What to Wear in Europe

I am still working on getting my photos edited and organized from our trip, but I am almost there!
I can't wait to share our European Adventure!

In the meantime, I thought I would share a post about what I packed to bring with me as far as clothing and shoes.
Since we were going to four different countries in 11 days, I knew we would be doing a lot of traveling from place to place only staying two or three nights in a hotel at a time. This really encouraged me to try and pack lighter using more of a capsule wardrobe.

I ended up bringing one roller suitcase with four wheels that I checked for each flight and a backpack with essentials that I carried on the plane. Our flight to London was six hours and our flight home from Switzerland was nine and a half hours. So for those two long flights it was great to have my backpack stocked with essentials like a scarf that could double as a blanket, my little neck pillow, a snack, a book to read, an extra change of clothes and a small bag of toiletries to freshen up if necessary.

My first concern for the trip was finding comfortable shoes that were cute, too. Not always an easy trick, but I think I accomplished it. These were the three main pairs of shoes I wore on the trip...

Brooks running shoes

I didn't wear these as much as I thought I would. Mostly just on the shorter travel days like the train ride from Brussels to Zurich. But I had another pair of Brooks running shoes in the past that were really comfortable, so I knew these would be a good choice.

Gold Born Sandals

Even though I knew it wouldn't be super warm in London and possibly Amsterdam, I still wanted a pair of sandals that I could wear to dress things up a bit. I researched online and these seemed like the best option. Thankfully, I found them at Nordstrom and was able to actually go try them on in person! I wore them one whole day in Amsterdam and they didn't hurt my feet one bit! They were super comfortable. I will admit the day I wore them in Brussels, I started to develop a little blister on the top of one toe. But I think that was because it was a little hillier there and the angle I was walking made my shoe start to rub on my foot a bit. Mike and I stopped in a pharmacy, and found some clear gel band aids that didn't show and did the trick. Never felt a thing after that.

Roxy Slip on Sneakers

These were my absolute favorite pair of shoes I wore over there. I was looking for something like an Espadrille slip on flat or some Toms. But I found these at DSW shoes and when I tried them on I decided to go for it! I'm glad I did, because I wore these the most including the day we walked 26000 steps in London. I also wore them to both of the U2 concerts! Definitely love these shoes!

In addition to those three pairs, I brought a pair of black ankle boots that I only wore once to dinner, a pair of flip flops that I didn't use at all and a pair of ballerina flats that I wore on the flight from the States to London.That makes six pairs of shoes total, but I don't think I wore the flip flops at all. Most of the "what to pack" capsule wardrobes I pinned on pinterest suggested only three pairs of shoes, and I actually probably could have done the same.

As for clothing, I really only shop for clothes once or twice a year and not always even that. But I've been trying to invest in a few good classic pieces that will last, as well as a some trendy, fun items for the season. Nordstrom was having their big semi annual sale right before our trip. So I called up to make an appointment with a personal stylist. I have used their personal stylists in the past to find dresses for weddings and school functions. It's a free service and I have always found their assistance and expertise extremely helpful even if just consulting about what looks good for your body type! So I figured why not get some help finding some things to wear on the trip, especially with the sale going on!

 

Before my appointment, I went on their website and started pinning items to Pinterest that matched what I was looking for.

Since the weather was running anywhere from the low 60's to mid 80's, I knew I wanted some versatile jackets to throw over short sleeve tops if necessary. In total, I brought three. First was my light black hooded windbreaker that I like to wear while traveling on planes, trains or automobiles. :)

And my stylist brought me this one on my shopping trip...

Denim jacket

I can wear it with anything from summery dresses to shorts and tees to more fall type weather!

I also decided I wanted a Cargo type jacket but feminine looking. So I was happy my stylist found the one you see in these photos.

I don't have a link because I haven't been able to find it online, but I did buy it at Nordstrom.  

I kept a daily journal while we were over there so I would remember the details of our days. And I actually wish I would have included a note about what I wore each day. But while writing this post, I had fun just going back through the photos and making a list of my daily outfits.

On the first day of travel I wore khaki capris, a three quarter sleeve coral sweater, my tan ballerina flats and had my black windbreaker in my backpack. I was pretty comfortable on the plane but didn't get much sleep. 

We left St. Louis at 1:30pm on Wednesday and didn't arrive to London until 6:15am their time. So I was definitely ready to change clothes before going out to explore.

My outfit for that day was a long sleeve floral top with ankle length gray capris, my black slip on sneakers and the same windbreaker.

The second day of walking around London, I was wearing the outfit in the photos above - black t-shirt with a small ruffle at the neck from The Loft, my cargo jacket, jeans from the Gap, and my black slip ons. That was the day we walked 26,000 steps! 

Later that night we went to see Evita in the West End and I changed into a dressier outfit. That was the one night I wore my high heel black booties because I didn't have to do as much walking.

While traveling to Amsterdam the next morning, I wore a mint green t-shirt with gray cardigan, blue jeans and my black slip on sneakers. That night for the U2 concert, I wore the same jeans, a U2 tour shirt, my cargo jacket and black slip ons.

 

The next day, all day long, I wore this shirt from The LOFT...

Navy shirt

with white capri pants and my gold sandals.

I love this shirt, but I don't wear it so far off the shoulder. And sometimes I even pull it all the way up over my shoulders.

On our third day in Amsterdam, we went for a long bike ride in the countryside, so I threw on my second pair of jeans and my U2 concert shirt with my running shoes to be more comfortable.

 

On to Brussels! I cannot remember at all what I wore on the train to get from Amsterdam to Brussels. But I do know for the U2 show that night, I had on a red v-neck t-shirt, black capris and my denim jacket. I did buy a Noel Gallagher t-shirt (because I love him and he was the opening act) and threw it on over my other shirt.

The next day we did a lot of sightseeing, and I wore my coral three quarter length sleeve sweater again with some khaki shorts, the denim jacket and gold sandals. At this point, Mike was wanting to do some some laundry, so we found a laundromat and washed some of our clothes. While we waited, we went to a little restaurant down the road and had drinks and appetizers in between washing and drying.

So with some of my clothes clean, I was able to wear the black t-shirt and jeans I wore our second day in London, along with my running shoes and black windbreaker again because we were going to be flying to Switzerland.

Zurich was the warmest of all the cities we visited and the day we arrived it had actually reached 90 degrees F.

The next day was still pretty warm, so I wore an outfit inspired by this image I had pinned on Pinterest awhile back!

I didn't have a scarf, but I wore this tank...

 Black tank

(which I had actually pinned in red. Nordstrom only had it in black when I was in, but I'm kind of glad they didn't have the red! I ended up liking black better.) I also wore a shorter pair of khaki shorts than the ones I wore in Brussels, my gold sandals, sunglasses and the diamond earrings Mike gave me for our anniversary two years back. I didn't wear a watch like in the photo, but I did wear my fitbit the entire trip. And for my birthday, I really wanted a new purse that would work better for the trip than the ones I already have. I like Fossil bags, but don't really buy new purses new often. It's usually Mike who has bought me a new one every few years on my birthday. And for this birthday, I picked out this one...

Fossil purse

It seemed a little pricey at first, but like I said I don't buy purses very often. I have a cute fabric Fossil print one I usually use spring and summer, and a black leather one for fall and winter. But I noticed the print one is looking a little worn. Ok a lot worn, so I invested in this one and it was perfect. Not too big, lightweight, with lots of great pockets.

Unfortunately, the next day I got super sick and didn't get out of my pj's the entire day. But on the plane ride home the following day I wore black capris, my black slip on sneakers, my denim jacket, and this shirt...

It's another shirt I had pinned on Pinterest before going in for my Nordstrom appointment, and they actually did have it in the store in that color. Very comfy for the long ride home!

 

Long post I know, but it gives you an idea of what worked for me.

In total, for 11 days I had:

3 jackets (which I wore at least one almost every day at some point)

6 short sleeve shirts (not including the one bought at concert)

5 long or 3/4 sleeve shirts

1 gray cardigan

2 pairs of blue jeans

1 pair black denim skinny stretch pants

5 pairs of capris (two worn on long flight travel days)

3 pairs of shorts (2 khaki and one white, but only wore two)

2 yoga capri pants (which roll up small and are great for lounging at the hotel and naps!)

1 work out outfit (that I did not use or need because we walked (12,000-26,000 steps daily)

1 tank top to wear under another shirt

1 sundress (that I didn't end up using but wish I had the last night in Brussels)

2 pairs of pajamas

5 pairs of shoes.

I would say 39 items for 11 days isn't too bad at all!

And I never felt like I didn't have enough to wear. :)

 

Hello!

Well I took a month long break from the blog after doing such a good job of trying to post at least once a week.
But I have a good reason!
Mike and I are celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary in October and felt we needed to do something really, really special this year.

Back in January he started talking about the possibility of going to Europe this summer to see a few U2 concerts. Just the two of us.
Then on Valentine's Day he made it official! We had tickets to see U2 in Amsterdam and Brussels as well as the plane tickets to get over there.
Basically we were going to fly to London and spend two nights there. Then fly to Amsterdam to see U2 and have three nights there. Next up was a train ride and two nights in Brussels with another U2 concert. And last but not least, Zurich, Switzerland. I have always wanted to go to Switzerland so it was probably the place I was looking forward to visiting the most. London was a close second.

So I was beyond excited even though it seemed as if the trip was a long way off back then. But before I knew it, summer came and then I had a whole lot of prepping to do to get the kids ready for their trip with their grandparents in addition to making sure I was ready to go overseas for 11 days.
But honestly it wasn't as stressful as you would think. The hardest part for me actually was finding shoes that would be comfortable for all the walking I knew we would be doing, but a little stylish and cute at the same time.
 

I'm just going to say, it was worth it! Here we are in Zurich, the last country we visited on our trip. I have so many photos and stories I want to share about this trip. It was some much needed time for the two of us to get away and just have fun together. And except for the very last day in Zurich when I got super sick, it was exactly what I had hoped it would be for the most part. And as someone who needs "alone" time or just time to myself at some point every day, I realized on day seven of the trip that we had pretty much been together the entire time. And I hadn't missed my alone time at all!

Anyway, just like I did with our Ireland trip back in 2009, I plan to have several blog posts covering the trip. I'm not sure yet if I am going to do it by city or day. I'm thinking city, but I don't want the posts to get too long. I think I might even do a separate post for the U2 concerts!
I just want to get all the photos in one place and go through them to decide which ones I am actually going to share. Honestly, between coming back to regular life, jet lag, getting things organized around here again and back to school prep, I haven't had a lot of time to do much else. But now that school has started, I have more time to go through photos and my journal. So look for those posts coming soon!!

Scrapbook Layouts

In my last post, I mentioned that I had been working on a regular scrapbook layout that does not have anything to do with my Miami mini album. In fact, I have made two layouts recently that I wanted to share today.

I haven't subscribed to a scrapbook kit in a long time. Probably at least four years. But back in April, I started subbing to The Ali Edwards Story Kits. She is one of my long time favorite scrapbookers that I look to for inspiration, and I thought her kits would be a good way to get me back into making regular pages.

Using a few embellishments from the "Lens" kit, I made this layout based off an Instagram collage I had posted. I wanted to tell the story of how Mike and I had been playing around trying to snap photos of each other with our cameras. What came though was realizing that even though we can see life and each other different ways sometimes, ultimately we see the same thing. Love. Sappy I know, but true. I mean after almost twenty years of marriage, that we can still try to always see the best in each other even when times aren't so easy is pretty great.

I kept this layout pretty simple because I didn't think it needed a lot. The main focus is the photo and story.

Now the next layout went kind of the other direction as far as simplicity, but still the same theme. Love :)

As I said in my last blog post, back in January I posted this photo on Facebook with a little tribute to love. It had such a great response from so many people, and I just knew that I wanted to capture how I felt in a layout. So I copied my facebook post pretty much word for word and added it to my page. It's not as simple as my layout above, but using my favorite go to block design helped simplify things. Probably the part that took the longest was deciding which pieces to use on the bottom right.

One of the things I always found the least fun about sharing my scrapbook pages on my blog or anywhere online, was trying to get get good photos. But I took both of these pictures with my phone camera and only had to do a little editing. So much easier! Probably not as good quality as my DSLR, but whatever helps make the process quicker is ok by me.

If you share scrapbook layouts online, how do you photograph your pages? Phone, point and shoot or DSLR camera?

Around Here

Still blogging!
But I did take a week off for the holiday.

Anyway, I thought I'd share a little bit of what is going on around here.

Celebrating...
My birthday at the end of June.

My mother in law gave me some beautiful flowers.

And every year for the past few years, I have hung birthday signs around the house for the kids to find. I found these hanging up all over the house the morning of my birthday. Erin made them for me. And no, I did not tell her that birthday isn't spelled that way!

Since my birthday was on a weekday, Mike had to be out of town. But he did call me bright and early that morning to wish me happy birthday. I spent the rest of the day doing fun things I love. Went out to breakfast with the kids, got a pedicure, went to the library and did a little clothes shopping. A few friends came over that night and brought wine and we had pizza and cupcakes to celebrate.

I know he would hate me to brag on him, but I can't help it! The day he came home, he had to drive several hours back into town after working. Before coming all the way here, I discovered that he had picked up a few gifts for me and some groceries to make me a birthday dinner so I wouldn't have to cook. I really appreciated that he still wanted to celebrate with me even though I know he had to be tired!

We didn't do a whole lot for Fourth of July this year. We were lucky to have Mike home a few extra days, but really we kept things kind of quiet. An afternoon at the pool, dinner and a movie out as a family another night, and seeing a few fireworks was enough over the holiday weekend was enough.
The movie we saw...

And I have to admit that I did not enjoy it as much as the first two. Erin of course loved it. And Mike and Evan thought it was ok. There were parts I liked, but it just wasn't my favorite.

I was also happy to have my brother and his wife in town for the holiday. We were able to see them for dinner the night we went out to the movie, on the fourth of July at my parents house and for brunch the next day. Ok maybe we did a little more than I realized last weekend! lol

Enjoying...
Scrapbooking again!

I'm not just working on the Miami Summer album, but also finding time to work on a few layouts for fun. I posted that photo of Mike and I on Facebook back in January with a little tribute to love, and I decided I wanted to document it. This layout is going in an "Us" album. Maybe I will share the completed page next blog post.

On the left there, is a little Miami album Erin is creating on her own. I think it's going to be really cute. And I love being able to spend some time working together side by side on projects.

Learning...
Dutch!

This is a super cool app I found quite by accident when I was reading an article about stress reduction.You can learn all sorts of languages and it is free! It may not be the super best way to learn a language, but it's fun. I can say quite a few phrases already, and it's sticking. My kids laugh at the way I'm walking around practicing. I think I will work on German or brush up on my French that I learned in high school next.

Visiting...
Iowa again to be with Mike. He had to work another weekend, and there is no way we were going to go almost two weeks without seeing him.

Evan has found a spot where he loves to fish, and it's a pretty popular spot. He was able to fish several times while we were up there.

We also went to the local water park one day and for the price it was pretty reasonable. It was $6 a person to get in but really only had a wave pool, three slides and a kiddie pool with a playground. I don't know about the kids, but I had fun!

And one day Erin and I went to lunch just the two of us. Evan was too tired from fishing all morning, and Mike was at work. Despite Mike having to work during the day, the good thing about going there is at least getting to spend time with him at night. Something we wouldn't be doing if we had just stayed home. And we had dinners with him, went out to get ice cream and even headed down to fish some more on the last night.

Listening To...

Podcasts! Like a lot. I think my whole ride to and from Iowa I spent listening to different podcasts. Here are some of my favorites...

1. The Model Health Show (with Shawn Stevenson)

Lots of good health tips and advice. Really educational when it comes to learning about how things affect your body. 

2. The Scrapgals Podcast 

A fun scrapbook podcast 

3. Pocket Talk 

Another scrapbook podcast, but this one is about pocket pages scrapbooking

4. The No Sleep Podcast

It's a horror podcast, so not for the faint of heart and has some bad language at times. But nice and scary if you are in the mood

5. This American Life

It's a public radio show and has had some really interesting topics and stories that draw me in.

6. Happier Podcast with Gretchen Rubin

An absolute favorite! It's not all just about being happy. Lots of good try this at home hacks and ways to simplify life as well.

7. Darkest Night Podcast 

I'm going to be honest. I'm not enjoying the second season as much as the first. And it can get a little gruesome at times. So I don't recommend this one if you are not a fan of horror. I'm not really a fan of the gore side at all, but I kind of got hooked on the story and seeing where it went the first season. I guess we will see if I stick with it.

I also have Welcome to Night Vale, Live Inspired, Alice Isn't Dead, Freakonomics Radio, Happier in Hollywood and Elise Gets Crafty in my podcast List. I just added the Feel Good Effect Podcast but haven't had a chance to listen yet.

And to wind down what has become a very long post:

Enjoying...

Summer!!

We love summer here! Personally, I love being a mostly stay at home mom because it is just what works best for our family. But what I love most in the summer is how there is no school, longer daylight, sleeping in if we want, no rushing around most days, hanging out at the pool, and spending time with friends we don't see as much during the school year. Yes, there is some summer homework, but not a lot. And we do try to exercise in some way every day, whether it's walks, swimming, bike rides or yoga. 

But I love the less stressful vibe of summer and being able to enjoy this time with my kids. Well, most days. When they are not fighting. lol

And I especially love the flexibility of being able to pick up and go on little trips if we want. 

Summer is my favorite season for all those reasons I listed above and more.
Do you have any fun activities you love to do in the summer?

Could It Be?

A Scrapbooking Post?

This past January, I went on a scrapbook weekend at a hotel only about fifteen minutes from my house. A local scrapbook store used to host what they called The Girlfriend Getaway a few times a year and some friends and I started making it an annual tradition. When the scrapbook store closed, two of the owners thankfully continued to run the event.

Of course an ice storm was predicted for that Friday and throughout the weekend. But since it wasn't too bad that morning, Mike offered to drive me there in his truck. He knows how much this little getaway means to me. :)
And I'm so glad I was able to go because I was able to start working on a mini album telling the story about living in Miami last summer.

I am breaking it into two 6x8  Daily Flash albums by October Afternoon using a combination of pocket pages and regular scrapbook layout pages. So there will be one album for each month we were down there. The one I finally finished this weekend with the June photos has 40 pages in it which makes it pretty full. And I am thinking there will be just as many pages if not a few more for July!

This is a photo of the title page I took at the crop. A friend of mine wanted me to post a picture of it on Facebook and I had to tape it to the table to get a photo that didn't have a big glare from the lights.

This is another set of pages towards the beginning of the album. I'm trying to highlight the most important moments and memories we don't want to forget about our stay down there. For our first meal we had takeout pizza from a place not too far from the apartment that became a Friday night favorite. And that pool! It was one of my favorite spots in the whole apartment complex.

This is one of my favorite regular pages from the June album. On the night we arrived, Mike drove the kids over to the beach for a quick look so I could get some of our stuff unpacked and he snapped this great shot!

And here are a few more pages I created that weekend to give you a feel for the overall look.

Definitely had to include some of Evan's fishing stories.

 And here are just some more of the day to day things we did.

I also want to add that I finished a little over the first half of this June album back in January. And then this past Saturday, I went to a 12 hour scrapbook event with friends and was able to complete the rest.

I picked up where I had left off with Father's Day.

And there is that Serenity Pool again. Have I mentioned how much I loved it? ;)
I also wanted to mention how the kids and I made a list of places to visit to keep us busy while Mike worked. So that is the page on the right, which explains how we ended up at he Seaquarium.

As you can see, I'm not sharing all forty pages. Just a glimpse, but hopefully enough to get the idea of how I designed it.
Now that I have completed June, I'm anxious to get started on July because it has some of my favorite photos like our trip to the Everglades and Evan finally catching his bull shark.

I'll be sure to share a few pages when it's done!

Weekend Recap

My husband has to travel a great deal for work often having to set up a "home base" a few days out of the week wherever his current project exists.

Last summer we were lucky enough to join him in Miami while he was working down there.
This summer won't be quite the same since he is working in Iowa. Definitely a different vibe. But one of the fun parts of having him "live" in other cities, states and even countries (hello, Canada!) is getting to explore and learn about a new place.

This past weekend the kids and I made our first trip up to see him since he had to work on Saturday. And with it being Father's Day weekend, we didn't want him hanging out alone on his special day.

Our first morning there, we researched where the closest donut shop was and found one not too far away. Honestly though, I think it was the only one in town - lol.

Two thumbs up reviews from the kids. I am not a big donut eater, so I'll take their word for it.
After breakfast we headed out to explore. I usually like to Google "fun things to do with kids in...(whatever place we are)" Mike is always good about finding restaurants, but he doesn't usually have a lot of time to check out entertainment. His days are pretty long at work.

This trip we looked mainly for playgrounds, parks and good places Evan could fish. We found a pretty good park with a playground and then a campsite across the road with a lake. The kids both actually fished for a bit.

And then Erin and I killed some time being silly while we waited for Evan to finish up.
That night Mike grilled burgers and then we headed out to an ice cream place I had found on the internet that proclaimed it was the best ice cream around.

Erin thought it was ok, but Mike and Evan were kind of meh about it. I'm not a big ice cream eater so once again I took their word for it - lol.

On Saturday, the kids and I drove out to the job site to visit Mike and take him to lunch. We couldn't do much there because of safety regulations besides visit the trailer. But we always like to see where he is working and learn about the projects. And I think he just likes us coming by and being there.
That night we watched a movie and had pizza for dinner. I'm happy to say there is a pretty decent pizza place up there.

Sunday was Father's Day, and the kids decided to follow a theme by giving him presents of his favorite Star Wars character. Evan created this pencil drawing for him to display in his office.

And I helped Erin go and get this fun bear from Build a  Bear. It is one of her favorite stores and she loved putting this bear together for him including music and sound effects! She also made him a photo book mostly on her own. The only thing I did was help her with the ribbon binding. :)

So glad we could be with him on Father's Day!
And for our first trip up there it was pretty successful!

We Love the Music

Mike and I love to go to concerts together!
We go as much as we can and for me sometimes the smaller the venue, the better!
I like being up close to my bands.

Like when we saw Elle King at The Old Rock House here in town. That is definitely a small venue and we were right in front of the stage.

And this pic is from a road trip we took up to Milwaukee to see El Vy at the Turner Ballroom. We had to literally drive through a snowstorm to get home the next day, but it was worth it!

This pic of course is U2 here in St. Louis in 2011. Not a small venue, but up close to them is always good. :)

In fact, I have a running list I keep of all the bands Mike and I have seen together including the opening acts.
The very first concert we ever went to together was before we were even dating! We saw Weezer and the band Live at the American Theater, which is no longer around. So that show will always hold a special place in my heart because it was our first concert together.

A few other favorites are (not counting U2 of course):

Radiohead
Arctic Monkeys
Alabama Shakes
The National
Alt J
Jane's Addiction
Garbage
No Doubt
Weezer
Portugal The Man
The Black Keys
Awolnation

That's just a small number. We have seen 50+ bands together over the years!

(Elle King)

 (Awolnation)

(Alabama Shakes)

(The Sheep Dogs)

(And U2 once again in Chicago this month)

We actually saw Portugal the Man and Electric Guest last night at another favorite venue - The Pageant but the lighting was so bad we couldn't get a good photo at all. 

And now we are looking forward to seeing U2 again in the fall here in St. Louis! Our General Admission tickets are bought and now we just have to wait.

The Road to U2 Joshua Tree 2017

In the fall of 1987, I was a Junior in high school. A friend of mine had an extra ticket to see U2 on their Joshua Tree tour at the old Arena and I decided to go along. Another brief friendship with a boy at the end of my Sophmore year, had introduced me to U2's music so I figured it would be a good show.

Little did I know that it would be a concert that would literally change my life! If there is one thing I know about U2, they really know how to put on a live show. Bono is the ultimate performer when it comes to engaging the crowd. By the end of the show I was a fan for life. The whole crowd stood there singing the lyrics "How long to sing this song?" of their final song from "40" long after the band had left the stage, and they finally had to turn the lights up and blast music from the sound system to get us all to leave. I knew in that moment, singing along that I had found a band that I would always love.

And I have continued to love them throughout the years.
Achtung Baby came out when I was in college and it was different from Joshua Tree in so many ways but amazing. And then Zooropa was out not too long after which has one of my all time favorite songs "Stay". I am still kicking myself to this day that my boyfriend at the time and I did not see them on that tour, (one of their biggest ever) due to our "budget".

All of our friends pretty much loved U2 and one of those friends was Mike. I think he was a bigger fan than even I was if that's possible. And we really connected over their music. It was only one of the many things really that drew us together. But our love for U2 was a big one. We even danced to their version of "Unchained Melody" at our wedding for our first dance.

Two weeks after we were married, we saw U2 on tour for POP and we were right next to the smaller stage so were pretty close to the band for a good part of the show. It was the first time I had been that close and I loved it!

As the years passed, every time U2 went on tour, we had to go to at least two or three different places besides here in St. Louis to see them. Kansas City, Chicago, Vegas, and even Dublin Ireland which was on our bucket list. Mike has also seen them in Toronto, Seattle and Nashville.

 (Dublin Ireland)

Two of the concerts (the one in Vegas and one here is St. Louis) I was pregnant with Evan. We always like to joke that he is such a big U2 fan because he heard them in utero. :)
In Fall of 2009, we went back to Chicago to see them, but this time Evan went with us for his first real U2 concert ever.

 



The best concert so far though was here in St. Louis in 2011 on their 360 tour when we were right in the front of the stage.

This close to the Edge and the rest of the band when they came to his side. Right there in front of us! Evan was at this show too. And I know I've shared this photo Mike took before, but I love it because the Edge was looking right at Evan and smiling at his enthusiasm. It was awesome!

With their latest tour "Songs of Innocence" they didn't come to St. Louis, so once again we drove up to Chicago. We were only able to get two GA tickets so I let Evan take it to be down on the floor with Mike and I sat way up at the top. It was worth it though and still a good show. I love that Mike and Evan had that experience together!

And now thirty years later - they are back on tour for Joshua Tree. Mike missed it the first time around. And I missed out on Zoo Station. So we say we are even, although he likes to tease me that his show was bigger which I can't disagree.

But this time, the four of us went. The whole family. Erin didn't want to miss out and so she went to her first U2 show ever. It was Evan's fourth. Mike and I have actually lost count. I am sure we could figure it out, but let's just say 15+ since 1987 for me.

Just too hard to get a good photo of the four of us, and like I said not wanting to share too many recent private photos. But this one gives you an idea.

I love when the crowd looks like stars in the sky.

The show opened with four oldies - Sunday Bloody Sunday, New Year's Day, Bad and Pride
And the Joshua Tree portion of the show did not disappoint for me. From the moment Streets started to the end with Mothers of the Disappeared. Edge rocked on Exit and In God's Country has special meaning for Mike and I from a time we listened to Joshua Tree on an old cassette as we drove through Montana and Idaho on a trip to see friends right before we were married.

But surprisingly, I absolutely loved when they played Beautiful Day and Elevation. This photo was taken during Beautiful Day and the lighting was fantastic. Just beautiful! Mike got a fun video of me, himself and Evan singing the lyrics together, but I won't share that here. ;)
Elevation? Once again the Edge rocked and I found myself singing and jumping along. It was probably my next favorite part of the show this time.

Being so far from the stage was hard at first. We are usually down in that crowd as close as we can possibly get. This time around with Erin though it wouldn't have worked. And frankly, looking at the photo it makes me kind of glad we weren't down there. That is a lot of people!

U2 has meant a lot to me through the years. They have been a connection between Mike and I. They have been a connection we have with our son. And so many times their lyrics and music have spoken to me. I have many friends who feel the same way, and I have connected with U2 fans all over the country and world. And then there are the people who just can't stand them and love to tell me how much Bono sucks. But really, love or hate them, they are a popular band. And I love them!