2 Week Recap

Because it's been a while since my last post here's a quick recap of the last two weeks of my life.

• I recovered from being sick. I took an extra rest day as a result of being sick but that was the best choice for me and my body.
• I had a snow day in college! I also got stuck leaving my driveway that day which resulted in me running back up my driveway because my brother wasn't answering his phone since he was sleeping. I took another rest day as I didn't want to drive home in the dark, and I was able to follow my aunt (who has 4-wheel drive) home which made me much more comfortable driving my car home.
• I was one of 3 students in my online managerial economics class to score between 90 and 95 percent (highest of the class) on our first exam of the class. I'm not always the best student so to be one of 3 students to score that well felt pretty amazing. Ok, ok I won't take all the credit for it considering Chelsea and I worked on it together and we had another friend's answers to compare ours to. But still!
•  I lost 2 pounds since 2/16/12! I honestly was not expecting this. It renewed my motivation to keep pushing on through all of the struggles of trying to change my habits and lose weight. Also, I decided to come up with a rewards system for my weight loss journey. I will reward myself for every 5 pounds lost, and every 10 pounds will be a bigger reward while every 5 pounds is a small reward.
• I got back on track with my workouts. Sunday I walked almost 5 miles in 83 minutes up and down the "mountain". It isn't really a mountain, just a steep hill with skiing but it's name includes mountain in it. My legs are still feeling it today!

Since seeing Brantley Gilbert in concert, as the opener for Eric Church, in January I've been obsessed with listening to his music.  Here's one of his (great!) songs.

Tomorrow is filled with work and school followed by a weights workout.  Thankfully it's also Wednesday which means we're going to be halfway through the week!

Country Fest 2011 - Part 1

It is finally here, part 1 of my Country Fest 2011 recap!

Thursday June 23rd began with some last minute packing and prepping for the drive to our hotel.  Once everything was loaded in my aunt's Ford Explorer we went to the bar for lunch before hitting the road.  I was the one who had taken care of ordering the tickets and printing them so I was the most important person to have along.

After checking into our hotel room and dropping our bags off we headed out in search of the Country Fest grounds.  My mom and aunt had been there once before when I was still in the single digit ages so we were relying on their memories.   Not that we got lost be we started second guessing how far it was from the little town of Cadott.  After using my smart phone to look up the address and plug it into my navigation we realized had we just gone a little further we would have found the road we needed.

Due to it being the first day traffic was backed up quite a ways, and got worse the later it got.  We passed the time by playing Paper Toss on my mom's phone.  Even my aunt was playing despite being in the driver's seat.

We arrived while the first act was preforming.  It was supposed to be Ashley Gearing but she was replaced last minute by someone who I can't remember since I didn't actually get to watch.

After getting our wrist bands for the weekend and finding a parking space we went in to get our wrist bands for the reserved seating area and find our lawn chairs, which we got to take home at the end of the weekend.

Once drinks were in hand we settled in for Joey and Rory, who I thought was two girls until seeing them and realizing that they were a very cute married couple.  I didn't take any pictures of them, sorry!

Next up was Lonestar.  Some songs you may know by them are; Amazed, I'm Already There, Walking In Memphis, and No News.

Lead Singer

Following Lonestar was the Redneck Woman herself, Gretchen Wilson.  Some songs you may know; Redneck Woman, Here for the Party, California Girls, and All Jacked Up.

Gretchen Wilson is also on tour with Big & Rich, maybe other artists as well I can't remember, and it is her band that plays for them so they started playing Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy which the whole crowd sang.  It ended up being the best sounding "sing-a-long" of the whole weekend!

And last but not least was Mr. Trace Adkins!  Some songs you may know of his are: Fishin', Brown Chicken Brown Cow, Chrome, and Arlington.

Great Jumbo Screen shot huh?

Nice pants Trace ;)

During one of his last few songs my mom, aunt, and I gathered our things and started walking to the car.  Getting out of the grounds was so much faster than getting in just a few hours earlier since almost everyone was already checked in.  We drove back to the hotel and I quickly fell into bed and went to sleep.

One thing I didn't mention is that it rained that first day we were there.  It wasn't enough that we had to hide in a building or anything but it was enough that you wanted a rain jacket and the chairs were wet.  Obviously it didn't impact our day that much as I didn't even think to tell you about it initially.

Well, there you have it, day one of Country Fest 2011.  Stayed tuned for part two soon!

Have you seen any of these artists in concert before?  Of the artists I saw that Thursday which is your favorite?

Music I Love

I know it's late (10p) but I told myself I couldn't post a blog today until I had my assignments for History of Rock and Roll done.  I was still a bit naughty and read some blogs when I should have been reading but I just couldn't help myself!

While reading other blogs I noticed people are doing this 30 Days of something and Day 11 was to put your iPod on shuffle and list the first 10 songs that come up.  I decided to expand it to the first 15.  *Warning! May contain large amounts of country* ;)

Here you go...

1. "Just Fine" ~ Bomshel

2. "When You Got A Good Thing" ~ Lady Antebellum

3. "Something 'Bout a Woman" ~ Lady Antebellum

4.  "You" ~ Bomshel

5. "Church Pew or Bar Stool" ~ Jason Aldean**

6.  "Hey Stephen" ~ Taylor Swift

7.  "Satellite Heart" ~ Anya Marina

8. "One Day You Will" ~ Lady Antebellum

9. "Barn Burner" ~ Jason Michael Carroll

10. "Let's Make Love" ~ Faith Hill

11.  "The Razors Edge" ~ AC/DC

12. "Ignorance" ~ Paramore

13. "Thirsty" ~ Hank Williams Jr.

14. "Whiskey Girl" ~ Toby Keith

15.  "Brick By Boring Brick" ~ Paramore

Wow my iPod was really in the mood for country and Lady Antebellum tonight!  Normally I get a lot of AC/DC when I use the shuffle feature because I have all of their CDs.  But anyways, obviously you can tell I like country music :)

**Jason Aldean is one of my absolute favorite artists right now.  I was really happy when he popped up on my iPod.  I can't help but smile when I hear his music.  I love his voice and his songs...and he's definitely not bad-looking either ;)

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Picking an image to share with you was hard, I wanted to post them all.  If you're even slightly interested in country music I highly suggest that you listen to some Jason Aldean.  I love all of his albums!  Let me know if you want some recommendations for songs.

My love of country music is part of my motivation to shed the extra, unnecessary pounds.  June 23rd - 26th I will be in Cadott, WI at Country Fest 2011.  In four days I will see the following artists: Brett Eldredge, Joey & Rory, Lonestar, Gretchen Wilson, Trace Adkins, Steel Magnolia, Justin Moore, Craig Morgan, Gary Allan, Miranda Lambert, Josh Thompson, Collin Raye, Chris Young, Dierks Bentley, Carrie Underwood, Bucky Covington, Jerrod Niemann, Clay Walker, Josh Turner, and Lady Antebellum.  Yes, all of those artists in just four days!  How awesome is that?!  Because it's in summer I want to look good in a pair of shorts and a tank top so I am going to work my butt off to shed some pounds before then.  Also, another nifty little fact, I'll be 21 for Country Fest as my birthday is the weekend before on the 18th which I also want to look good for.

I'm thinking maybe I'll share some music and possibly some facts about the artists that will be at Country Fest in my blog?  What do you think??  I don't want to bore anyone with stuff they don't care about.

I'm so incredibly excited for the month of June!!  I'm also incredibly excited to get home from class and my work out tomorrow.  I will be stopping at the store to pick up some missing ingredients for a Chocolate Peanut Butter Bunt Cake which I will then proceed to make once I am home.  I just about drooled all over my keyboard at work today when I read Holly's blog where she shared the recipe.  If you want to drool over the cake and see the recipe you can check it out here.

Well I'm off to bed now.  I have my second exam in my marketing class tomorrow so I need to get up *hopefully* early to do some last-minute studying.  Tomorrow I will definitely be posting a blog about how that cake turns out :)