Harley Grand Opening AND set up at The Idaho Center

Motorcycles and vendors started rolling in before 6 a.m. which made sleeping in the motor home very difficult. Since we went to sleep around 4 a.m., it was a little difficult to get up. . . Rob finally went out to fire up the system around 7:30 and I drove the motor home back to the house to shower and prepare for the day. Grandma Jeanie is spending lots of time with the kids at the house over the next couple of days, so I left the house without them at 8:30-ish and headed back to the event. The first band up was Walter Ego.
Our good friend, Ric, who also owns a sound company, is the guitar player:

They played from 11:00-3:00 and everything sounded great:

The next band up was Bone Daddy:

If a picture is worth a thousand words. . . :

There's just not much else I can say here. . . .

The event ended at 7:00 and we put everything away so we can take it all out again tomorrow:

While Rob and I ran this event, Dale was back at the shop prepping and loading the truck for our next event. Rob and I met him out at the Idaho Center around 8:30 p.m. to set up a big system for an early Saturday morning corporate event.

The event is a drama backed up by a full band. Since I will be at the Harley event in the morning and will miss this show, I made the guys humor me with a few photos. Rob's in the saloon. . .

. . . Dale's at church. . .

. . . I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing. . .

I had to leave before we finished the set-up, but Rob got home pretty late (early?).

The kids were ready for bed when I got home. . . we're all just a little worn out. . .



Another early morning tomorrow- Rob and Dale have to be back at the Idaho Center at 7 a.m. and I'll head over to the Harley event by 8 a.m.

Nampa Nights With Straight Away AND Harley set up

Our favorite band, Straight Away played out at Nampa Nights tonight. We always have fun when we run these guys:

This cute little man never misses a Thursday night out at Nampa Nights and he always dances. He has great rhythm, too. I hope I'm still dancing when I'm that age.

Beau:

Beau and Kurt:

Scott and Kurt:

There's almost always a good turn out for this event:

Dale left Nampa Nights at 6:30 and met a buddy of his over at the Harley place to set up the stage for our next event. They had it all ready for us when we arrived after taking everything down in Nampa. The three of us set it all up again for our two day event that starts tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m.

We are staying in the motor home overnight since all of our stuff will be out in the open.

Gloria had a great time dancing on the stage:

Dale went home around 3 a.m. so he can spend the day tomorrow (today?) getting ready for our Saturday morning show at the Idaho Center. Rob and I finished up around 3:45 a.m. and headed to the motor home in hopes of getting a couple of hours of sleep before all the vendors and motorcycles start rolling in. . .

The Calm Before the Storm

Gloria had a great time mothering Lauren. She even learned a very valuable lesson. This afternoon she was reminiscing about the night and she said she understands why I don't get much sleep when she (Gloria) crawls into bed with us!! Lauren had a few moments of needing her mommy during the night but Gloria snuggled and comforted her and they both woke up tired but happy this morning.

Lauren's gonna be a beauty like her momma:

We picked up Megan around 11:00 and took her to the shop with us. The girls had a great time playing together until Lauren bit her tongue and put a damper on the party.

Lauren and Megan went home in the afternoon and I spent the day doing some much-needed paperwork at the shop. I worked almost non-stop from about 3:00 until 11:00 and I accomplished quite a bit. I still have plenty to do, but I am closer to being caught up. Zach and Gloria snuggled on the couch and watched T.V.:

I titled this post The Calm Before the storm because the next few days are going to be stupid-crazy-busy. Tomorrow we have Straight Shooter at Nampa Nights: set-up, run sound, tear-down; then we'll set up a stage and sound after Nampa Nights for the Harley Davidson grand opening that starts Friday morning at 8 a.m.; the Harley event will end (for the day) at 7:00 p.m. and we'll leave everything set up for Saturday but take another sound system out to the Idaho Center for an early Saturday show. We'll set it all up on Friday night and then Saturday morning, I'll stay at Harley and Dale and Rob and Geoff will run the show at the Idaho Center from 8:30 a.m. until noon and then take that sound system down. We have someone coming to help me at the Harley show on Saturday until Rob gets back and then we'll run sound there all day and take it all down when it's over at 8:00 p.m. The guys have been prepping all day today and they'll, hopefully, finish prepping before we have to head out to Nampa Nights in the afternoon.

Lucy is really growing up:

Off to bed. . .

Happy 30th Birthday, Vic!!

Gil and Louise threw a surprise birthday party for Victoria this afternoon. This beautiful, smart, sexy woman just turned 30!!!

It was a great party!!

After the party, Gloria begged to have Lauren stay the night. They are such sweet friends, how could I say no???

Monday

We went back to the fairgrounds this morning at 8:30 to take down the stage. It didn't take too long and I was able to get a little bit of paperwork done at the shop. I spent the rest of the day running errands, paying bills, having a major melt-down over the state of my house, doing piles of laundry, sweeping, mopping, etc. . . . Once again, I almost forgot to take a picture of the kids!! This was taken at about 11:00 p.m. when Gloria had already fallen asleep, not because she had worked hard all day but because she had successfully conquered the neighborhood.

While we have a couple of catch-up days early on this week, things will be crazy-busy Wednesday through Sunday. . .

Sunday

Sunday morning we all got up early, again, and headed down to the fairgrounds. Rob and Dale had set up the stage on Friday morning so all that was left to do was to put up the canopy and set up the sound system. Another A/V company hired us, so we are only using a portion of our gear and Dale will be running the stage.

I realized at the end of the day that I didn't take any pictures of the kids!!! Oops! However, if you look closely, you can see Zach in this one so I at least have that much!!:

We took the kids up the hill to church and then Rob and I went out to breakfast. Just the two of us. It was nice. Kristin was planning to take the three boys to the new Harry Potter movie after church so we decided to tag along. It was a good movie but it could have been longer. They had to leave out way too many important details, in my opinion.

7:30 p.m. Back to the fairgrounds to take it all down. Unfortunately, we didn't know in advance that everyone had to be out by 9:00. Ugh! That means we'll have to go back tomorrow morning, early, to take down the stage. . .

Re-entry

My hectic life was waiting for me when I got home. . . Saturday was supposed to be a set-up day for our big Warrant/Dokken show in Payette. Unfortunately, the promoters canceled the show on Wednesday due to low ticket sales and who-knows-what else. Fortunately, another show came up- Snake River Dayz out in Nampa. It was just a block over from the Nampa Nights park and we were hired by the Downtown Association and The Pix Theater. We arrived at 8:00 a.m. to set up the canopy and the sound system for a 12:00 start time. The first group up was the Irish Dancers that we have worked with several times before, most recently at the Cherry Festival:

The band for the afternoon was Made By Mom. They had a heavy-metal sound and sang quite a few really good originals. I was impressed.

The kids were already worn out from getting up early and going to bed late at camp all week so it was tough getting up early again!! I think Zach played a full 8 hours on his new Gameboy DS while he took care of Lucy:

Gloria wasn't too tired to enjoy the water slide that was just behind the stage. I think she spent a full 8 hours climbing up and sliding down:

The last group of the day was an acoustic drummer duo. They were really good but the hot, hot day drove away the crowd.

By the time we took everything down and packed it away, it was afer 6:00 p.m. We were tired, hot and hungry. We had dinner at JB's and went home. I was asleep by 10:00. We have to be at the fairgrounds to set up the canopy at 8:00 a.m. . . . another 6:45 a.m. wake up call. . .