Apparently, I like country music.

I have never been a fan of country music. I think it's probably because I associate it with long 12 hour drives from Colorado to Idaho, the lonely wilderness of Wyoming, and carsickness. Then, I met Dan and he introduced me to Brad Paisley. After several exposures, I started coming around. I decided that I could listen to his CDs and not want to throw up. Eventually, I began to learn the words to some of his songs. There was one song in particular that I really liked because Dan would sing it to me. It's called "She's Everything." That song ended up being the song we first danced to at our wedding reception as husband and wife. At this point, I was able to say, "Yes, I like Brad Paisley." Flash forward to last December. I bought Dan Brad Paisley's latest two CDs and gave one to him for Christmas and one to him for his birthday. I found out that Brad Paisley was going to be coming here two weeks after Dan's birthday, and suggested to his mom that she buy him tickets for his birthday. I was definitely down for going to see him in concert because I like a lot of his songs. So last night, we went to the Brad Paisley concert.

It was INCREDIBLE. I had so much fun. The crowd wasn't really my scene--there was a lot of beer, many cowboy hats, and lots of plaid and denim. I even saw a group of girls that had shirts stating to the world that they were "Scotty's Hotty's," which of course is a complete punctuation fail. Anyway, the show was amazing. We sat in the second row of section 115. This is important because of the following diagram:

Yes. Brad Paisley was about five feet away from me. About halfway through the show, in the middle of one of his songs, he just started coming down through the crowd STRAIGHT FOR US. Let me show you my progression of pictures.

Yes. Brad Paisley decided to walk up the aisle that we were sitting, and stood there and sang for about 30 seconds. As you can see, my phone's camera and I both had a minor freak out. I was unable to decide whether to stop jumping up and down so I could reach out and touch him, or whether to stop jumping up and down and take a picture. I went with the latter, but my phone was a few steps behind so the pictures did not turn out very well. Long story short, I was five feet away from the best country singer (pretty much ever in my opinion) in the country. It was so exciting. Dan and I were freaking out and I had a crazy adrenaline rush (which could have been influenced by my chugging a 16 oz Mt. Dew Voltage before the show). Anyway, it was amazing.

He played a ton of really good songs (including "She's Everything" where I shed a few tears and held Dan close) and gave away TWO guitars. There was also one point where he took someone's iPhone and started taking pictures of the crowd and himself. The girl who owned it was probably peeing her pants with excitement.

I came away with the following realization: I really like Brad Paisley (and apparently, country music). He just seems like such a great guy. His songs are not about dumb things (for example Selena Gomez's latest song about how every good song has already been sung--so lame). He sings about fishing, about love (but in a non-cheesy, fresh way), about "the old red, white, and blue" and being a patriot, about trucks and mud, and about life. It was incredible, and because of this whole experience, I think I can say I like (some) country music.

Also, as a gift to you, here are two videos and some pictures that mine and Dan's pathetic little phones would like to share with you: