We had an awesome weekend! Last night was the Celtic Woman concert in Spokane. Six months ago we had never heard of these woman...we feel so lucky to have discovered them and then learn that Spokane was on their tour schedule. John and I were in the front row, center...close enough to see the whites of their eyes and the static in their hair :) At times they were only fifteen feet away and we could hear their voices without the mics. Mairead is the fiddle player and she is amazing to watch. Her music is incredible, but as she plays she also dances, jumps, and spins! She wears what I call "fairy dresses" which just adds to the effect. The other girls are Lisa, Chloe, Orla, Hayley, and Meav (Meav was not there last night, I found on their web site that she and Hayley are alternating on this tour). Their voices are clear and brilliant. They do solos, groups, a capella, and sing with piano, harp, pipes, guitar, drums, etc. Theie harmony is amazing! If you haven't heard their music check it out on the web! Borders has a great sample player, just search their music section for Celtic Woman!
And more...the rest of the weekend was just as great! My two sisters wanted to see the concert, too...but instead of going to the show in Seattle they decided to come to Spokane so we could all go together. From there it grew into a Girl's Weekend. Yes, John was coming but he said he'd just find things to do while we did girly stuff. Then he realized the NW Antique Aircraft Club Fly-in was the same weekend...so he flew the Champ to western Washington on Friday and stayed with Lynn and Arthur. They all went to the fly-in on Saturday and the plan was for him to fly to Spokane Sunday morning. That almost happened...he had to wait for the weather to clear and took off about 11:00 am. Snoqualmie Pass was socked in and he couldn't get over the Cascades, so he had to turn back. We decided if he couldn't take off by 2:00 I would try to get hold of a friend or a cousin in Spokane to use his ticket. The weather gods were smiling though, and he took off right at that time and was able to get over the mountains. There were thunderstorms in eastern Washington and he had to make a few detours and deal with some turbulence, but he landed about 5:50 pm and we got to Felts Field to get him at 6:00...one hour before concert time :) While John was trying to get to Spokane we girls were having a wonderful meal at Anthony's...chocolate martinis, huckleberry wine, coconut shrimp, oysters, portobello mushrooms, Yum! John was stuck with a burger from the drive-thru at Zip's.
Susan, Corki, and I had met at the hotel on Friday evening in Liberty Lake. We had dinner at the Azteca and got ready for a day of shopping the next day. The next morning we went first to Michael's so I could check out the new scrapbook items from Martha Stewart Crafts . I was not overly impressed, but picked out a few things. Nice stuff, but Martha apparently has not quite caught on to what "Scrapbookers" with a capital S do :) I found some fun things for Legend to play with while he is here next month, too :) More shopping at Wal-Mart including bathing suits for Susan and I. We'd forgotten to bring one and we wanted to use the pool and spa at the Travelodge where we'd be staying the next two nights in the Garden Springs area of Spokane.While Corki and Susan went to Eddie Bauer and Payless Shoes, I went down the street to Starbucks and...Score! TEN cans of mocha powder. John and I go through about one can per week. They finally put it back on the retail shelves, but only at the larger stores and it's not always available. When the closest "larger" retail store is four hours away, you get it when you can. We did some looking at the mall on Sullivan Street, but headed for the hotel for the 4:00 pm check-in. It was warm and we were ready to relax by the pool and hit the hot tub later in the evening. As we were checking in Corki asked about the restaurant on site, the Spokane House. Oh sorry...it's closed, there was a fire and it's being refurbished. Well, okay, we'll make other plans...we were anxious to get to the pool. Oops! That's being resurfaced and is closed. But, the hot tub is open. Well, at least we'll have that. We hauled our luggage onto a cart and headed for the elevator. As we went by the hot tub Susan noticed it was "Closed for Cleaning". We had a good dinner at Chili's (new to Corki) and headed back to the hotel. As we went in we checked on the hot tub....still closed for cleaning! Hmmm....we took a look inside. It looked fine and was running, but the water was cold. We decided they must have been cleaning it, but it hadn't warmed up yet. So much for those suits we bought! Sunday morning dawned early...by mistake. I'd told my sisters I'd be at their room at 9:00 am. When I tried to set my alarm I discovered the hour button was broken. So, I set an alarm on my phone and plugged it in by the bed...which meant I had to unplug the clock. I woke up in the morning and it was very bright. Wondering what time it was, I looked at my phone...8:03 am. Darn, the alarm hadn't gone off for some reason. I got up, showered, and walked down the hall. When I knocked on the door I heard Corki grumbling about something. She cracked the door open and peaked out with one eye, the room was dark and she said..."What are you doing? It's 7:00!" I said it was nine! She let me in and we looked at their clock....7:00 am. Dang it! That's what I get for looking at my phone without my reading glasses. It had said 6:03, not 8:03 :) Well, we were all awake now...may as well get up! I made a Starbucks run while they got dressed. We had hoped to have a late breakfast with John at the Skyway Cafe at Felts Field. Well, we knew by 8:00 am that he wasn't going to make it for that, but we went there anyway. It's one of those cafes where the locals go for good food and plenty of it. Corki and I had been before, this was a new place for Susan. After breakfast we went to the Northtown Mall on Division (the parking garage here was my nephew David's first construction management project, Corki's son :) We spent most of our time at Steve & Barry's . Wow, this was a fun store! I picked out several things for Legend and a couple of shirts for John. Great prices and fun clothes! We were all tired after the fiasco in the morning, so we went back to the hotel to rest and get ready for that dinner at Anthony's and the concert. This morning we had breakfast at Frank's Diner in an elegant caboose and parted ways. I took John to Felts Field for his flight home. I decided to take Hwy 2 to Sandpoint, Idaho instead of my usual route. It was a nice drive that way, too. John landed in Libby (Montana) thinking he would see if there was an airport car he could use to go over to the fabricators to see how the hangar doors were coming. There was no airport car, but one of the businesses at the airport had a truck they let him use. He decided first to head for the Libby Cafe for huckleberry pie. Funny thing about small towns....as he was eating his pie two guys came in the door and recognized him as "the door guy"...it was the "door fabricator guys" :) So he got his report and they got a question they had answered. I got home about an hour behind John and he was busy making Pesto Shrimp Pizza for dinner. Love that man!