Oh My Weekend.

I just cannot even put into words about how great my weekend was. Oh gosh, it was good. I don't want to make you jealous so... fair warning. Friday night was a good night in and moderately early to bed. Which sounds lame but Holy Week right into Easter week meant we were sleepy.

Saturday we had a mostly normal day except we went to 4:30 Mass. It's funny, I was always a fan of the 4:30 (or Saturday night) Mass but now I am firmly in love with my 11:00 Mass. But anyway, it was nice to go and hear Fr. Nicholas who is new to our Parish.

After Mass and setting our precious children up with Happy Meals and Kathryn babysitting, Husband and I went out to the Blue and Gold Bash! Which is our Home and School Association Fundraising event. It was a lot of fun. We went last year but we didn't really know very many people yet. This year we knew more people so it was even more fun. I imagine it will just keep getting better every year.

I didn't take any pictures of the outing. (What a bad blogger and my hair looked cute too!) But I can show you what we bought from the silent auction. Every class makes a platter with their thumbprint and they are painted in fun ways. We bought C's class' platter.

Look at those cute bunnies! Each bunny is the thumbprint and their names are printed next to it. It's kind of hard to see I know. We can use the platter for Easter every year!

Anyway, it was a wonderful time spent doing actual adult things with other adults!

Then Sunday. Oh, guys. Sunday.

Well, let me backtrack to Thursday. I entered a twitter contest. And on Friday I found out I won! I won four tickets to see Raffi in concert in Chicago. From the Old Town School of Folk Music. (Have you heard their children's music? It's great!)

But Raffi! Like the real Baby Beluga/Down by the Bay children's singer/songwriter Raffi. My parents took me and my brother to see him in 1992, he was my favorite artist and that was my first concert ever! And I won tickets so that my kids could also have Raffi be their first concert. Poetic no?

It's kind of really crazy how the whole thing came about. A few weeks ago my mom and I were discussing Raffi and I was talking about how he really doesn't tour any longer. Husband chimed in that he had a show in Minneapolis on April 7. (If you're new, my parents live in the Mpls area.) But I couldn't justify the drive, the cost and we had the Blue and Gold Bash so it just wouldn't work.

I'm not going to say I prayed about a way to take my kids to see Raffi. But I am not saying I didn't. And oh my gosh. I saw the Twitter contest. Chicago is literally half the distance (like it's actually exactly half the miles) as my parent's house so we could day trip it. So I entered. And Husband was all "okay whatever" because who wins Twitter contests? And I agree. But I felt in my gut this was my way to get my kids to Raffi.

And it was. I won! So we woke up and drove to Chicago.

We saw the bean. (Cloud Gate.) I have been to Chicago many times and somehow have never made it to the bean. So that was great.

Then we got ready for the big show. And Holy Heck... Raffi retweeted me. Which means he knows we were there. And excited.

This was a new-to-me theater and it's so cool! It's underground. This lobby/ticket office is on floor 5. The actual theater lobby was floor one and then you still had to go down a lot of stairs to get to your seats. Super cool. 

We got to our seats. (After stopping by the merchandise table and buying two books.) And then Raffi retweeted me again!

C was wearing my 1992 Baby Beluga shirt from my concert. Because full circle! Our seats were great. No obstructions at all!

Pictures don't do this justice because it didn't seem far away at all. And then... he was there.

And he was just as fabulous as I remembered. The kids loved him. I loved him. It was so amazing. It was so wonderful. To share this concert and experience with my family? It was so special. He sang every song I wanted him to except "There Came a Girl From France" which is two-year-old Madeline's jam. But I could handle it.

For part of his encore, Raffi came out and sang the Beluga Grad verse of Baby Beluga.

I totally teared up a bit. It was so special. Then we went to Giordono's because one does not go to Chicago without getting a hot dog, pizza or Italian Beef. (I mean, sometimes all of them but that wasn't possible in one afternoon.)

We passed these pigeons on our walk and the kids loved them! It was kind of hilarious how much they delighted in the pigeons.

We are nothing if not Mo Willems and Pigeon fans. (And obviously Raffi fans too.) Ha.

Then we drove back and managed to make it home before the snow. And that tells you how wonderful of a weekend it was because the snow can't even rain on my parade! So much goodness. I am so thankful for time spent with my love, our church, our school people and our family. I think I am failing to fully express how lucky I feel right now, but it's getting really close to having to say #blessed. Oops, I just went and said it. Ah well, it's true.