Expo West

March 14, Thursday

I flew into Orange County Airport last night. Michael left a little before 8:30 AM for a meeting. I walked to the Anaheim Convention Center and picked up my badge. At the booth, they were serving mocktails made with strawberry kiwi Water Drops. 

Jorge came over and I spent quite a bit of time talking to him. He wanted me to do a video so we did a couple videos and he put them on his Instagram and tagged me and showed me how to put them on my Instagram story. 

Later, Michael and I walked around a bit. Michael had some more meetings. I stood by the Water Drops we were giving out for free and talked to some people. Michael and I left around 5:30 PM and headed back to the hotel. We walked over to the Mexican place and got a ton of food and came back to the room to eat it which was perfect. It was a nice day.

We saw this cute booth as we were walking around outside the Convention Center.

March 15, Friday

Michael and I slept in and we made it to the convention center just before 10 AM. I spent the next three hours talking to people about our Water Drops and other products. Jorge came by again and we took a couple more pictures. Michael had a couple of meetings. We served some alcohol-free Mojitos made with mint, lime, and our coconut Sweet Drops. 

We also went to the hot products building but I didn't have a lot of time because I still needed to go to Downtown Disney. I said goodbye to Michael, went upstairs to try some cookie dough, and then walked over to Downtown Disney. I talked to Emily on the phone while I walked. I stopped at Marceline's Confectionery and got about six bags of English toffee, some peanut clusters, churro toffee, and peanut butter bars for Michael. It was pretty heavy to carry all that stuff to the hotel. I had to walk to the other side where the Disneyland entrance is on Harbor Boulevard. It was kind of sad walking past Disneyland and California Adventure without being able to go in. 

By the time I got to the hotel, it was after 3 PM and my intention had been to leave the hotel and be all packed by 3 PM but it worked out fine. I got into my Uber around 3:45 PM or so. I got to the airport a little bit after 4 PM, got through security, and had plenty of time before the plane started boarding. My original flight was for 4:20 PM but I had found out this morning that it was delayed till 5:05 PM. They actually left before 5:05 PM which is weird. This is why you can never be cutting it close for a flight but I got lucky today. The boys did great while we were gone and they had checked off all the things on the instructions so I appreciate that. It was a quick trip, but I'm glad I was able to go.

Carrie Underwood Reflection at Resorts World in Las Vegas

March 9, Saturday

I made it to the airport in plenty of time and got through security quickly so I thought I could go get myself a salad at Cowboy Ciao. I had a good flight. Emily had already arrived a couple hours earlier and was waiting for me at the airport so it was kind of fun to walk off the plane and have her be right there. We walked over to the rideshare area and ordered an Uber and only had to wait about five minutes. The drive over to the hotel was pretty fun. It was cool to see the huge mural of Carrie on the side of the hotel. It's the biggest digital picture I've ever seen. It would cycle through the different performers and amenities at Resorts World so you only saw her for a brief moment and then it switched to somebody else. We were pretty much in awe as we drove up to the hotel. Everything was so beautiful.

We had to wait in quite a long line to check in today but the lady was very nice. Emily and I had fun talking while we waited so it was fine. We went up to our room and we loved it! The view was amazing! The pool looks so cool and we can see the strip and it's just a wonderful room. We hung up our dresses and went to go explore and have some dinner. 

Here is a cool restaurant near Juniors.

We had decided to go to Juniors. Emily liked her chicken sandwich but the experience was kind of a bummer because it took forever to get our food. It took the guy a while to even take our order. We were there for a good 45 minutes before we got our food and it was very frustrating. I was glad I got to sit and have a meal with Emily, but the restaurant was a disappointment.  We went back up to our room to get ready and dressed up to see Carrie. 

I'm really glad that we decided to stay at Resorts World. It's so much easier to go to an event when you're already staying at that hotel. We got dressed and ready to go. It took us a little longer than we wanted because our dinner went so late but we left the room by 7:40 PM and went down to the concert. All we had to do was take the elevator down, turn the corner, walk a little way and turn another corner, and that's it. I wish I had known that there were photographers set up because we missed our opportunity to get that done before the concert. There were quite a few people arriving at the same time as we did. We made it through security and Emily stood in line to buy a t-shirt while I went to use the bathroom. Then they took us to our seats. We were thrilled when we saw our seats! We knew they would be good but these were fantastic! We were only three seats in from the end so we were right by the stage. Even though we were viewing her on an angle, it was so cool to be close to the stage because she walked over to us a few times and it was amazing! We got such a good view of her. The concert was absolutely amazing! She was fantastic, just like we remembered from when we saw her in Phoenix. Maybe even better. 

View of the theater from our seats

Her very first song was Cowboy Casanova and then the second was Good Girl and I was so excited for Emily because those were her two songs that she really wanted to hear the most and I couldn't believe she played them first right out of the gate (I think you can even hear me yelling, "Right out of the gate!"). That was fantastic! She had a number of costume changes and the transitions were awesome. Her band was very good and her dancers were amazing. 

Us singing Cowboy Casanova

Good Girl

She walked over to where we were sitting and she even waved at us!

Wasted

Drinkin' Alone

Two Black Cadillacs

Church Bells

She had some aerialists at different points and they were spectacular. 

Blown Away

I think my favorite moment was when she was singing Jesus Take the Wheel and then she transitioned to How Great Thou Art. It was absolutely breathtaking. 

We loved it when she did All-American Girl. We were hoping that she would do that song but we weren't sure. Before the third verse, she stopped and said that she usually has a little girl come up but she was thinking that the fans who were little girls at the time the song came out would be grown up by now and possibly getting married. At some point she had said, where are my all-American girls? I got so excited thinking maybe she could call Emily up so I started jumping up and down and pointing to Emily. She wanted nothing to do with it and she kept pulling my left arm down and my right arm was occupied holding the camera so I could take the video. So I was jumping up and down and yelling "Carrie!" and the guy next to us tried to help me out by reaching over and pointing to Emily. I glanced back and it looked like some other people were also trying to get attention over to our side but I wasn't sure if it was for Emily or another girl that was behind us who also seemed to want to go up or at least her parent or partner wanted her to. I don't know, it all happened so fast and I was a little confused about exactly what happened, but at one point Carrie did look over in our direction and say that she sees that everybody's pointing at somebody. But then she was facing the center of the audience and said, "Come on up," and I was confused so I turned around and I saw the people still pointing either at Emily or the other girl but then there were two guys coming down the stairs on the side holding enormous bouquets and walking to the stage. They brought out a big cake to wish her a happy birthday. I was so confused and thought we had missed out on our chance for Emily to go up on stage. Luckily, I found out later that this was all staged. Anyway, we had a little birthday celebration for her and then she finished the song with this guy in a denim jacket with huge rhinestones on it and he sang the third verse with her. So that was a huge bummer. Emily said she wasn't upset that she didn't get to go up but she thought it was unfair that a girl didn't get to go up and somebody in the audience was robbed of their chance of having a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Anyway, it didn't work out and I was pretty bummed but I enjoyed the rest of the concert. 

Us singing All-American Girl

Denim and Rhinestones

Love Wins

There was another cool part in Cry Pretty where she held a note for so long it was almost not human. The bummer was, I had been taping so many songs that I had turned off the video before she got to that point but it was so cool. 

As soon as she started singing Last Name, I knew the next song would be Before He Cheats and I was right. I told Emily that. It was fun when she did Before He Cheats because she had a Jeep lowered onto the stage and the dancers walked around with baseball bats. That was pretty cute. And then at the end there was a fire in the Jeep. 

Last Name

Before He Cheats

Us singing Before He Cheats

My other favorite number was the one at the end where she sang Something in the Water and this huge feature raised up and the dancers were laying on this board that was slanted and doing their dance on these posts coming out of the structure. I couldn't believe it because she was standing right next to water and her hair started getting wet, and I thought this must be her last song because surely her team is not going dry her hair again. I was right; it was her last song. It was a spectacular ending! 

Something in the Water

Afterwards, we kind of lingered for a while and took some pictures. We went up further to the middle of the stage to get a picture and we asked one of the security guys to take it for us and he did and he was very nice about it. 

Then I asked him about the situation with going up on stage and he said, Oh, that's how they do it and somebody's already pre-selected every time. So, I was actually hugely relieved that I hadn't messed up and missed our opportunity to get her up on the stage. It was never going to happen anyway. I'm so glad we came and it was a wonderful time. After the concert, we walked around to a couple of the food court restaurants. 

Emily really wanted a soda and we ended up going to the donut place to get her a soda. I got a croissant donut at Randy's donuts and it was amazing! 

 

Anyway, we took some more pictures and went up to our room and put on our comfy clothes and got ready for bed. I think it was almost 1 AM by the time we got to bed. Well, really midnight but we knew we were going to lose an hour. 

March 10, Sunday

I woke up at 7 AM because the people next-door were loud. It was nice that I got up early so I could get showered before Emily even woke up. We left the hotel at 8:30 AM and got our Uber over to the airport. I walked over to Emily's gate with her and waited with her for a little while and then walked back to my own gate. There were some kids in her gate area walking around with their dad and one of them pushed on the door and made the alarm go off. It took a while for a security guard to go over there and turn it off. Her flight was supposed to be at 10:05 AM but she found out last night that it got changed to 10:37 AM which was wonderful because that gave us an extra half hour of sleep. Anyway, we both landed about the same time. I am so glad that we went on this trip, even though it was quick. We had a fantastic time and we will remember this amazing concert forever!

Emily's Birthday Weekend

February 24, Saturday

Today, we did our normal morning routine. Emily's flight arrived about half an hour early. I had told the boys I needed to go to the store to get food for dinner so I pretended that's why I had to leave and I came back to surprise them. Jonny was the first to come downstairs. He stopped in shock for a few seconds and then gave a little smile and walked over to give her a big hug. He said, “My bestie.” Daniel saw her and said, “Again?” Michael already knew she was coming so he saw her and said, “Emmy,” and gave her a big hug. Then Andrew came down and said, “Wait, is there something else?” We said no, it's just Emily this time. They were all happy.

We chatted for a little bit and then we got ready to go to lunch at Texas Roadhouse. We had a great meal together. We didn't have to wait very long because I had put us on the waitlist. 

Then Michael drove me to Sam's Club so I could get a roast. They were making bets on how long it would take me. They said they would give me 12 minutes. Then I said “Well, what do I get if it's less? Can I go to Batch cookies and grab some cookies on the way home?” They said sure. They didn't believe I could do it but I did. I raced in and out of there as fast as I could. I didn't even ring up the groceries until I was standing in the line to leave because it was so busy. Then we stopped at Batch cookies and went home. The kids played some video games. Andrew went to the gym while we played Role Models on Jackbox and then when he got home, we played some Trivia Murder Party. Then Emily and Jonny went to the school to take some pictures for her project. They saw the hurdle that was broken when Jonny fell. I took about a half-hour nap and got ready for the stake conference adult session. Andrew went with us. It was a wonderful meeting! After the meeting, we went straight to Cold Stone because that was Andrew's request. We got the orders from the kids at home and brought some home to them. Cold Stone was pretty busy. We came home and had our treats. We watched a couple episodes of Name That Tune and then everybody got ready for bed.

 

February 25, Sunday

I'm so grateful Emily was able to come even though it was a short trip. We had a wonderful time. We went to Stake Conference and it was very nice. They had a number of Primary children give talks and they were so sweet. The Primary children did a beautiful job in the choir and the adult choir was amazing! The final number was "I Believe in Christ" and they sang it like the Tabernacle Choir arrangement and I thought it was amazing! I assisted Andrew with making chicken enchiladas and we had that for lunch. Then we had an adulting lesson about health insurance and I shared some actual costs from Jonny's surgery. We talked about that for a while and then we had family home evening. We shortened it quite a bit but still had a good discussion. Jonny gave the lesson. Next, we got out Emily's chocolate birthday cake and sang to her and had some cake. 

 

Then it was time to play a board game together. Of course, Emily chose Clue. She was pretty proud of me that that's what I guessed she would want but I know her well. Michael won the first game and then Emily won the second one. After the first game, it was time for Andrew to go to Gathering Israel which was fine with him because he hates that game. While he was gone, we played Phase 10. Then Emily and Jonny worked on her project/paper a little bit. I did a few chores on the computer. Everybody had a little bit more to eat and then we got ready to take Emily to the airport. We're so glad she was able to visit!

Jonny's Broken Collarbone

Jonny had a bad fall at track practice and broke his collarbone. It was a very bad break and they had to use a metal plate and screws to align and repair it. Jonny was so brave and strong. After the surgery, he never had any pain. I couldn't believe it. It was truly a miracle! Jonny missed quite a bit of school but his teachers were understanding and he was able to get all caught up. 

He broke his collarbone on February 14 and his surgery was on February 20.

Before surgery

After surgery

Emily made this cool video about the whole thing:

We love you so much, Jonny!

Andrew's Mission Call

Andrew has been called to the Australia Brisbane Mission! We are so excited for him and we know he will be a fantastic missionary! 

We are so proud of you, son!

Anniversary Date

Michael and I had a belated anniversary date. We technically celebrated our anniversary at Disney World by going to our reservation at Cinderella's Royal Table, but it was nice to go out again and enjoy a quiet night at our favorite steakhouse. They always spoil us with a special dessert. 

Happy Anniversary, sweetheart!