music – the key to kays

Feb 19, 2013

Music Inspiration

Hello my Friend!

Well, it’s time to change out the chalkboard. For the last month it’s been getting us excited for our trip to the mountains. It was ridiculously beautiful and GREAT skiing, but back to real life now. So it seems that concert season is in full swing here in Tampa–so that was my inspiration today.

We saw Sister Hazel this past weekend, Zac Brown Band is this weekend and Pink perfoms next week. We missed a couple of other concerts this weekend with too much going on, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals and Imagine Dragons–for sure check them out if you haven’t. They’re both amazing bands.

On a random note, I’m loving my new Iphone case. It spoke to me from the kiosk (ok, the little “dot” rhinestone was the one talking). So ca-ute and a good little reminder that life is short. Step up, get out there and live your life!

Filed Under: music · Tagged: chalkboard, concerts, goodfinds, music

Dec 27, 2012

Merry Christmas My Friends!!

By the key to kays · Leave a Comment

Hello my Friend! That’s a wrap on Christmas 2012. I’m tired just thinking about taking down and packing away all of the decorations.

December 24th is Wrigley’s birthday. She turned EIGHT this year. We got her the year after I moved here to Florida. Crazy. She’s the best pup–such a sweet soul. I took her outside for a little photo shoot with her birthday hat on.

She will just lay there and pose like the best dog actors out there.

Give me a serious face…

A penny for your thoughts…

The night before we had headed over to J&E’s to exchange gifts with them and the kids. We had such a fun night. The girls and I did our new tradition of sidewalk subway art (like we did at Thanksgiving).

Emma hard at work…

We need to invest in some more chalk. We’re out now.

CW was the DJ and we were all jamming. Here’s Abby-his protege.

Olivia was a happy baby all night. Clapping, dancing, playing….a little ball of energy. A tad blurry, as I think this was in the middle of a dance move….

Of course Jeff and Tanner let off some fireworks. Check out the gorgeous sky!

My brother and his fam drove to Iowa to spend the weekend with my parents, so I’ll show you some cute Brennan pics in a later post. He was a huge fan of making cookies, or so it seemed =) OH–if you’ve been following my saga of the missing package with ALL of their gifts…it showed up today….nine days later. So now my mom has to ship all of the other gifts to my brother–but, I guess I should just be thankful it wasn’t stolen and did show up. How random that they hadn’t been able to find any info. on it from the time it left Tampa..until it showed up at the post office yesterday afternoon..ON Christmas. Weird. I had to ship out some other things today–and used UPS fyi.

When we got home that night CW was licked to death by Wrigs and Gooser. Every time he walks in the door he goes straight to this rug and they have a little love fest. They missed us. I love those furry faces.

We hung out at home Christmas Eve, which was really nice and relaxing, so we decided to go over to Clearwater Beach on Christmas day. Why not–we live in Florida. If I can’t have snow, I’ll take the sand. We LOVE the Sandpearl Resort over there, so that was our destination. First thing you saw in the lobby was this huge scene made out of SAND!!! Come on–who can make all of that out of sand and how do they get it to stay so secure? Look at that detail!

We lucked out with the best table at the outside restaurant. Right in the corner with the best view. Can’t beat that.

The bonfire was going strong and as the sun started to go down, it was the place to be (obviously not at THIS exact moment luckily–so I could get a good photo).

Merry Christmas to you!!!!

They were showing Christmas movies on a big, inflatable screen at the pool. It was pretty funny to see people swimming watching Elf.

Here’s where our table was. What a sunset!!!

A little red in the sky for the holidays….

Hoping your Christmas was full of love and laughter and wishing you a healthy New Year my friends.

Filed Under: misc · Tagged: beach, christmas, gifts, holidays, music

Dec 8, 2012

Album Wall

By the key to kays · Leave a Comment

Do you wanna see one of CW’s early Christmas presents?

I’ve been thinking about this for awhile and finally bit the bullet when I saw “album frames” while browsing online at Target – on Cyber Monday (you get a better deal online and in bulk with these fyi). So, you know how we love our music and concerts, right? Well, we have accumulated a couple of awesome LPs from them (that I found this summer while I was cleaning and re-decorating the house). Actually that’s a lie. I found one of them–the other is still awol.

I decided to use one of our blank walls and create an “album” wall of various LPs that have meaning for us. So far I’ve put up four of them.

Not bad on the measurements if I do say so myself, seeing as how I put them up the other night when the girls were over and we were drinking crazy amounts of wine (thx to Ang and Ro for making me so confident)! When CW called that night I told him, “you just have to see what I did, it’s amazing, soooooo cool, you’re gonna love it, I totally measured like a rockstar”. You get the point. Wine makes me happy and obviously it also makes me a great handywoman.

CW does LOVE the wall. This is his fav album. Our Will Hoge is making it big right now with CMA and Grammy nods. Go Will!!

I have four more frames coming, so I’ll put two above and two below these to fill in the entire wall. There are so many of our favorite bands that do not make or have LPs. It’s very sad. I want to bring the albums to concerts and get of the rest of them signed.

So–Jackson Rohm, Ingram Hill, Better Than Ezra, Marc Broussard, can you guys please make an LP!!!! I’m on a roll….

Filed Under: decor, music · Tagged: concerts, decor, frames, goodfinds, music

Dec 5, 2012

Rock Hard at Hard Rock

By the key to kays · Leave a Comment

Our bestie girls from San Fran were back in Florida for a few days. We had Sunday Funday with them and of course CW searched to see if there were any good bands we like that were playing in the area. YES. Gavin DeGraw was going to be at the Hard Rock. It was perfect. The music gods do love us. They are “forever in our favor”.

Starting out the day right…a little bubbly to welcome J&K.

Gavin was playing at the Hard Rock Cafe.

It’s a pretty cool venue.

Couldn’t help but get some pics of the decor. You know me…

SOOOOO happy to see our girls.

CW and I first saw Gavin on the 2004 Rock Boat. Shortly after that his song got picked up and
landed the gig for One Tree Hill.

As an FYI–Zac Brown Band was on that cruise too, along with the many, many other bands that we have followed and loved throughout the years, including:

Will Hoge – Eli Young Band now sings one of his hits “Even if It Breaks Your Heart”

Marc Broussard - such an amazing voice. We’ve even seen him at Cafe Du Nord (love that place) in San Fran with Kelly and Janet.

Ingram Hill - who sings our wedding song “Chicago”. Our other fav song by them is “The Captain” (we seriously jam out at the part that plays at 2:35)

Jackson Rohm - who we hired to play at our mountain wedding and sang “Four on the Floor” more times than he can probably remember — or wants to.

So–yes, that also means that among other now popular songs we were singing “Chicken Fried” wayyyyy back when…

Nothing like a concert in the middle of the day.

Next time we’ll see Janet and Kelly it will be in the mountains!!! We are major traveling companions.

Gavin was in a SUPER good mood that day. He was all smiles, sang the old songs we love and put on a really great show.

He was jumping all over the place =)

Hi to us.

Peas in a pod. Seriously–they were for sure separated at birth.

These three go WAY back so many years when they all worked at the hospital together here. I’m always in good company if I need medical attention haha. Knock on wood–it’s never been me who needs it. Ah-hem….frost-bite……

Kel captured this pic. So sweet.

A little gambling and we were ready to head back to our place to watch the Bucs game and hang out. Jeff and Ellen came on over and it was a par-tay.

I had ordered some Lou Malnati’s pizzas for us. Yeah–that “someone” was me.

Kelly’s birthday is in a couple of weeks, so a cake was also in order. Note: we all know that Publix has THE best cakes, but this one was beyond ridiculous. White and chocolate cakes with vanilla and chocolate puddings.