Mile High Music Festival

AKA Best Weekend Ever.

We had the greatest time in Denver this weekend. Two full days of sitting on the grass listening to great live music seriously does some wonders for the soul. This might need to become an annual tradition.

Nas and Damian Marley. Damian has the best dreads I've ever seen - almost to his knees. Great show.

Rusted Root. Good, but only stayed here a few minutes because we were just on our way to another stage.

Garreth at Cypress Hill. We were right down in front for this one, and I embarrassed Garreth by putting in my old lady earplugs for it. Fun show, even though I'm not a huge Cypress Hill fan. Maybe it's because we just don't have too much in common, since I'm not really into weed and shooting cops.

Garreth was really excited about being so close to the stage.

B. Real tried to offer me some weed, but don't worry, Mom, I just said no. We might have been the only ones. Let's just say there was a terrific smell at the festival. Even airplanes were into it:

Keane. Loved it. He is one cheesy performer, but man, I LOVE his music!!

We had never heard of these guys. Dumb name, great band.

End of day one: Jack Johnson. How can you not love him? Very mellow show.

The next morning while the rest of our fellow concert-goers were still asleep, we headed into downtown Denver and walked around and had some lunch and gelato.

Denver is such a cool city.

Then we were back for more.

Jimmy Cliff. One of my favorite shows. He has to be pushing a hundred years old. Great reggae/funk.

Train. Not a big fan of these guys. I mean, I love "Hey, Soul Sister" as much as the next guy, but other than that, we thought they were pretty boring.

Weezer. You will probably be as surprised as we were to discover that this was easily our favorite of all the bands we saw. They are seriously so cool and put on such an entertaining show. We both LOVED this one so much.

The lead singer even came into the crowd while he was singing and was right in front of us. (And we were way in the back!) That's his back in the blue jacket.

And what better way to end the festival than with Dave Matthews Band? I have always wanted to see these guys and they definitely didn't disappoint. Boy, can they jam! In the whole two hour concert, I bet they only did about ten songs, but each one had a 15 minute jam in the middle. They rock.

It was so fun to get away and do something that we both love so much. It was a much needed vacation! Thanks so much, Nana, for taking great care of our four little monkeys! We love you!

Ratchford Reunion

While Stephen and his family were here, Davy and Rachel organized a big Ratchford reunion and we had such a great time together. In my 13 years of being in this family, I don't ever remember this many of us being all together. It was awesome. We started off taking family pictures in the park.

The Ratchford brothers.

The Ratchford kids, minus Pamela.

Pauline's family: Derek, Brad, Pauline, Kent, and Jake.

Stephen's family: Stephen, Breen, Saoirse, Ciara, and Muireann.

Elaine and her boys, Conor and Ethan.

I think you might already be familiar with this bunch.

Davy, Rachel, Leah, Eva, and Ronan.

After pictures, we headed to a gymnastics place that Rachel had reserved for us. It was a genius idea - it was way too hot to stay at the park, plus the kids were contained and had plenty of fun things to do. Okay, let's be honest, the adults had fun on the equipment, too. The best thing about the Ratchford family is that we really are all just a bunch of kids.

Great day together!

Rodeo Fun, part two

Despite a huge thunder storm and torrential rain, we had a great time at the rodeo!

My mom told the announcer to give a rodeo welcome to the Irish people in section B, and the rodeo clown went even farther - he had my sister-in-law Ciara come down! He told her that if the ropers got the calf in a certain amount of time, she would have to dance.

And here she is shaking her bon-bon!

It was awesome! The clown did the same thing to my grandpa on Saturday and I wish I could have seen that one, too!

On Friday morning while the boys were four-wheeling, we took the kids to the Rodeo Clown Roundup at the hospital and had a great time.

I love rodeo weekend in Preston so much - it's so much fun to do all the things I've done every year my whole life with my own kids! They are already talking about next year.