...that there's no rest for the weary. And that there's no rest for the wicked. And while I know that my weekend by others' standards was probably leisurely, this was a busy weekend for us.

Let's recap.

Thursday was my birthday, as my regular readers know, and it was a great day. The smoke had finally cleared out of the sky and it was blue and almost cloudless. Not too hot, not too cool. Tantamount to perfect. And birthday presents too!

I now am the proud owner of an 8Gb red Ipod Nano. YAY! LOVE my little LadiBug. B is to blame for the name, DH is to blame for the idea of putting an 'i' where the 'y' should be. But the really cool gift was a cookbook.

And not just any cookbook. I now have Nanny Ogg's Cookbook. Discworld/Terry Pratchett fans know of what I speak.

Lunch was Taco Bravo - yummy!; dinner was Maggiano's. DH didn't think that we'd be sitting and eating anytime before 8 since we were getting started out the door at 6, but luck was on our side. We paid the bill and was walking out at 8:05. Then we stayed up far too late watching 'Independence Day', which is a tradition on my birthday now.

The 4th was a little low key with just an afternoon barbecue and swimming at MIL's, but there were also fireworks to be chased after. Unfortunately there weren't a lot of local displays so the night ended a little early. That's probably good because Saturday we swung right back into the thick of it.

Saturday we headed on a 2+ hour drive to an SIL's 40th birthday party. She was in good spirits considering she chopped part of her fingernail off (some skin too) about an hour and a half before guests started arriving. She was fine, but we heard the story multiple times before dinner (taco bar...).

We stayed rather late and didn't get back home until just after midnight. This made getting up for Sunday Mass at 9am a challenging feat, but one we managed well. After mass we headed home, got diverted by a garage sale where I found a service for 8 of Noritake china for $125 and I think I'm kicking myself for not getting it. It was a gorgeous pattern.

We relaxed a little at home, had lunch and then headed for the light rail station as we had free tickets to an all day concert sponsored by a local radio station. Known as Kihncert on the Green, it's an outdoor concert and flea market that's held annually in the early summer. Why Kihncert and not concert? Well, for those who remember a certain band called the Greg Kihn Band that shouldn't be a surprise - he always integrated his name into things where it fit well - including album names.

Anyway, this was his gig as headliner but that was after excellent bands like Evolution (a Journey tribute band that A thought didn't do too badly, Journey fan that she is), Starship with Mickey Thomas (seriously, that's how they were billed), Night Ranger (the original lineup of Blades, Gillis and Keagy intact once again - yay!) and the Greg Kihn Band closing the show, but no encore because the cops shut them down at 9:30.

The highlight for me was Night Ranger. I've always wanted to see them in concert and I never got the chance in high school. I had an opportunity in college when someone stopped by with one extra ticket around 6pm and said "let's go!" I couldn't. I had an exam and paper due the next day at 8am, and there was no way I would be able to be prepared and still attend the concert because we wouldn't be back until 2 in the morning. I regretted that decision for so many years - I mean, the paper was practically done and I could have done fine on the exam without studying one more night? One less than perfect exam among all the other perfect scores I had in economics could have been just fine.

Still... now I've seen Night Ranger and am a happy camper. And I'm still tired from going here and going there and going everywhere. I'll probably talk more about the whole concert experience tomorrow (including being surprised by an old friend there) so that A can write up her input too (yes, she wants to contribute to the commentary on this).