Life Is Good!

It's no coincidence that I love the Life is Good brand.  Theirs is such a simple statement, and it's so powerful!  It's been my unofficial motto for years now, and at random moments in my day, you can hear me say, "Life is good!"

The last three days have been awesome!  On Thursday we drove up to Laguna Beach and saw Pageant of the Masters.  We stayed overnight in Santa Ana at a very nice DoubleTree, and on Friday late morning we headed into Newport Beach for Donovan's jetpack experience (see the video of Donovan's flight here).  He had a blast (pun intended), and afterward we walked along the beach, had burgers at a highly recommended local joint, walked out on the pier, and generally had a great time.  We drove around Balboa Island, went shopping at Fashion Island, which is a really nice mall, and then had an excellent dinner at a restaurant my friend Sheri recommended.

Then last night, Donovan took me out for a surprise evening that has been on the calendar for weeks.  I didn't even try to figure out what the surprise was ahead of time...I let myself be with the unknown!  :)  He took me to this little restaurant in Little Italy, Bencotto, that we'd been to once before together.  We had a super yummy dinner, and then we walked over to where the real surprise part was.  There's a place in San Diego called Anthology; it's a three-level small indoor venue that serves nice food and has events.  I'd never been there before, so when we walked up to it, I was excited to get to finally see what it was all about, even though I still didn't know what we were there to see.

As we walked up, there were a few different corrals to line up in, and at the front of the corral was a little sign that said "Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, line up here" (or something like that).  As soon as I saw that I started jumping up and down and screaming "Are you f-ing kidding me???"  I *LOVE* Big Bad Voodoo Daddy!  I can't actually tell you how many times I've seen them in concert, but it's a lot.  Brian and I used to go see them every time they came to San Diego.  If you're not familiar with them, they play big-band music and are just super fun performers with great on-stage personalities.  There are five guys on horns, a drummer, a bassist, a pianist, and the lead singer, who also plays guitar.  Their music is so much fun!!

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy onstage

I was SO excited!!  I haven't seen them in several years, and Donovan found them for me!  We had a great time at the concert, and really enjoyed the venue.  I would definitely go back to Anthology!

On the way home last night we replayed all the amazing things we'd experienced together since Thursday afternoon, and summed it all up with a resounding "Life is good!"  :)