U-S-H-E-R-R-A-Y-M-O-N-D

Went to the Usher concert on Wednesday night. AMAZING! It was quite the eventful night outside of the concert itself.

I left work at lunch in order to get some last minute accessories and to ensure I had enough time to get ready. Concert was at 7:30 and dinner with the girls around 5:30 meant I had to leave my house at 4:00.

I got a text from John around 2:30 letting me know that his first bus didn't arrive so he was going to be late. Damn. I continued getting ready and got another text at 3:30 telling me that traffic is at a standstill and he isn't going to be home until 5:30 or 6:00. CRAP! Unfortunately, this means that I won't be able to ride down to Seattle with my girlfriends and could possibly miss dinner altogether. My adorable friend Lauren was genuinely disappointed that I wouldn't make it for the ride down to Seattle.

My only other option was to take my daughter over to my brother's house, which is five minutes away, hoping my mom, who lives with my brother, will be home from work soon (my brother was going to the concert too, so he was not an option). At this point, I had resigned myself to going to the concert all by my lonesome, which sucked because half the fun is the drinks and dinner with the girls, right?

So imagine my elation when I spot Grandma's car already parked in the driveway! Whoo hoo! I was just at a rolling stop before I shoved my precious daughter out of the car.

Ok, the concert. Again, it was AMAZING! I went with three girlfriends: Lauren, Anna and Suzie. Sadly, we had pretty awful seats and we tried to prepare by bringing binoculars, which we ended up forgetting in the car (the binoculars was a whole other debacle). Our seats were so far from the stage that Anna said, "We need binoculars just to see the big screen!" We were also overdressed for that part of the arena. In Suzie's words, "We should have just come in sweatpants and sneakers." To top it off, we were so high up and so steep that when I would get up to dance later on in the night, my legs would be so tense with the fear of falling! I was slightly sore the following day!

The opening act was Miguel:

Image found on www.hoodrellic.com

I have never heard of him, but Lauren knew of his song All I Want is You. I missed most of his performance trying to figure out a way to get the binoculars from the car. On the way back to our seats, Lauren heard him yell to the crowd, "Los Angeles, let me hear you scream!" Uh, don't you mean Seattle?! Whatever.


Image found on The Den of Snakeyes blog

 After Miguel was done there was a break. During the break, the DJ was playing some awesome old school that I must download. The next opening act was Trey Songz and I was looking forward to seeing him, but come on, he is no Usher. Imagine my surprise when a countdown clock came on the screen starting at five minutes and the crowd went nuts! Everyone around me (my girls had left to get some drinks) had stood up screaming for him. Am I missing something? Ok, Mr. Steal-Your-Girl had a great body that he showed off and some singing chops, but again, no Usher. Trey Songz's performance was pretty good and there were some really good video montages that played, but I was ready for the main event!

The lights went down and the stage was lit up. Usher's voice came over the loudspeakers but he was nowhere on the stage. The crowd was pretty loud, but they really lit up once Usher was spotted on a platform to the back of the arena (yes, by my section!). The platform was then raised by harnesses and Usher hovered over the crowd on the floor seats. I was terrified of plummeting to my death in the seats we were in, I can't imagine having to be suspended on a platform by what looked to be four teeny tiny strings!

Lauren was a bit disappointed with Usher's appearance: slim fitting pants and a longer tuft of hair up top. Suzie, on the other hand, couldn't stop saying how hot he looked. Me? I didn't mind the pants, but the hair was not so good.

The choreography was one of my favorite parts of the show. It was sexy without being raunchy (ok, some raunch, but that is ok by me) and it always amazes me how the female dancers can do what they do in heels. I can't do choreographed dance for anything (my body doesn't like to be told what to do), but everytime I see dancers on the stage, I feel like I missed my calling from another life.

There was a point in the concert where an audience member was picked to go on stage with Usher. The girl was smokin' hot. All I remember about her were her pants. They were black and shredded to the thigh. Something like this, but with more skin showing (like, a lot more skin showing):

Found at Discount Women's Dress Shoes

Usher was really playing to the crowd with this bit. Totally toying with the Shredded Pants Girl. He ended up on top of her, between her legs, which he had to guide. Now, I don't know about you, but my legs would've instinctively clamped onto that man! At the end of the routine, Shredded Pants Girl was straddling Usher and I just about fainted. That man is so sexy.

Usher sang a lot of his old hits, which was what Lauren was looking forward to. He did a chair routine that mimicked his My Way video and he put on some roller shoes like he used in the U Don't Have To Call video (well, at least that's what I thought it was. He made a big deal about the shoes but I don't recall him actually rolling anywhere). But we were very disappointed when he did a quick five minute mash-up of the songs from Confessions. That is probably my favorite album of his and it lasted no longer than the blink of an eye. But that is the only complaint I have. Well, there was also the random canon sounds that scared me.

Usher ended with OMG, complete with pyrotechnics and lights. Perfect ending to a nearly flawless concert.

I found out that Wednesday's concert kicked off his OMG Tour and I was excited to know we were among the first to see this concert. If he is coming to a town near you, it really is a concert worth seeing. My recommendation would be to splurge on the floor seating and don't forget to wear your shredded black leggings.

Weigh-In Wednesday

I shall keep it short and simple. This was not a good weigh-in (warning: TMI coming up!) and I would like to blame Aunt Flo for this one since she is visiting me this week.

I have tickets to the Usher concert in November. I am hoping this will encourage me to lose some weight so I can get all kinds of cute for him!

Current Weight: 209.4 lbs.

Random Bella Moment:
Bella: Mommy, I am all done with my sandwich.
Me: Good job!
Bella: I'm still hungry, Mommy.
Me: Oh, I'm sorry. Would you like some water?
Bella: Mommy, hungry means food.

Thanks for setting me straight, Bella! Mommy sure does have a lot to learn.

In the Heights

Lauren and I have again bought season tickets to The 5th Avenue Theatre. This is our second year as season ticket holders and one of Lauren's college roommates, Fernanda, decided to join us this year. The more the merrier!

We went to our first play of the season last night, "In the Heights". Per The 5th Ave's website:

"...In the Heights tells a universal story set in Manhattan's Washington Heights – a place where the coffee from the corner bodega is light and sweet, the windows are always open, and the breeze carries the rhythm of three generations of music. It's a community on the brink of change, full of hopes, dreams and pressures, where the biggest struggles can be deciding which traditions you take with you, and which ones you leave behind."

I honestly don't know much about Broadway plays and have never heard of this Tony Award winning one. The synopsis made me interested in it and then positive reviews started pouring in, which got me excited!

The set was intricate and amazing. It really held my attention and kept my eyes moving while we were waiting for the play to start. Then Graffitti Pete break-danced onto the scene and I turned to Lauren and said, "I can already tell I am going to love this play."

The play was about Washington Heights, a low income, largely Latino-based community in New York. The main character, Usnavi (pronounced oo-snah-vee), was the name his parents picked when they were immigrating to America and saw a ship pass with the name of "U.S. Navy." Oh how witty! The entire play had fun little moments like that.

The other thing that really pulled me in was the music. I was surprised how urban it all was; Usnavi did very little singing and rapped the majority of the time. The singing itself isn't what Broadway goers are used to either. Instead of the usual sing-acting (as I like to call the traditional Broadway belting), the actors sang songs that are easily radio friendly. Their naturally strong, melodic voices rang through the entire theatre. It was the type of singing that gives me goosebumps!

"In the Heights" was full of characters with large personalities (think Gloria from "Modern Family"), even bigger voices, and a beautiful set to match the terrific music. I don't normally buy soundtracks to musicals, but this is definitely one to own.

This really was a wonderful play to open up the 2010/2011 season and I can't wait for more!

P.S.
I never wear dresses, but I wore one to the play last night. I now remember why I don't wear dresses. I felt like I forgot my pants.

Omigod! Omigod You Guys!

Welcome back to work everyone! Hope your weekend was fabulous because mine was! My weekend included trying a new yummy restaurant that I will blog about later on. I also went to see Legally Blonde The Musical at The 5th Avenue Theatre last night and seriously, to take a quote from the soundtrack: Omigod! Omigod you guys!

This musical was effing awesome! Super cute and hysterical! Ok, enough with the exclamation points.The main reason that we bought season tickets to the theatre was because of Legally Blonde. I have been so looking forward to this play because I love the movie so much. But with such high expectations, I was worried that I would be let down. I couldn't have been farther from the truth!

It was funny (maybe even funnier than the movie!) and had really great songs and the actors were great singers. We had a whole list of understudies for our show, but after it started I didn't care. One of the regular cast members, Rhiannon Hansen (who managed to make it to our show last night), was actually a contestant on MTV's Legally Blonde The Musical: The Search for Elle Woods. Sadly, she was one of the low points of the musical because I couldn't understand half the things she was singing/saying/blurting out.

One of the cool things about the play was that they used actual animals to play Bruiser and Paulette's dog. They were too cute! One of the other highlights was Paulette and her UPS loverrrr. The actor who portrayed the UPS guy played the part perfectly and nearly had me in tears. A must see in my book!

Ok, I am back to exclamation points. Time to end post here.