There are a few events I look forward to every summer…among them are some of my country concerts, annual cookouts with friends and Summer Solstice. It’s the party I wait for every single year and get excited about. And for a hot second, I actually was not going to go this year.

The weekend actually started at about noon on Friday. After wrapping up a month of timesheets (ugh!) and taking my inbox from 400 to 11 (and it’s already back up to 75), I left work and headed shopping for “supplies”. After all, Friday was the Rascal Flatts concert and we take tailgating very seriously for country concerts. There are both benefits and negatives to showing up at Blossom at 3:30 for a 7:30 concert. Benefits: drinking for much cheaper than Blossom beverages, cooking out on the lawn, making new friends, watching young kids get carded in the lot and not walking as far to the gate. The negative – sitting in the lot for 1.5 hours post concert. Such is the life. There was a hilarious girl trying to hit on her friend so we watched that go down for about an hour. Tears. Rejection. Drunken flirting. We’ve all been there.

Little Bit Country

The actual concert was so much fun. We upgraded our seats and got not bad seats in the pavilion. Totally worth it (especially when the rain was happening). My favorite Little Big Town opened and Becky got to experience my love of the song Pontoon. She also got to experience a full on “Call Me Maybe” rock out session in between the bands.

Little Big Town – Pontoon

Stand

Saturday, post-errands and relaxing, I headed to Summer Solstice with Candice and friends and again this year had a fabulous time. I love how despite the fact there are hundreds (thousands even?) people there, I still manage to run into friends.

Perfection

Me, Candice and Annie – first pic of the night

Lovely girl friends – Candice, Cortney, Reshae and Annie

New Friends, Yes Please

More Friends – Joe, Shibani, Annie and Candice, and Shaun

The event is totally worth the money and in my opinion is still the event of the summer in Cleveland. This year they had a slingshot type device that you could enter a message on and “splatter” it on the wall of the Art Museum. Always inventive at Solstice!

And now I need to go. Between Rascal Flatts, Solstice and our Solstice “After-Party”, I need some sleep. Just another Happy in CLE kinda weekend.

Don’t forget – you still have time to enter to win a Melting Pot Gift Certificate!