Birthday Weekend

To celebrate Julia's upcoming birthday, we decided to surprise her with tickets to a show.

 

We took them to see...

The kids were so excited to walk up the steps and see The Imagination Movers and Nina standing in front of them...

The show was opened by ChooChoo Soul, just like on TV.  Genevieve and DC put on a high energy intro that had everyone dancing.  DC has quite the dance moves with his breakdancing.  I was very impressed at the end when Genevieve was talking to the audience about the importance of reading and having them spell words and at the end she talked about how she was able to look cool and have fun without showing any skin.  Such a great message, that rarely comes from the media these days.

The the Movers took the stage...

I knew they were talented, but I had no idea what incredible musicians they all are.  They began as a rock band performing in their hometown of New Orleans.  They are just a group of dads who would hang out after their kids went to bed to write songs for fun. Rich has 5 kids and Dave and Scott each have 2. They sang dozens of songs and even interspersed some classic 80s rock for the parents.  They had the whole place on their feet singing and dancing along

Nina was her charming and cute self. I had no idea she was from Hawaii.  She taught us a hula dance in her native language. 

This was the last performance in their 101 concert tour. They went all out with surprises and extras.  It was so fun to be a part of it all.  They are genuinely good guys.  They have been performing together for 9 years.  Almost all of them lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina.  Smitty is a volunteer fireman and risked his life as a first responder in the early days to save many of his neighbors.  They considered stopping, but knew they needed to stick it out for each other and their crew of 100.  They took their motto to heart and pressed on... "Reach High. Think Big. Work Hard. Have Fun."

It was a great concert. We haven't all danced that hard in along time! Thanks for the memories, Movers!

We stopped at Streets at Southpoint on the way home for dinner.  Julia's choice of course.... California Pizza Kitchen.

It was the perfect evening to be outside.  We walked around and enjoyed the fountains and street performers...

It was the perfect family Sunday afternoon.