Zac Brown concert at the Sphere

It was by chance Andy was listening to the radio and heard that the Zac Brown Band was having a residency at the Sphere in Vegas ... and that the final concert date was on his birthday. We saw them in July at the John Deere Classic but that was a short concert so we thought it would be fun to see the band again, a d experience the Sphere.

Pre-concert pboto in the Sphere lobby.

This screen was up before the concert. The storm slowly rolled in and when the concert started the door got large and ooened up.

The visuals were amazing. Sometimes whatever was happening on stage shown on the screen and incorporated into the visiuals.

These may just look like pictures but if you look at the bottom of each one you'll see the band.

A kaliedescope.

This was "Knee Deep," which he sang with Jimmy Buffet. They showed pictures of many artist collaborations he has had.

A tribute to Buffet with the parrot hat on the left chair.

Water fun with "Toes."

"Chicken Fried" where he brings a vet on stage for the patriotic part.

The end. My takeaways - he has very white teeth (veneers?), lots of tattoos and is in really good shape. It was a good show, but I have to agree with online reviews that the beginning seemed a little dark and demonic.

Andy’s birthday

First things first - we had to go find coffee Saturday morning since there's no coffee maker in our room and Andy's still salty about how much he paid for coffee on the Strip when he was visiting with his golf buddies. We ended up at a cute but really slow McDonald's.

Coffee in hand, we drove around. See the snow on the mountain?

We ended up on Fremont Street, the old downtown area where the casinos have the cool, old neon lights.

You never know what tou'll see in Vegas.

Maybe?

For lunch, we went to Evel Pie. The interior was decorated with all Evel Knievel including a pinball machine, helmets and a bicycle.

Look at Andy willing to take a picture with the birthday candles I brought along. The pizza was good ...

and the beer we chose was brewed in Las Vegas (Big Dog Brewery) and came in colorful cans. Different designs even though the beer was the same.

Words of wisdom?

Going to Vegas

Andy and I flew to Vegas on Friday for his birthday weekend. We started with a light lunch at O'Hare's United Club. It wasn't a fantastic lunch but good enough. The brownies were tasty.

We landed, rented a car (a Buick Encore just like I have at home) and drove to Treasure Island where we're staying, mostly because parking is free.

A city of sensory overload.

Our room is on the fifth floor.

We walked through some casinos (already won a bit of money) and wandered into some shops. We found a Honolulu Cookies store and ate some samples.

This is funny.

This was the view from outside of the Sphere (advertising the Wizard of Oz movie being shown there) while we were waiting to cross the street for dinner...

at Battista's Hole in the Wall Italian restaurant.

Another view of the Sphere. This one looks like stained glass.

Quite an interesting restaurant.

Including the menu just to show the prices in 2026. It's always interesting to look at prices in old restaurant and grocery ads, so here's my contribution.

I had the Chicken Parmesan and Andy had the veal version. Dinner came with salad or soup, garlic bread and all the house wine we could drink.

This cappuccino was included too. Tasted like hot chocolate. We were stuffed.

Rush-hour snow

This was Wednesday. The snow started falling just before the morning rush, and it came down hard. I was sliding all the way to work. There were white-out conditions at places and airport flights were halted.

I don't often take a picture of the side of the house. Not a very interesting view. Here's a historical photo I found at the museum.

The snow did look pretty on the bushes. I sent snow pics to L and she said she misses snow. Not sure I would. And while the snow is already gone, the cold is sticking around.

‘Things we had’ puzzle

Barely got this puzzle started and here come the cats.

Pretty picture of Ruby. I can't work on the puzzle while she's sitting in the box with all of the pieces, so I might as well take some pictures.

This was over-sized puzzle so it didn't fit on my puzzle biard. That's a problem when the cats like to walk on the puzzle and the pieces stick to their feet. Who knows where those pieces end up? This one is missing two edge pieces on the left side and I think I had the frame complete at one point. I'll hold onto it for awhile and see if those two pieces re-appear.

Happy hour with friends

Andy and I went to Downtown Oak Park to meet our friends M and R for a happy hour at Tre Sorelle last night. The restaurant used to have a different name and location on Lake Street and when I worked for the newspaper I would go there for lunch with coworkers. We joked that it would take an hour to get a slice of pizza at the counter because they were sooooo slow. Funny how things don't change. The waitress took a long time to take our order last night.

The food, though, was very good. Andy and I had fried ravioli and wings, half buffalo and half barbecue. Our friends got arancini, grilled calamari and habanero wings. Appetizers were half-priced and the drinks were on special. It's up to us to choose the next outing to hear all about their upcoming trip to Puerto Rico and we will be able to tell them about our Vegas weekend.

Is this enough rotini?

Andy and B always give me a hard time for not buying "fun" pasta. I'll buy spaghetti and mostaccioli, but Andy insists that we always need rotini because it's fun. Well, I sorted the cabinet and we have four boxes of rotini and one mostaccioli. Looks like next time pasta is on sale we'll be stocking up on mostaccioli and leaving the rotini at the store.

The city is happy

You know the Bears game was a big deal when the church posts the victory on its Instagram ... and the minister mentions the victory in his welcome statement. It certainly seemed like everyone was in a good mood yesterday.

I found this on Facebook. You have to appreciate a Chicago-related Pope meme. That win was kind of a miracle.

Andy and I went to Mr. Submarine for lunch and Andy was feeling lucky so he put a dollar (just one) in a video gaming machine while we waited for our sandwiches to be made. We ended up cashing out for 20 cents, so we lost 80 cents. We're getting ready for Vegas!

Packing up Christmas

We took down all of the Christmas decorations yesterday. This time we had a plan. We recently bought three clear (that's the key) storage bins and organized like things together. Crazy, eh? I discovered I have lots and lots of bead garland. We cleaned out some of the stuff in the garage, threw out a couple of old pieces of luggage, pool noodles, etc. The bins we know we'll need next Christmas are stored toward the front of the storage area. So innovative lol.

When I was taking the ornaments off of the tree I found the remains of our Jamaican Santa. His hat was actually still hanging on a branch and his pants were just cast aside on a branch in the back of the tree. Poor guy.

Of course, last night we watched the Bears play the Packers in a playoff game. B sent this picture of a car he saw while walking around his neighborhood. The city is so excited to have a good football season and this team likes to come back and win in the fourth quarter, which they did, beating the Packers 31-27 in an incredible game.