Hi Mudheads!
Erin Fritz' 50th Birthday bash Sat Night was a "Sand Jam". Unbelievable. It made the newspapers around the bay area!  Have to see it to believe it. (see news and photo links below). They live on the outskirts of Niles near Pickering ave, in a large house, which is why it took 9 tons of sand to fill the bottom floor. Erin and her husband and kids filled the entire place using wheelbarrows, built a small pier for a stage in their living room, built a big lifeguard queen chair for the birthday girl to sit in during the concert, painted the whole house with beach scenes, and peppered all the rooms with palm trees, beach balls, starfish, netting, life preservers, and elaborately painted plywood surfboards screwed to the walls. Gilligan and the Skipper woulda been proud! About 90 people came to the party. I did one original set inside the house, then we ate a catered dinner in the yard, then did a "Mike and The Sandal Stripes" cover set outside until the sun went down - beach boys, jimmy buffet, popeye, etc. Big thanks to band mates Pat McClellan and Bruce Cates! An informal jam commenced inside the house after dark, went till midnight, then a two hour aggravation tournament ensued. I'm the champ.  
It was a shame to do all that work and see the house sit empty on Sunday, so we reprised an encore Sand Jam after the steam trains were over with. Some more Nilesians got to see the place, and that night we played till 2am (again). Now, they have decided to keep some of the sand in the front part of the house where the pier is (the sand is all covered by plastic meantime, so the cats can't crap in it), so we can have a few more "sand jams" over the next week or two or three. That means some of you who didn't get to see the house the first two times will get to attend a jam or concert soon if you like (these will be somewhat informal and inpromptu, so stay tuned - likely Thursday night is the next one).
Their Neighbor Took Some GREAT Shots of the Sand House:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/draks/sets/72157619331580321/
Sarah Fritz (Erin's Daughter) also snapped a few:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37528869@N08/sets/72157619385735423/
And a syndicated Article came out in today's Argus, Oakland Trib, & Contra Costa Times:
http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/localnews/ci_12547724
Below is the text of the article:
Surf's up for Fremont woman's 50th birthday
By Matthew Artz
The Argus
Posted: 06/08/2009 04:22:15 PM PDT
Updated: 06/09/2009 12:25:12 PM PDT

FREMONT
Oh ... my ... God!
Erin Fritz and family didn't rip up their downstairs carpet and cover the floor with 9 tons of sand, did they?
They didn't paint giant palm trees on their white living room walls, did they? They didn't fill a bathtub with wine, build an indoor stage and celebrate Fritz's 50th birthday with a beach party so audacious that Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello would have felt right at home, did they?
You betcha.
Happy Days are here again in Fremont, at least at the Fritz home near Morrison Canyon Road, where the family threw a party Saturday that left friends agape and their five cats temporarily with the city's biggest indoor litter box.
"If we didn't have cats and dogs, I would live like this," Fritz said Monday as she stood barefoot in the sand-filled den. A few feet away, one of her cats — recently freed after being locked upstairs for four days — left her a present she normally would find in a litter box.
Fritz has been excited all year about turning 50. She even dubbed 2009 "The Year of Erin," and set out to have her first birthday party since becoming a stay-at-home mom more than 20 years ago. She loves the beach, and, as luck would have it, the family was already planning to replace the downstairs carpet.
It wasn't hard for Fritz's husband, Walter, a retired engineer, to put two and two together. "He said, 'Since we're digging up the floor, I suppose you'll want sand," Fritz said. They ordered 9 tons of it at $41 a ton — enough to fill their living room, dining room, den, kitchen and downstairs bathroom. But that was just the start. Walter Fritz built a stage, a giant beach chair for Erin and about 10 plywood surfboards, including one with a Corona bottle painted on it with a label that read, "The Year of Erin."
Erin got Niles-based singer-songwriter Michael McNevin to perform. And, to set the mood, she and her daughters painted palm trees, flowers, seagulls and surfboards on the walls. "You walk in and it's like, wow," said Sean Fritz, who came up from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on Saturday for the party. "The walls went from white to orange, purple, blue and green."
The whole shebang, which included a catered dinner and 83 guests, cost about $6,000.
It started at 3 p.m. Saturday and ended at midnight with McNevin singing in the living room and "Gilligan's Island" being blasted from the television in the den, Erin Fritz said. McNevin and company came by again Sunday for an encore. "It was awesome, awesome," Erin Fritz said. "The best part was watching people come in and say, 'Oh my God. She has sand.'" "
It took the family about seven hours to haul the sand in using wheelbarrows. Fritz is guessing it will take a lot longer to haul it out.
The family plans to keep the beach theme on the walls, but that doesn't mean they're planning a repeat performance next year, said Walter Fritz, who only went to Chili's restaurant to celebrate his 50th birthday.
"I told her, 'This is a party you only want to do once, You can't do it again until you're 100.'"