Free Concert - Score!

Every year in Burlington for a whole week there is a Discover Jazz Festival on Church Street. Church Street is a a long walking street in downtown Burlington with tons of shops, restaurants, and on the weekends (mostly) street performers. At one end of the street there's a Church, hence the name. It's where everyone goes when they visit Burlington and a great place for people watching. There are always people of all sorts there, seriously it can be quite entertaining. Anyway, they have mostly tons of different local bands play here and there on stages in front of shops or in restaurants and it's all free.

We hadn't really attended much of it in the past, but Greg got wind of a surprise free concert one of the nights from Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. I know, most of you, if not all of you, are saying, who??? We didn't know her either, but were told we had to go! Most of the band members (including Grace) were born and raised in Vermont so people know them here more than most places, but they've been getting bigger and bigger. They apparently made their first breakout onto TV over a year ago on The Jay Leno show and have recently been on Ellen as well. They just came out with their 3rd album, which we just bought and it's really good! The album is currently number 19 on the Billboards Top 200 and the Rolling Stone magazine put her as the Best New Act of 2010.

So off we went to check it out, you know, see what all the fuss was about. For a somewhat surprise concert, there were tons of people!

People as far as the eyes and the camera could see!

She jumped, danced, screamed, whooped, hollered and just had fun the whole time! The concert was about an hour and a half! That has to be quite the workout!

They were dressed pretty schnazzy don't ya think?

What I couldn't believe and am still having trouble believing even though I looked it up when I got home, is that Grace Potter just turned 27! She did not look it to me at all! I would have guessed somewhere in her 30's, like 35. They've been putting on concerts every year in Burlington for the past 5 years, apparently. Finally making there break, I think.

Looks like a Cool Dude, no?

Grace plays 5 different instruments! (3 are piano or piano-like and 2 are guitars, but still)

Here's a video of them playing most of one of their songs at the concert. Greg wishes to add a disclaimer that the camera is pretty small, the size of his palm, and he had to hold it over his head, so don't judge the camera skills too much!

They play a jazz/rock type of music. She sometimes does extra little screams and noises, which I don't especially care for, but despite that, we think they're really good! She definitely seemed to have a blast up there on the stage and she apparently frequently wears really short skirts which many of the crowd didn't seem to mind at all.

If you want to hear some of their ther songs you can check out their website at http://www.gracepotter.com/. They're single is called Tiny Light, it gets played on the radio sometimes.

Check it out!!

April Showers (or snow) Bring May Flowers!

All of a sudden, the trees and flowers have bloomed and there are colors everywhere! It's so pretty just driving around, going to work or the store, anywhere really. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to last too long (2-3 weeks), so off we went driving around to capture the prettiest ones in pics to share with you all. There's so many different varieties/colors: tulips, daffodils, lilacs, poppys, magnolia trees and much more! (most of which I'm not sure the names of)

Enjoy!

Scenes of the waters

So cute! A whole family!

Looks kinda like an otter, but it's a beaver!

Flat Stanley Visits Vermont

My Sister's oldest son Caleb (he'll be 8 really soon!) asked us to take his Flat Stanley around and show him a good time.

For those of you who don't know who Flat Stanley is (because we didn't until we were told; but lots of people do know him from what we've since learned); there's a children's book that tells the story of Stanley who is flattened one night by his bulletin board. At first he's upset about it, but soon realizes that there are benefits to being flat. He can slip under doors and be put into envelopes and sent to exciting places.

So Caleb (and his Mom I'm sure) dressed Stanley up to look like him (as much as possible for a piece of paper) and I think he did a great job!

So Greg and I took Flat around Vermont (we're now on a 1st name basis, of course). He saw Ben & Jerry's, a Maple Sugar house, an Apple Cider Mill, the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory, Lake Champlain, plus more!

I made up a book of all of his adventures so that Caleb and his schoolmates could see what a good time he had while he was here in Vermont. Included was also a treat for the kids (maple sugar candies) to get them all hyped up on sugar.

We took a video of the book before sending it on it's way so that we, and now everyone else, can see all of Flat's adventures here in Vermont visiting Aunt Tyra and Uncle Greg.

Enjoy!

You might have to pause it in order to read some of the story.....I can't get the video any bigger.

The Winter is Over...But Here it Was!

So there wasn't much snow this winter in Vermont. You probably can't tell that from these pics because they all have snow in them. But really, the first few pics are of the only real dumping that we got and the last ones were a smaller dumping we got like, months later. There were just small dustings between that melted before we could get any good pictures.

Snow drift between the house and the garage/shed.

Where'd our car go???

We barely got most of the snow off the car and jeep before the plow-guy arrived.

Look how happy he is!!! =)

One of the things I love the most about a freshly fallen snow is the way it outlines the branches of the trees. It looks so pretty. You'll notice a lot of pics like this below.

Kinda looks creepy! But pretty I think.

Boat launch on the frozen Winooski River.

Pile of driftwood along Lake Champlain.

Our footprints in the snow. I really like mine on the left. It's cute with the stars. Really they're supposed to be snowflakes, but they look more like 6-sided stars.

Winooski River

Bridge across Winooski River. On the right is the mouth of the river into Lake Champlain. At this point in the winter, most of the lake had thawed, leaving only the edges still frozen.

Lake Champlain

Winooski River

And now all the snow is GONE! Kinda wish we got more this year. Don't like the extreme cold of course, but the snow is nice and pretty.