Alex Austin with Big Train at Hurricane Patty's

This weekend I went to Florida with Jake to celebrate my birthday and to go to my dad's CD release party. Dad has been playing regular gigs at venues in St. Augustine, Florida for awhile now. He has been spending the past few months recording tracks with a group of amazing musicians that he met when he moved down to Florida a few years back. This weekend he hosted a CD release party, which featured many local musicians and his own band, Big Train.

The weekend was great. Dad invited his friends, Jim and Barbara, to stay as well, so we all spent a lot of time listening to music in the local honky tonks (well, restaurants and bars really) and hanging out by the ocean, soaking in the sun.

Maryanne picked up a Carvel Ice Cream cake for me for my birthday, which was great. Jake, who is a Colorado native, had never even heard of Carvel, so I felt like it was an important step in his life. There is no better cake in the world. But I digress.

Dad's party was fantastic. He packed a fairly large restaurant with his friends and acquaintances. He started performing with Jim, the mandolin player. They play mostly country and bluegrass. Big Pineapple followed dad's set. Big Pineapple plays Hawaiian-style music, complete with ukelele and slide guitar. The ukelele player and slide guitarist (who also dabbles in the pedal steel) are both featured on dad's CD as well. After Big Pineapple, Big Train got up. Big Train is a pretty large band, and also quite impressive. Later in the night, other musicians were called on stage, and at one point I was persuaded to sing along with the band, which was fun, although I'm still pretty shy about performing in public!

Essentially, the whole experience made me extremely happy and proud of my dad and Maryanne. They have been fortunate enough to meet up and collaborate with a great community of musicians down in Florida. Everyone in the crowd was so excited about everything dad has been working on, and they were extremely welcoming.