indianapolis: cavashawn, paramore, no doubt + mini family reunion

last minute decisions rule my life. sometimes i wonder if i'll regret doing crazy shit like this, driving so many miles for a half hour show, blah blah blah... but i know i won't. it's worth it. so it was at summerfest that amanda and i were talking about cavashawn's next show. they were playing an acoustic set at the VIP lounge at verizon wireless in indianapolis before the paramore and no doubt show. well neither of us were about to pay for the actual show, so i didn't think much of it. it wasn't until later that we were talking to jesse that he mentioned he might be able to get us on their guest list. i put it out of my mind [and was halfway planning a trip to columbia to see augustana instead], but a few days later amanda called to see if i was still interested in going to the show. jesse was able to get two VIP passes for us, so of course i said yes, like any lunatic would do.

i left around nine thirty on friday to meet amanda at her house in carmel. made good time, got a tour of the house and went out to dinner. we headed over to the venue around five and chaos ensued. we went to the box office to ask for our tickets, explaining we should be on the guest list. we both gave our names and were sent over to guest services. guest services promptly sent us back over to the box office. long story short, no one had tickets for us. so i called jesse [who was already an hour late] and he didn't answer. amanda called ben. he had no clue. jesse texted me and said he'd call me back in five minutes. forty minutes later he calls me back and we find out we have to walk to the complete opposite side of the venue to the VIP entrance. we make the hike and finally spot clifford and a tiny spec of a human being wearing a white v-neck with a vest. we had finally found the right place. jesse led us in through some bushes and a fence and got us our wristbands. scott and chris were already playing since they were so late, so we grabbed a table and sat down to enjoy the rest of the set. what an adventure, let me tell you. this was the first time for both of us seeing cavashawn play acoustic, and it was amazing! definitely hope it happens more in the future. background and the wonderwall cover just about made my heart melt. good times.

we hung out for a while and eventually made our way to the lawn to catch the end of paramore. they played the four or five songs i know very first, so that was kind of a bummer. but it was still cool to hear them live. no doubt was up next and wow... i'm not a big fan or anything, but they put on an amazing show. i knew more songs than i thought i did too. every time a new song would start, i would turn to amanda and freak out. "oh my god, this is no doubt TOO? i remember this song from first grade!" and gwen stefani is a BEAST. this girl has some rock hard abs and was doing push ups on stage. so cool. i wish i were half as cool as her. we ended leaving before the encore to beat the rush of people leaving, and it was a really good idea because we couldn't find the car for a good ten minutes. we finally found it though and saw clifford on our way out! we waved like idiots but who knows if they saw us. what a good night. we then made a taco bell run and proceeded to drink an entire 1.5 liter bottle of arbor mist and take shots of terrible vodka. then for some reason we decided karaoke was a GREAT idea, which involved some sir mix a lot and panic at the disco... it was epic.

i spent all of saturday with my some of my favorite family members who hadn't seen in FOREVER. my cousin faith lives in indy and ended up being only twenty minutes or so away from amanda's house. so i headed over to her house and we went out for a late lunch and talked and talked and talked. i finally got to meet her one year old daughter hope, who is absolutely adorable. i'm not really a baby person, but she is just the cutest thing. we decided to go visit my other cousin nathan [faith's brother] who actually lived about thirty seconds from the show i was at the night before. small world. so faith, brian, hope and i all piled in the car and headed over to nathan and his wife lachelle's house. i was on the road back to st. louis by maybe seven thirty or so and got home by around eleven.

and just when i thought the weekend couldn't get any better... i was about an hour out of st. louis when i got a call from my friend maria who i used to do gymnastics with. she told me our friend nicole was having a party and that i should come because she was only in town for a week. i hadn't seen her in AGES because she's on a gymnastics scholarship in alaska. naturally, she doesn't come home very often. so even though all i wanted to do was crash in my nice comfy bed, i swung by my house for five minutes, cleaned up a little and drove yet another hour out to o'fallon to nicole's house. back in the day me, nicole and maria were the three muskateers. we were inseparable. but things change of course and people grow up and grow apart. it ended up being a huge reunion of gym girls, some of them whom i hadn't seen in about two or three years. so we had a great time that night and took way to many obnoxious pictures. i crashed there for a few hours and drove home in the morning, only to crash once again in my own bed. i think i woke up in time for dinner. such a great weekend. then there was the underwear party that katie hosted on monday... lots of black lights and glow in the dark paint, way too much sour apple pucker. good times. great weekend.