Love letters

Austin Weekend for 2

On Saturday, the hubby and I went to Austin to be part of the live studio audience of America's Got Talent.
This took care of #36 on my 40 by 40 list, "Be Part of a Live Studio Audience."


They had a super strict dress code:

YOU MUST ADHERE TO DRESS CODE. YOUR ADMISSION DEPENDS ON IT. Hip, upscale attire is mandatory. You will be on camera so it is very important that you dress nicely! When you look great, the show looks great! No shorts, t-shirts, or hats. We'd prefer you don't wear jeans, but nice jeans are fine. SOLID COLORS ARE APPRECIATED. NO WHITE CLOTHING. Absolutely no clothing with logos or writing will be allowed into the theater. 

Absolutely no open-toed shoes of any kind will be allowed inside the studio of safety reasons. You will be turned away if you wear them. This includes high heels (anything over 1 inch), platforms, sandals, and flip flops. Please wear closed-toed flat shoes.




I was stressed a little a bit what to wear.  First, I buy most of my clothes at Costco and Target and I do not own a lot of "hip, upscale" attire. We stopped at the outlet mail on the way up and I got a cute green sweater at Banana Republic (they're hip and upscale right?), but then we got an e-mail that said "no green". It was St. Patrick's Day, but the show wasn't airing until May.
 We thought maybe your seat depended on how good you loooked and I was worried about even wearing jeans. When I got there there was obviously no one checking the dress code. There was even a lady in a HUGE green t-shirt that said "P-A-R-T-Y" across her chest in denim capris and flip-flops that got  a seat on the front row.


We weren't allowed to  bring cameras/phones so I don't have any pics for you but I'll tell you a little about our experience:


First of all, we were all basically props and all of the audience reactions are faked. Outside the theater we all pretended to be excited to see the judges arrive-even though they weren't there. They even recorded all of our reactions before the performers even came on.  This makes sense, b/c the audience is in the dark during the performances.  They would tell us how to react and then they filmed it.  We pretended to laugh, be horrified, clap politely, enthusiastically chant "Vegas", and boo.  We even did fake staggering standing ovations.


Second, there are actually Howard Stern fans out there-I guess I assumed he must have them.  He's just not my cup of tea.


Third-it was super loud.  I couldn't really hear a lot of the performers and so had no idea if they were actually good or not.
 
It took forever. We got there 2 1/2 hours before it even started and it usually took about 20 minutes between each act.  There were 4 audition shows scheduled and so I'm curious to see how much actual TV time they got out of the 6 1/2 hours we were there.


Finally, it was only the auditions, but none of the talent we saw was any better than you get from your typical High School talent show. However there was a singer that was wounded by a grenade in Afghanistan that I am going to vote for.  His story inspired me and made me cry and I'd like to help him win a million dollars.


Overall it was a fun experience and I got to cross something off my list.

Spring break 2012 Kerrville, TX

The entire state of Texas has Spring Break the same week and by the time we got around to planning something to do, everything was booked.  In our effort to fill our time by viewing every random roadside attraction, we headed to Kerrville.  

We began our trip with some burgers.

Then we stopped at Stonehenge (sort of).

We also stopped by Easter Island across the parking lot.

8th Grade Track

Riley thought it would be a good idea to run track on top of already swimming 1 1/2 hours a day.  She was only able to run in one meet before her legs gave out to shin splints and we had to get a doctor to order her to quit.

Eddie and his bike

Eddie does not like to learn new things.  Mostly because he doesn't like to do anything, unless he excels.  So finally he was old enough that instead of learning to ride a bike, he just had to get on and he could ride it.  Our neighbor Bobby Williams was really supportive.   

His brother's old bike, was in bad shape, so he made a deal with Dad that he would pull weeds in exchange for a bike that the chain didn't fall off of every 5 minutes.