CMA Fest Day 5

On any other day, I cannot wait to wake up and get started...but this Sunday morning we just couldn't do it. We slept in the one and only day during our vacation :-) It was a bittersweet day with a lot of my mind...I was thankful because 12 years ago on this day, Bobby and I went on our first date, but also the fact that on this day last year, we started our adoption journey and a year has passed. That coupled with the last day of vacation and exhaustion, it was a lot to take in!

It was after lunch before we ever made it downtown to see what was going on. We spent the afternoon roaming around not really with any plans. We went to the big convention center and there were a TON of kids in there. Seems we found the Taylor Swift event.....

She was doing a 13 hour meet and greet, but you had to win wristbands to meet her. We kept texting every hour, but our names never got called unfortunately. She had stuff from her tour and her buses set up in the middle of the stadium, so it was nice (and air conditioned) to sit there and watch all of these personal videos of hers and watch her meet all of her fans down in the middle. She went back into her bus (we thought for a break) and shortly realized we had walked in just in time to catch her impromptu concert! We were quite a ways back, so we don't have really good pictures of it, but she really did a good job!

We ended up getting a signed CD for Kyleigh and a shirt for Reece and sat in there a bit longer after the show and got very much over priced pizza and drinks. After that, we hung around and grabbed dinner and then headed over to the LP field early and just took our time, hanging out and enjoying the last night of fun. We met so many fun people and it was nice to just sit back with a cold beer and take it in.

Did we mention again how hot it was? Here is proof when we went out to the car...

6pm......

103...not counting the heat index!

We were not the only ones taking in the last night. The way CMA Fest works, you get the option to renew your seats every year, so a lot of the people around us had been coming and sitting together for years! They were catching up and already making plans for the next year. You could definitely tell the hardcore concerts goers!

Here was the lineup for the last night....

Justin Moore opening the night up. I have the feeling he's going to be real big soon

Kellie Pickler didn't fair well with the heat and looked like her face was on fire the entire time, but she sang great!

I was loving some Blake Shelton!

Blake and Miranda

Blake and Trace tearing up the night time stage with "Hillbilly Bone"

I couldn't get over how built Trace Adkins was!

Darius Rucker certainly carried his own...and even graced us with some Hootie! He did a version of Prince's "Purple Rain" that completely blew my mind. Best of the night!

I guess Brad Paisley had a trailer full of guitars in the back because he changed them pretty much every song. He was really talented on them though!

You know all of the boys had to come back out for the final performance of the night..."Alcohol"

The last night was a close second to the first night. It was bittersweet to have to leave, but we headed out back to North Carolina bright and early the next day and made it back home around 9:30 that night. For anyone thinking about going, I would tell you to definitely do it! We had such a great time and when you break down all of the shows we saw with the price, it was the deal of the century.

We've had a lot of people ask us if we will go back next year, but we hope we are celebrating having our son home rather than spending it at concerts :-) Here's to hoping!!!