Dear Friends:
Last week, I traveled to California. Specifically, I was in the San Francisco Bay Area...again. While my trip included some meetings with mobile game developers, I spent the majority of my time with my oldest daughter and my youngest grandson. We had an absolute blast, which I intend to show you ; )
When I arrived in California, I was greeted with this:
For those that haven't lived in the Bay Area, Gilroy is home to the annual Garlic Festival. Gilroy Garlic Fries were born from this huge event. You can now find these fries at many of the stadiums and arenas in the area. To find that McDonald's now has them on the menu is startling. Unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity to try them...so I really have to reserve judgement. Who knows? Maybe I will be surprised, and not horrified ; )
As I mentioned, I was able to spend some time with my youngest grandson. For dinner on Friday night, we took him to a Japanese restaurant. It happened to be located across the street from a commuter rail station. The boy l-o-v-e-s trains, so this was a treat for him. We even convinced him to try the Miso Soup...
That night, my grandson had a chance to show me all the letters he had learned. It was fun to listen to his little voice:
Saturday morning, we took the boy to the San Francisco Zoo. While not one of the greatest zoos in the world, it had animals that the boy loved to watch. His vocabulary is improving every day, and it's fun to listen to him talk about the animals. Here we are with a family of giraffes:
We even had a chance to watch the zoo keepers feed a group of rescued penguins. My grandson thought they were hilarious when they were swimming all around the habitat:
While this picture is certainly cute - he was trying to talk to the Polar Bear - that bear was in bad shape...I suppose he's doing better than he would in the wild. It was a little depressing to watch ; )
We found a really cool playground within the zoo. It was well-designed and had different levels of structures for older kids. J had a BLAST! We played a little game called "Who Is It?" while running around one of the areas:
That night was one of the other big reasons that I traveled to the Bay Area. My daughter and I were going to a concert. For years, my daughter has been a huge fan of Coldplay. Owns all their albums and has kicked herself for not seeing them live before now. In honor of her 30th birthday, we decided to splurge a little and bought tickets in a decent location. We didn't realize just how decent it was, until we entered Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara. We were taken under the structure, onto the floor of the stadium:
We were really surprised at how close we were to the stage. In addition, there was a catwalk that allowed the band to travel out into the crowd - we were sitting right next to it. Here's a clip from the very beginning of the show...and we quickly understood just how fun this was going to be, from the start:
The stage design was beautiful. It reflected the spirit of the band, who recently spent a lot of time in India, where they were inspired by the colors, flowers, shapes and patterns from that part of the world. It was stunning:
Because this was a stadium show, the use of pyrotechnics was applied liberally ; ) The band was able to project a real "vibe" for the duration of the show:
They also used these massive confetti "cannons" throughout the show...and several of them were situated right next to our seats. We were showered in tiny little paper shapes throughout the evening:
As I mentioned, our seats were really close. We're lucky, as the band passed by several times. I grabbed this picture of the lead singer performing right in front of my daughter. You can't see, but the smile on her face is a mile-wide. Watching your child so happy is a pretty great thing, in my book:
At one point, they turned on the lights and you could see the entire stadium. I quickly snapped a picture of the two of us, to show you where we were:
Another amazing aspect of the show, was the use of LED bracelets. They handed out these bracelets to almost everyone, as they came in the door. We almost missed getting ours...but my daughter was watching out for us. During the show, these bracelets would receive radio signals that lit them up in various colors and in various patters. The effect was AMAZING. The entire stadium was decorated with colored lights that were in sync with the music:
Some additional clips of the band, as they played closed to us. It never stopped being amazing...
Here's a clip that shows the lead singer walking right past us, and they the confetti cannons fire at the exact moment in the song ; )
During one of my favorite songs, they released a huge number of giant balloon balls. We started playing with them throughout the song, and they made their way up into the stands:
At one point in that same song, the band used an effective theatrical gimmick to bring the crowd out of their seats...the place went nuts:
As the show ended, the lights in the stadium came on. We looked around to find the aftermath of all that confetti ; )
With all the lights on, we took one final picture...as we were walking out the exits. We were on cloud 9, as they say...
Overall, it was a fantastic show. These days, I don't like to spend the time and money on just any bands. This was a great experience. The best part was sharing with my daughter...and seeing her so happy. Even days later, we're still talking about it. I love when you can build memories like that. I was lucky to record a few pictures and videos that will help us remember this for a long, long time.
Thanks for reading!!
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