The Vegas Update

OK, this is the post you've all been waiting for.... ;) The story about VEGAS! :)

My mom and I arrived in Las Vegas on Saturday afternoon... a HOT saturday afternoon. We were met by several of J.D. Hass' crew--he was in charge of the trip I won from KMPS. We made it to the Tropicana and tried to figure out what our plans were for the weekend. Have I mentioned that it was hot?

Anyway, that night started the country music fun. :) We went to the MGM Grand for the New Artist's Party for a Cause. Click here for videos of that night (click New Artists in the middle)--and imagine that someone paid $60,000 for tickets and meet and greets with Taylor Swift. That's a LOT of money, fyi. ;) We were told we couldn't bring cameras, so we didn't... so all I've got is some fuzzy cell phone pictures. It was a phenomenal show, though... and money was raised for music education and music healing -- very cool.

Day 2 started our 11-hours of concerts. We headed over to the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay and were warmly welcomed!

There's no way I could post all of the pictures we took of all of the people we saw that morning on here. I'll try to get them on a photo hosting site or something so you can see them all. Heck, I have a list of them and I can't remember all of their names. ;) Here are a few highlights...

Andy Griggs:

Mom and I meeting Carter's Chord - a group of sisters. Very nice girls and they sounded great. I'll be looking forward to hearing more from them in the future.

Me and Jack Ingram, New Male Vocalist for this year.

This group is called Whiskey Falls. I included two pics of them because they were my FAVORITE of the whole morning. They sound fantastic--I hope to hear more of them on the radio! (Tony Thomas--are you listening? :))After our morning of concerts and Meet and Greets, we got a few hours off. FEW. ;) It was HOT. We just crashed for a little bit, then got dressed up for the evening. We headed over to the MGM again for dinner - and that's where I met Rodney Atkins' drummer. Nice guy.

After dinner... SHOWTIME!!! The Academy of Country Music Awards!!! WOOT! :)

This is the view from our seats. My favorite performance of the night - Carrie Underwood. Yes, Carrie - I voted for you. ;) She performed Last Name - quite appropriate for Vegas! :)

I've got some great pictures of the show, too. But I'm only going to share some of my favorite performances... because it's my blog. :)

My second favorite performace was Garth Brooks... wow. I have never in my life heard SO MANY people singing SO LOUD for one performer. It was amazing!!!Third favorite (but close behind) was Taylor Swift. She sang her angry song, got her clothes ripped off (no wardrobe malfunctions, thank you very much), and then belted out the song in a waterfall with words in it. Yeah. She's just that cool. What you all only got a glimpse of was that waterfall... it had SO MANY words in it... almost continuous "NO" "NO" "WE" "NO" "ME"... it was CRAZY! John Rich was right - she DID rock the house. :)

The award show ended at 8 and we booked it down the hall a ways to where the All-Star Jam was happening. A great night of music was just beginning... and we'd already been at it for 3 hours--not to mention the HOURS earlier in the day just for the trip winners!! Again here... just a few of my favorites...

John Rich was our emcee for the night. I was pleasantly surprised... despite the bar backstage, he did a GREAT job. :)

This picture (and the several others like it!) was for my mom. :) This is Randy Owen - you might remember him as the lead singer from Alabama? He's on his own now... did a great job.

Montgomery Gentry... What can I say? I went up to the front to get a close up and ended up staying up there rocking it out with everyone!

This was really sweet. John Rich commented that Taylor Swift's performance was his favorite of the whole night. Taylor was touched and came out to tell everyone how nice John was!
No show is complete without Kenny Chesney.We stayed through the whole show. It lasted till midnight, then there was the 18 mile hike back to the hotel... next door. ;) We were exhausted, but the whirlwind of a weekend WAS a dream trip. We were extra blessed, however... we were able to extend our stay a few more days!! :)

Monday we checked out of the Tropicana and went to our Worldmark timeshare. That day we did a little goofing off in town... Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! OK, just lions... The Lion Habitat in the MGM!
The M&M store - Yellow was there and we took our picture with him! Yes, we look HOT. It was 108 degrees. You'd be hot, too. Melt in your mouth and not in your hand... or perhaps all over the pavement...
Later in the week we went to see Mystere by Cirque du Soleil. WOW. It was INCREDIBLE. After Mystere, we tried to see The Sirens of TI (the pirate show), but it was too windy. Fun pics, though...

The next night we saw Blue Man Group. Again, WOW. SOOO good. They performed in the Venetian.. so after the show, we went upstairs to Italy and ate some gelato. Yum! :)

Here's a picture from our balcony at the timeshare! Gorgeous!

And that's the end of the trip! It was wonderful... everything about this trip was blessed... from actually WINNING it, to getting tickets on sale... just everything! So thank you Jesus, thank you KMPS, thank you JD and crew... it was FANTASTIC!!!