Gary Allan ROCKS!!

Country singer Gary Allan rocked us out at Busch Gardens yesterday. Of course, Linae and I had a blast--a hot guy with a sexy voice singing to us? Oh, yeah. We are sooooo there!

Here we are: The 1st and 3rd place age group winners (F 30-34) in the Armadillo Run 5K with our celebratory Bud Select!

Gary rises up from beneath the stage. He started his set with "Watching Airplanes," his current #1 song and one of my personal favorites. It gets stuck in your head ;)

Yummmm...

One of my deep, dark secrets: I'm a sucker for a bad-ass tat...

I think it's worth noting that he and a couple other members of his band killed half a bottle of whiskey while on stage. And while we were all holding up our beer to salute him, one dude held up a half-eaten turkey leg. Only in Florida. Welcome to the Freak Show State, Mr. Allan. Please come back sometime.

Tall Drink of Water

Tuesday night, my mom and I went to the Strawberry Festival (aka Redneck Hootenanny, Part Deux. Part Une was the Florida State Fair) in Plant City. Between the mullets, the cowboy hats, and the extraordinarily obese people walking around with a turkey leg in one hand and a corn dog in the other, the festival yet again satisfied the people-watcher (voyeur?) in me.

I was still suffering from The Plague, but the lure of strawberry shortcake and Blake Shelton was great enough to get my crud-infested, germy self there. In the rain. At least it was warm.

In addition to being hotter'n Texas in July and a great singer, Blake Shelton is hysterically funny. He really played up the Redneck aspect of Central Florida, culminating in a cover of the Bellamy Brothers' "Gimme a Redneck Girl." It was a blast!

My mom got a kick-ass camera for her birthday, so the pictures are WAY better than they were at the George Strait concert. Below are some pictures of the super-fine Mr. Shelton, all 6'5" of him. Yummy:

"The More I Drink"

"Some Beach"

Cover of Hank Jr.'s "A Country Boy Can Survive"

"Ol' Red"

Yeah, it's country :)

George Strait Concert

So I got awesome kid points for getting my mom tickets to George Strait, her favorite singer of all time. I like him, too, so it was no hardship on me ;) It was a fantastic show, and the seats were actually really good. It's my camera that sucks. I apologize for the blurry crappiness of most of the pictures.

Disclaimer--I look like this because we got rained on during the 1/3 mile walk from the car to the St. Pete Times Forum.

The first opening act was a girl named Sarah Johns. I hadn't heard of her, but she was pretty good. I *did* vaguely recognize a song she sang about how she wanted to give her boyfriend the finger on her left hand used for a wedding band, but now she's giving him the one in the middle. Very clever song.

I was really excited about seeing Little Big Town, the second opening act. They absolutely ROCKED!! I would pay to see them headline any day. This was during their cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way," which was fabulous.

Their best-known song, and first hit, was "Boondocks." GREAT song, and it really got the crowd going. Even my mom was singing along with the chorus. They closed their amazing set with this song. I was kinda bummed to see them go, even though it meant King George was coming out.

Ahhh, here he is. Fifty-five years old and just as gorgeous as he was twenty years ago. He sounds awesome live, and he sang quite a few of his 55 #1 songs.

I was thinking of my friend Dawn in Calgary when I took this photo. Enjoy!

George sang for just over two hours and did a three-song encore, which included Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues."

He always ends his shows with "The Cowboy Rides Away." Unfortunately, I was not among the lucky bastards who got to shake his hand ;)

After the show, we wound up at Denny's eating pancakes until 12:30 AM. Of course, I had a half marathon in Clearwater the next day and had to get up at 4:45 AM, so I knew it would be interesting. More on the race later.

Next concert: Blake Shelton at the Florida Strawberry Festival on March 4. Woooo Hooooo! First was Keith Urban/Gary Allan, then George/Little Big Town, and soon Blake. All that's left is Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley, and Rascal Flatts, and I can die a happy girl.