Ondrej & Ivona Visit

Ondrej and Ivona flew in from Calgary to watch the U2 show with us. He was the one that was able to get us the 4 tickets in the red zone - his patience paid off. We picked them up Wednesday night from the airport and the next day we drove down to the stadium to pick up the tickets. Once we got them, we drove around the block to check out the lineup for general admission on the floor and it was freakin' long. It was really nice to know we didn't have to stay in a long line all day and still have a great view of the show. We drove though downtown on our way to find a spot to eat lunch and showed them where they filmed Much Music. We had lunch at a nice sandwich and coffee shop on an outside back patio. From there we headed over to Kensington Market. The girls found matching Bono shirts which they ended up wearing to the show of course. Before the concert, we decided to get another bite so we went to Jack Astors. The show was amazing as I mentioned in the blog below.
The next day we headed to a trendy part of town called The Danforth because there's a lot of shopping and Greek restaurants on a street called Danforth. There's so many Greek restaurants on it. We went to one Ivona remembered going to about 8 years earlier. Darcie and I had heard of The Danforth but had never gone so it was neat to check out. We'll definitley be going back to eat at some other restaurants. After eating, we checked out a huge candy store that had every kind of candy and chocolate bar you could think of - even candy I thought they didn't make anymore that I used to buy as a little kid. It brought back memories.
We headed home afterwards because we were planning a party for our friends in Toronto to meat Ondrej and Ivona. Mandy, Mason, Derek, Stacey, Vanessa, and Mark (have cottage that we went to) and Ondrej and Ivona were all there. We had a lot of fun hanging out and eating lots.
The next day was Saturday which was when Ondrej and Ivona were leaving so before they left, we headed downtown again and ate some lunch at a nice restaurant on the boardwalk and walked through downtown doing some shopping along the way.
It was great to see them and spend all that time with them. We really enjoyed having them as our guests and had a really good time going to see U2 and doing all the eating and shopping that we did.
Me trying on a small jacket that everyone thought I'd look funny in. They were right.

A shot of us sitting on our private seats in the red zone before the show

Relaxing and eating lunch Thursday

Darcie and Ivona trying on army hats at a store in Kensington Market

Darcie enjoying the selection of cheese at Kensington Market

Ondrej & Ivona Visit Cont'd

This is Ondrej and I fooling around for the camera after the U2 Concert. I'm trying to look mad and not smile. We're wearing Darcie and Ivona's hat's that they got at the concert.

U2 Concert

Well what can I say about the concert. It lived up to all the hype and excitement and everything we expected it to be and more. It was in Rogers Place where the Blue Jays play. There were two shows in Toronto - one on Sept 16th and one on the 17th. We went to the second one. They were both sold out with 50,000 people at each one. Pretty sure the stadium hadn't been that full since the Jays were in the World Series. It was so cool to be at a concert on the floor and look around and see that many people watching U2 with you. Ondrej and Ivona joined us from Calgary. It was so nice to see them again. First time seeing them since they're wedding. We had a lot of fun with them. More with them in another post. Ondrej managed to buy our tickets in March and the plan was to hang out with them for a couple days after they flew in to watch U2. We were in an amazing section. There was the main stage but then they had two bridges which connected it to a circular walkway/ring around the whole main stage. Even the bridges moved along the ring. The money that must've gone into making the stage and structure is mind boggling. We found out that there's 3 stages/structures on tour that leap frog each other. One where they're currently playing, one being setup in the next city, and one that's being dismantled where they just were. I can't imagine how much designing and manufacturing the 3 stages cost them. The production costs too - operating cameras for big screen above stage, lights, sound, operating stage effects............ Everywhere I looked I was amazed. You know how I get. We had the choice of standing in the cramped inner ring or go off to the side and watch from outside of the ring. We chose the outside because we were still really close. The section we were in was called the red zone and there were two on each side of the stage. It was seperate from the general admission tickets on the floor so there was tons of room in our section. It was a waist of space really. You can see from some pic's how much room there was. We even had our own area of bathrooms that only people from red zone's could use. We were on the side that The Edge was playing on which was sweet. Snow Patrol opened up for them. They were alright but no one really cared. We were all waiting for U2. They played a lot of songs from their new album, No Line On the Horizon, and a lot of their classcs. They came out for two encores. I hope to see them if/when they tour again. Each time we've seen them, we're blown away by how good they play live, how many good songs they have, and how good of a show they put on. It's worth every penny.
Picture of Darcie and I soon after we got inside. Stage is huge!

All the garbage on the baseball field after the concert

After the concert. They were tired and sweaty from all the jumping and screaming the whole night

Bono pulled up a kid from the crowd, sang to him and ran around the entire walkway. Kid looked like he was crappin his pants

Good shot showing how close we were. This is Bono on the walkway

U2 Concert Cont'd

Another close picture of the one, the only, the Bono

Ondrej and Ivona before the shinanigans

It looks like they're infront of a green screen with the tower added in after but its not - neat pic taken from the ground

Matching Bono shirts Darcie and Ivona found in Kensington market before the concert

U2 Concert Cont'd

These pictures don't do justice to actually being there - seeing the lights, hearing the loud music

Larry Mullen - drummer on left, The Edge (David Evans) in middle, and Bono (Paul ?) on right

I really like this picture because you've got the U2 stage, Rogers Place, and the CN Tower in the background

Group photo before the concert started

This was one of the red zone's. Look how much space there was. Insane!!!

Sunsets from our apartment

Facing west and being on the 18th floor of our apartment allows us to see some pretty nice sunsets. Every now and then I'll take a picture of one.

Camping at Grundy Lake Provincial Park

Darcie, Mason, Mandy and I went camping Sept 11-13th at Grundy Lake Provincial Park. It was the weekend after the last long weekend before school so there was hardly anyone there. We got to pick a really nice site along the water. It was a neat site - it had to levels. The top level was back and away from the fire pit and picnic table so we put our tents up there which left lots of room down below. It had flush toilets and showers which was nice. Darcie and I hadn't been camping for a long time so it was nice to do it again. It reminded us a lot of when we were younger and all the times we went camping in BC. We had to pay for fire wood if we wanted a fire so we paid for a couple of bags but then cleaned up the forest floor around our site to keep it going the rest of the time. Just doing our part to help keep the forest fire threat down................or just trying to save a couple bucks. We went on some nice hikes, enjoyed the beautiful scenery and had a lot of fun relaxing, eating, and playing games. Mandy showed us how to play a game called dice. It's such a simple game but I liked playing it a lot. We found a spot on one of the lakes surrounding the campground where you could watch the sunset. We went there both nights because the spot was so beautiful. We played Yatzee one night. It felt really good getting out of the city and smelling the fresh air, smelling the forest. I love that. All four of us and all our stuff for the weekend went up with us in my car so it was packed soooooo tight but we fit everything we needed. We got to use our Coleman stove we got for Christmas many years back and it worked great. We were eating pretty good considering we were camping. We're thinking of going back there next year or maybe checking out a different campground although it'll be difficult going to another one knowing how nice Grundy Lake is. Sorry I didn't reach you on your birthday dad but glad I found the pay phone, even though the call was collect.

Setting up our tent

One of the lakes surrounding the campground

Saturday morning mist over the lake. There were always so many canoes on the lake.

Sunset Friday night. This is the spot we went to each night to watch the sunset.

Grundy Lake Provincial Park Cont'd

Having fun with Mason's camera

It took a few times for us to get the timing down but it turned out awesome. We're probably going to frame some of these.

All of us doing something different

Playing Yatzee

Grundy Lake Provincial Park Cont'd

Picture on a bridge over a marsh during one of the hikes we went on

At the end of the trail on hike #2. We were hoping to see a moose.

Darcie, me, Mason, and Mandy

Darcie and me, hike #1

I'm Crushing Your Head

Mini golf

When Mandy and Mason returned to Toronto for school this year, we decided to go mini golfing. We went to a place just north of us which was really cool. It was the nicest place we'd ever played mini golf at. They had put a lot of time and money into making it. There were two 18 hole courses. We did the harder one. All of the holes were so cool. We had a lot of fun.

It had rained overnight so this hole had an extra hazard to deal with. That's my yellow ball flying away. I had to hit it out of this water about 4 times because it kept rolling back down the big hill I was trying to hit it over. My score suffered this hole to say the least.

One of the holes was in a boat so Mason and I were pirates. How old am I again?

The hole yonder looks difficult matey