Hi Phil,
I think this is a great place to Post my first message of the year 2000. I hope everyone had a joyful New Year's Eve and made it a family event to remember. Would love to have all those that enjoy reading this tread share their stories. As this was certainly a New Year's to remember. Here is the story of the memories my family made to bring in the new Millennium. (you don't need to be as long winded as I was in the rest of this post.....but then again you can be. I am going to print this post, and put it in the family scrap book with our pictures and mementos from the evening!!)
"The Neenish Family New Year's Celebration."
A while back, some friend's ask us to join them and go to a concert that the nearby "First Night" celebration was sponsoring. I told my husband that I would only go, if we could take all our kids with us. Our friends have one daughter who is 13. I was not sure how they would feel about all the little ones being with us. But that was the only way I would go. Our friend's agreed, they would have it no other way...families needed to be together. Tickets for the concert went on sale. Our friend obsessively stood in line to purchase them. He was determined we should have front row seats. The tickets were bought!! Front row seats.
I knew that my husband would be working doing all the wonderful year end stuff that the business requires....and I was going to have to meet him with the 4 kids. When the tickets were bought, I was not worried about the weather or and such thing, as we had our seats. So it would be simple to just go and sit down, even if the hub was not there yet. Then it happened. The local hospital who sponsors "First Night" picked up the tab for the concert as there was concern that not enough tickets were sold. The concert would now be FREE, with festival seating. We were bumming. Our friend called to see if we could keep our tickets if we wanted so we could keep our seats.....NO WAY. At that point I began to dread going. It would be just my luck to have a blizzard and have to wait in line for a long time. I had to keep talking myself into going.
In the mean time, the hub bought CD's of all the performers, so the children could be introduced to the band's music before the show. It was an oldies concert. The lineup was, Gary Pucket and the Union Gap, The Grassroots, and The Turtles. The children were excited, and I did not express my lack of enthusiasm. <Being the good mom and all, and did not want to lose my proverbial "Mother of the Year" award!!>
Then an interesting twist, when we had to turn in the tickets a few days prior to the show, for our refund. We got a bonus. Since we were unable to keep our front row seats, the compensated us all with BACK STAGE PASSES!! Well, our friends, my hub and the kids were really excited now. I too thought that would be cool. But guess what, this only made our friends more determined that we should be first in line.....and get those front row seats!!! The Civic Center did also reserve most of the floor seats for those people who had previously purchased tickets. Therefore somewhat limiting the competition for those front row seats...LOL.
The time arrived to go to the concert. The weather was cooperating perfectly. The kids were really excited, they were all cleaned up and looking good. Off we went, to stand in line. Anybody that really knows me would probably have a heart attack to know that the kids and I were the first to arrive. We even got there before our obsessive front row friends!!! They arrived about 10 minutes later, followed a few minutes later by my husband. The evening was already more exciting than I anticipated. The doors opened, and you guessed it...we got the front row seats, we had previously held the tickets for. Since we were so early, and the seats we wanted were now a certainty, but the concert was still about an hour and half away, I knew I could not sit there with my youngest kids and expect the rest of the evening to be enjoyable. So, I left. I took the kids out to some of the other "First Night" events. I bought them "2000" glasses, took them to see the art work of the creator of "Authur" (The creator, Marc Brown, is a native of this area.) The kids really thought that was cool. Then it was 6:00p.m. time for the "kids" fireworks display!! We watched the fireworks. My 3 year old Kevin was captivated!!! He kept saying, "Mom, that is my favorite kind!!" Oh I must say.....my 11 year old, Emily, was thrilled with the idea of walking down the middle of the road. She had me take he picture standing on the "yellow lines."
Back to the Civic center for the concert, 15 minutes to show time!!
Gary Pucket took the stage. The place was liking it!!! The kids were so excited. And thanks to Dad's prior purchase of CD's, the kids knew the tunes. When he was done, the kids got more excited about going back stage at 8:15. While the stage crew was setting up for the Grassroots, one of them handed my son Michael, Gary Pucket's play list from the stage floor. Guess what he got autographed during the back stage, "meet and greet" event?!?!?! I did not go back stage, Kevin and I stayed and seen The Grassroots perform. (They were my favorite part of the show anyway!!) My 7 year old, had Gary Pucket autograph, his brand new, never been worn before sweats suit top......oh well. The kids were having a blast.....and the adults were too. We watched The Grassroots and then The Turtles perform. Even my youngest was doing well, for not having had a nap.
The show was over about 9:45. We had to wait til 10:15 for the backstage event with the other bands. The Grassroots, had not stayed around for the event...(I was bummed.) So we met Howard and Mark of The Turtles. We hung out back with them visiting and taking pictures. It was kinda cool because years ago, my brother had done a photo shoot of them. He had told us to mention it the shoot, as it was a very specific shoot, it was for the front cover of a Magazine.
Well, they remembered it all right. As a matter of fact they were like......hey have him contact us. It was really really cool.
Do you think my kids will remember bringing in the new millennium??
BTW, did I mention at the end of the show when the guitarist threw his pick out into the audience, Emily got it?? She was really excited, as the current guitarist for the Turtles is this very young, very cute guy.....(at least Emily thought he was cute) Backstage he autographed the pick for her......she is on cloud nine!!)
After all the hoopla of the concert, and our friends that we attended the concert with were heading home, we went to my best friends house to ring in the New Year. Not only are she and I great friends, but our 9 children who are all born a year apart starting in 1988, are great friends as well. We watched the local and New York arrival of the New Year. The kids played, had snack and hot cocoa!!
We took lots of pictures and some video of our evening.....I know I won't forget it, and I hope that it was a night to remember for my children. Next year we go back to staying home!!!
auld lang syne!!
Jane
|
