Kaia and Alexa's afternoon at the nail salon

I needed a pedicure, and I have taken Kaia several times to go get her toes done with me, so just as we were leaving Alexa knocked on the door and Kaia told her we were going to get our toes done. Alexa asked if she could come, and crazy me I said yes :) We checked with Carla to make sure it was okay, and she said it was so we were off. (Really she asked if I was feeling okay to want to take the both of them :)We went over ground rules in tha car since Alexa had never gotten her toes done I made Kaia tell her the rules:
1. Mom's takes longer so we have to be patient and wait quietly.
2. No running around the salon
3. Follow directions

I always go to the place right by the Albertson's by my house so as soon as we got in Kaia helped Alexa pick a color.

At first they were picking several colors so I told them to narrow it to one.

Kaia chose red glittery and Alexa chose gold glittery.

They looked so cute sitting in those big chairs. They had fun messing with the remote controls. Their favorite was the vibrating.

First, the woman did Alexa toes.

Then she did Kaia's toes.

While they were waiting for me to finish they went to look at the nail designs across the salon.

Kaia's toes

Alexa's toes
Alexa asked if they could get a treat after we were done. I told her getting her nails done is a treat. She said, " No, I mean something to lick or eat." So we went to Great Harvest, and they got some bread and a soda. and both made it out alive :)

They were very good and aside from Kaia's temper tantrum before we left the salon I would do it again.

One more video!

They had a special guest guitar player named Warren Haynes who was in town to play with Eric Clapton the following night but he stopped by to play a song called #41 with the band. They also had a guest saxophone player since their saxophone player, LeRoi Moore, died three weeks earlier. Jeff Coffin(of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones)filled in for the remainder of the tour. He kinda looks like Derek :) Enjoy this short clip...

Maybe turn your volume down a little it's kinda loud at first.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

You never know what you'll see in Berkeley, CA

No sillies it's not Christmas time I'm talking about, it is the annual pilgrimage to see the Dave Matthews Band! My friend Hollie and I have been traveling for three years now to see this band at least once a year. We wait in anticipation each Mar/Apr when the tour dates are announced. Then we plan out what show we want to go see and order our tickets. Because the shows are not for six months after the tickets go on sale we have plenty of time to book airfare, a rental car, and a hotel room. For the last two tears we went to see the band in Chula Vista which is right outside of San Diego. But his year we wanted to go someplace new, so we chose Berkeley, CA. It happened to be the last three nights of the tour but we could only stay for two since we both have to be responsible and work on Monday :( Anyway, we both love the music so much and it is when we get to act like 16 year old girls talking about the band. Derek was not very happy that we chose Berkely, CA, as he is not at all liberal in any sense of the world. In fact he refuses to say Berkeley. He calls it the city that shall not be named. Maybe he thought Hollie and I would get involved in some bra burning protest or something. He did call Saturday to tell us we were missing a protest on campus about trees. I told him we'd hurry to join in.

First: Hollie and I before the show!

Second: Carter (drums) Stephan (bass)

Third: the stage (we are so close!!!)

Fourth: Sea lions in San Francisco

These are the cranes at the dock that unload all the cargo ships from China to be distributed to our country! Hooray for massive importation!
Downtown SanFrancisco. What if there was an earth quake? Gonners?...

Funny story... there was an earthquake during the night of the first show that we didn't feel. Hmmm...
You get another pic of Carter and Stephan.

This is the man! My secret boyfriend.. Dave Matthews :)

The following is a video tutorial so you canget to know the band too! I know you all are so greatful for the info :) Just indulge me...

The shows were so amazing! I loved that anywhere we were would have been closer than any other concert of theirs we've been to. Here's the breakdown:

Friday
1:00 leave to pick up Hollie from her house
2:05 arrive at the airport
3:00 leave for Oakland
4:20 arrive in Oakland
4:45 get rental car, drive to show venue
5:30 arrive at venue and wonder where we are going to park!
6:00 get into venue and scope out seats (it is all general admission)
7:00 opener comes on (they are fabulous-- Sharon Jones and the DAP Kings)
7:50 crew starts to set up for Dave!
8:20 Dave comes out and the show begins!
8:20-11:30 Heaven on earth!

We were three people back from the stage railing. It was so amazing to watch all of Dave’s facial expressions in person and not on a giant screen. After the show the drummer, Carter, always gives out his drum sticks, and a couple next to us got one of them. I got to touch it!!!)

11:30-12:30 try to get to the hotel, and order pizza (it's tradition)
1:00 eat pizza and go to bed


Saturday
7:30 wake up (I know early!)
8:30 eat breakfast
9:00 head to Verizon store (Hollies phone died!)9:45 drive to San Francisco
10:15 park at Fishermans warf
10:15- 2:00 toured around the warf, and peir 39, and the farmer's market

2:00-4:00 tour around San Fran in the car (I think I took the most steep streets, and was white knuckling it the whole way)

4:00 head back to Wal-Mart to look for a small camera (no luck)

6:00 arrive at venue

6:15 get 10 rows of people back from the stage

7:00 enjoy opening act again

7:50 two tall rude boys stand right in front of us and refuse to move

8:20 the band comes out

8:50 we leave to the back of the venue because Hollie is 4'9" tall and cannot see at all so we both end up crying but not before she elbows rude boy in the back so hard.

9:00 have pity party at back of venue where we cannot see at all!

9:10 walk around the rest of the venue to look for a place to stand stopping to crouch to see between peoples legs (Yes it was that bad!)

9:15 find nice mother daughter who let us stand next to them at the very back of the venue to enjoy the rest of the show

11:00 fight way through crowd to find car

12:00 get back to hotel, eat leftover pizza, go to bed

Sunday

8:00 rise and shine

8:00- 10:00 lay in our beds chatting about our night etc.

10:00 get ready to check out

11:00 check out

11:15 tour around Berkeley

1:00 find cute local restaurant to have first meal of the day

2:00 head to chocolate factory to have dessert

3:00 return rental car

4:00 board flight-- back to reality

5:30 land in Vegas (home for another year!)

Overall a great time. Hope tall rude boy has a huge bruise on his back and back pain for a long time :) Can't wait to see where they will go next year so we can make the trip again. I'll know by April :)

Our reminder of 9-11

Seven years ago I was pregnant with Matty, living in and teaching fifth grade in Vegas while Derek finished up his study of the Korean language in North Carolina. We planned to reunite in December of 2001 in Vegas. Well on the morning of September 11th, 2001 our family's path was forever changed. I couldn't get ahold of Derek that morning and I didn't know if he was immediatley sent to New York to help out with the aftermath. He finally called and told me he was still in North Carolina. I asked what would happen now. He said he didn't know but that he would probably end up being deployed. Sure enough before we were to reunite in December we found out he would be going overseas and I couldn't know where as he is a green beret and part of the Army Special Forces. He got to spend Christmas with Zack and I then left January 1st, 2002 for Tennessee for three months of training before heading to dark and dangerous places (as my sister says) I flew out to see him, eight months pregnant, in Nashville. Stupidly we watched Black Hawk Down while I was there. I was a blubbery mess after that. Three weeks after he left I gave birth to Matthew. Derek didn't get to meet Matty until he came home in September and Matty was five months old. When Derek got home on September 12th, 2002 he could tell me where he was, and it was Afghanistan. I kinda knew all along, but he never said, and I didn't ask or watch the news. I already decided that if I saw uniformed men through the peephole of my door, I was not going to answer, cause if they could not tell me he was gone then he was not really gone. Thankfully that didn't happen. Now seven years later on September 10th, 2008 we have to say goodbye to Derek again. Afghanistan gets to claim him again until January 2009. I'm sure our kids have no idea why their dad has to go all the time because this is certainly not the only deployment since the first Afghanistan trip. His travels have claimed him more than we have had him home in our ten years of marriage. I do know that I am proud of my soldier and the sacrifice he makes day in and day out to protect the freedoms that so many in this country take for granted. He says the one thing that keeps him going while he is away is knowing that his family is proud of his service, and that we will always be waiting for him to return home to us...and we will.

Home warranty woes!

Hopefully you can see that... it was 91 degrees in our house! I think the hottest it got was 93! Good times.



Man my kids rooms are messy! They were still hot and came into our room to sleep on the floor for three nights. Aparently our room was the coolest.

People had always said what a great idea the home warranty is but I just never wanted to spend the money. Well of course stupidity catches up to you. That or you kinda figure a 10 year old air conditioner is bound to go out sooner rather than later. Well that is what happened to us. At first we heard a knocking sound and at one point it got so bad the kids thought it sounded like Jurassic Park when the T-rex is coming. They were freaked out a little :) So we had a guy in the ward come out. Turns out our fan blades had become separated and were banging around. So $275 later we had a new fan. The next day... the compressor blows requiring a whole new air conditioner unit! Now if any of you have never been in the market for a new air conditioner you may like to know that they are upwards of $5000! Again, we Davis' may not be like the rest of you either in that we don't have a spare $5000 lying around that we want to use on an air conditioner so on the credit card it went. Hooray! My dad asked if we were going to wait untilthe spring to have it replaced. I don't understand why that would have even been an option seeing at is was going to cost us just as much in the springtime as it would in September. If we lived pretty much anywhere else in this great country we may have been willing to wait until spring to shell out such an expense, but seeing as it is going to be hot here until October we wanted it done ASAP.

So where does the home warranty fit in... at the same time my AC went out my neighbor down the street was having the same issue, but she has a home warranty so for the budget price of $45 she had her AC fixed! AUUGH isn't stupidity great? So if any of you home owners have wrestled with the idea of a home warranty let me be the stupid one and go and get one. Save yourself $4955!

If there was a positive in all this it is that we did have a way to pay for it, we don't have two air conditioning units, and this new air conditioner is supposed to save us 25-30% on our cooling bills. We'll see .