Erin and Josh’s Day of (country) fun!

For the last several years, my family has traveled to Nashville for Mother’s Day weekend, and this year was no exception. Normally during this trip, most of my family goes to the Grand Ole Opry, while the rest of us non-country-music fans hit the mall and buy the exact same things we could buy at home (woo, tourism!)

This year, however, I discovered that the Grand Ole Opry just happened to be inducting Carrie Underwood on the very same weekend we were going to be in town. Oh, and also? Dierks Bentley would be there, too.

Now I may not be a huge country fan (though some of it is growing on me–Just Got Started Lovin’ You, anyone?) but I am definitely a Carrie Underwood fan. I am not ashamed of my love for American Idol, although I can’t say I’ve really gotten into a season since Elliot Yamin was on. And as far as Dierks Bentley, well. I am also a fan of the Hot. So much to Josh’s dismay, I promptly hopped on the internet and purchased two tickets for a knee-slapping good time at the Grand Ole Opry.

In preparation for our Weekend of Country, I spent the month leading up to the show listening to our local country station. It was painful. Not because the music was bad (though a good third of it was,) but, can I just say, country station DJs are the nerdiest DJs ever. No offense guys, but it’s true. I mean, I really don’t think I should have to be the one to tell you this, but DJs? You should never EVER sing along with the last few lines of a song when you are on the air. Ever. It is just not okay. It is totally okay to sing along with the entire song if you are say, alone in your car, or cleaning the house, but when you are in the presence of others or are ON THE AIR, please restrain yourself.

Now you would think with all this preparation and planning I put into our Day of Country Enlightenment, I would be ready for anything. And Josh will tell you, I packed twice my weight into our duffel bag for a one-night stay. (Yes, I tend to be overly thorough with the packing.) Nevertheless, around Jackson or so, a single thought zipped through my head and I broke into a cold sweat as I pondered how I was going to break the news to Josh that our Grand Ole Opry tickets were neatly tucked away in our office mail caddy back in Memphis.

Luckily, Josh has more brains than I do, and as we exited the interstate and headed back toward Memphis, he suggested I at least call the Grand Ole Opry and see if they could do anything. Forever the Doubting Thomas, but eager to show that I was attempting to fix the situation, I dialed 411 and asked to be connected. I don’t know why I thought they would laugh in my face and say “too bad!”, but I was surprised to find out that the Grand Ole Opry is in fact living in the information age and was able to look up our tickets by my credit card number. Crisis averted!

So the show was a lot of fun, and I’m not going to pretend to know who any of the other performers were, so here are some pictures of Carrie and Dierks.

(Side note to Dierks: I hear you played at least 4 or 5 songs during the early show, but you only gave us late-nighters 2 songs? You owe me some songs, mister.)

Oh, and here are some terribly exposed, grainy photos of Josh. The first one I couldn’t really help, as it was really dark in our seats at the Opry. The second one was in our hotel room, so I don’t really have any excuse other than I was too lazy to check my camera settings. Oh well, make them black and white and call it artsy, right?