about 3 weeks ago, but I have had so many requests for pictures of our house, so I am posting pictures from when we trimmed our hedges, raked, and mowed our lawn. We bought a lawn mower. That was $200. Yikes! Unfortunately, I only have before pictures, and now after pictures. So this is what our house a yard.

Front Yard

Driveway - Seth taming the hedges. Even though they are trimmed down now, I still have trouble avoiding them when backing out of our long skinny driveway.

Backyard view from the back porch

This is the first video I've ever tried to load, so I hope it works! It pretty much takes forever loving long, so I think I am going to work on making way shorter videos. This is the inside of the downstairs of our house.

This is for you Hannah!

So, my sister Hannah has been complaining that I haven't been posting. Number one, I haven't had the internet for a long time, and two, I have a thousand pictures to post, but I suppose that I should write something every once in a while. I am just glad that someone checks my blog. Thanks, Hannah.

I have been home from Guatemala for over a week. I am so happy to be home with Seth. Right now, I am taking a break from school and work to fix up my house (unpack, paint, and decorate, etc.), and to try to get healthy and strong. I also have to have a tooth implant to replace a molar, and possibly an oral surgery to remove a wisdom tooth located in my jaw. Basically, my mouth is messed up. Thank Heaven for dental insurance! Yay for Seth!

We love our new ward. They have been so welcoming to us. I already know half the women in my ward because they have all come up to talk to me. I already have friends, and don't feel alone. It is great. And a couple gave us their couch, so now we have something to sit on. Yay!

I think one of the best parts of our house is that it has a wood burning fireplace. We have really enjoy roasting marshmallows to make s'mores on our couch in our very own living room. Sometimes, it is fun to be a grown-up! You can stay up as late as you want and eat s'mores on your couch while watching 'Return to Me' with your husband. That is my kind of date. And it is free because Cleveland Heights has the best libraries in the world. They are huge! You can check out 75 items at a time. I don't know why you'd want to, but you can. And so we may never rent a movie again. Why pay when the library's free? Only if you're crazy.

We live in the prettiest street. Every street has a canopy of huge, old trees. All the houses are different. They are mostly all gigantic (except for ours) and all at least 75 years old. I love our town for the libraries, and all the fun parks. I got to go to the tire park right by my house with my nephew Hyrum, and Christy, his grandma. It is a park made of a hundred something tires. It is awesome. Just down the block there are a bunch of quaint little restaurants and movie theatres and overpriced grocery stores. But the gas is $3.35 here, and that is pretty darn good. I am happy with my life. "It is the best!" - Nacho Libre