Rascal Again!

We're finally home from a weekend trip to Dallas to take Kaitlin to see Rascal Flatts. It was at some outdoor amphitheater - called SuperPages.com (stupid name, huh?). What is it with all these sponsorships and stupid names for arenas and amphitheaters? Anyway, we hit the road early yesterday morning. Our goal was to make it to our hotel by 3pm. May I say how stupid several Texas cops were yesterday? Here's the scoop. We were about 30 miles outside of Denton, tooling along at about 78mph. All of a sudden I see people slamming on their brakes, so I had to slam on mine. There was a police SUV STOPPED IN THE LEFT HAND LANE - JUST STOPPED!!! You could barely see flashing lights, and this idiot was just stopped! Ultimately they were detouring traffic onto the access road because of an accident that was just about cleaned up. I can't help but wonder if they didn't cause another wreck after we went by, because we had just passed quite a bit of traffic. After that excitement, we hit Dallas traffic, and for those of you who have driven in Dallas, or any big city, you know that's not much fun! I've driven in Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, St. Louis and Denver, and Dallas traffic ranks right up there as one of the worst! Needless to say we weren't jamming to music at this point - I need to have silence when I'm driving in that kind of traffic. After a short rest and a dip in the pool at the hotel, (yes, Corby looks like a guppy) we headed out to grab a quick (and light) dinner before heading to the concert. We ended up at TGIFriday's - which was located at this "super mall". I don't even remember the name of it, but it's the first time I've seen valet parking at a mall - for Nordstrom's and several restaurants. Our food and service was good, and after a long hike to the car, we headed to the concert. This amphitheater is near the Cotton Bowl stadium, and parking was HORRENDOUS! Everywhere we went the gates were closed. We finally found a way in, and after paying $15 (!!!!!!!!UGH!!!!!!!) to park, we finally made it! We sent Corby and Kaleb off to get in line since they had their tickets. Because Kaitlin got VIP tickets for us, we had to go to the will call window. Well, of course we went to the west will call window, because gosh darn, it's right there where we parked. But NO, they said - you have to go to the EAST window. Well, we had to walk clear around the entire back of this place. The only good thing about that hike was we got to see all the buses for Rascal Flatts and Taylor Swift. Anyway, once we picked up the tickets, we were clear on the other side of the place, so we ended up meeting Corby and Kaleb inside - after standing in line for about 45 minutes in the HOT, HOT weather! Our seats were really good, and we didn't see too many people getting totally wasted. The girl sitting next to me either got sick or claustrophobic (they had us packed in up front) and after sitting down about 45 minutes into Rascal's performance, her boyfriend/husband finally got her to leave. He practically had to carry her out. They weren't drinking so I'm not sure what was wrong with her, but at least it opened up the row a bit and I was finally able to breathe!

Taylor Swift was VERY entertaining! For an 18 year old, she has a lot of poise. She is also quite talented. I hadn't been too impressed with her live performances I've seen on TV, so I wasn't expecting much to tell you the truth. However, she did a great job, and had the crowd "eating out of her hand" and singing along with all her songs. Rascal Flatts also sounded great. One time Gary LeVox (the lead singer) brought a little girl - probably 7 - up on stage to sing with him. He walked her back and forth, and then stood her next to Joe Don and took a picture with her digital camera. One other time Gary went out into the audience, not too far from us, and I believe he picked up a little girl who was in a wheelchair and sang to her. It took a while for someone from the camera crew to get down there, so we only saw about 20 seconds of him singing to her, but it was sweet. The group is known for their humanitarianism - especially with children's hospitals.

After a harried exit from the parking lot - after sitting around for over 30 minutes - we finally made it back to the highway and back to the hotel. We stopped at IHOP this morning for breakfast - mainly because we hadn't eaten since about 4:30 yesterday, and partly to celebrate Corby's birthday. We gave him his gifts when we got home, but we had a great breakfast celebration too.
I'm bushed. However, hopefully I can catch up on some much needed rest over the next week since I am taking VACATION for the whole week! YIPPEE! If I could do handstands, I'd be doing them! I have some things scheduled to get done - like tearing up the office/scrapbooking area of the basement, bringing in some drawer cabinets and a credenza I got from work - with my ultimate goal being - AN ORGANIZED SCRAPBOOKING / OFFICE AREA!!! Corby is off work tomorrow too to help me move the furniture around and start the process. So - first thing in the morning - well - after we decide to get up - I'll be moving everything from the office area of the room to the "den" area of the room. Then I'll be sweeping, scrubbing, etc. before we bring the cabinets in out of the garage. It will probably take me the rest of the week to go through everything, trash some stuff, put some stuff in boxes to give away, and then get everything organized - but I am SO ready to get this done. If I'm brave enough I will take before and after pictures, but I have to warn you, the before pics will be graphic and not intended for weak stomachs! (IT'S A HUGE MESS RIGHT NOW!) I also have to take mom to a doctor's appointment, get busy on finding Brandon some money for his sophomore year at K-State (anyone win the lottery yet?) and possibly going to find another kitten to add to our menagerie.

I haven't had a chance to finish my Wendy Corsi Staub book (it was REALLY cool that she posted on my last blog), but I'm hoping to finish it tonight. Then it's on to the other 2 books of Lenore's that I need to get read.

Have a great week everyone!