THE Competition

Well, we didn't win. No sense in building the suspense! But read on if you want to hear about the whole trip.

Wednesday morning, we did sing that birthday gig for a detective here in town, and then John and I and the kids began our drive to Colorado Springs.

If you've ever been on a road trip with me, you know the rules. It's not that I don't enjoy the drive because I do. I like to see if I can get to Point B faster than I did last time. I like to see how many cars I can pass in one minute. I like to predict the speed traps and be right. And most of all, and this might not be that nice, but, I LOVE passing the car that flew by me a couple miles back as he's getting a ticket from the nice police officer that pulled him over. >:)

You combine your potty, gas and food stops as much as possible, and always get food to go. One parent takes the child/ren to the potty while the other fills up with gas. Then you switch. The you go through the drive through and get back on the road.

I completely understand how this might not be everyone's favorite way to travel, and I don't take offense. But I love it! Especially when we had so far to go this time.

TX was a breeze to drive through, as well as most of NM. The snow started in Dalhart, TX, but wasn't too bad ... until Raton, NM. Then came Raton Pass. Terrible snow. Of course it was dark which made the car lights reflect off of each gigantic snowflake. It was near white-out conditions! I couldn't see the white lines on the road 80% of the time. I just kept looking for those occasional reflectors on each side of the road and made sure I was in between them!

Crazy snow. Until Pueblo, about an hour south of Colorado Springs, where it turned to light rain. And by the time we entered Colorado Springs, it was finally, beautifully clear. I was so thankful that we made it safely!

Kreg and Keleigh welcomed us into their beautiful home. Mom had flown in earlier that day. We spent Thursday just spending some quality time with family and I was also able to run by Pikes Peak Christian School for a bit and see a bunch of friends from when we lived there.

That night Kreg grilled burgers and brats for dinner. We were joined by the Goods as well as Todd and Tiffany! Yummy burgers and s'mores!

Friday  morning, we left the kids in COS and drove up to Denver to meet up with the rest of CV. We found them at the Starbucks close to the hotel. No big surprise there. :)

That day we spent our time just playing in Denver. We cruised up and down 16th Street Mall, ate at Hard Rock for lunch, caught an IMAX that afternoon and had PF Chang's for supper. We managed to find some rehearsal time in there and also sang on 16th and drew a crowd! And we only lost Danny one time! ;)

Saturday was great. Leisurely breakfast wherever we felt like it, then went to a park to rehearse! After a great last rehearsal we ate at Maggiano's. Oh my. That meal was the best of all of them. Then we had our "not-so-perfect" sound check that afternoon. I think we had just never heard ourselves that loudly before! It threw us for a loop, but really prepared us for that night.

Supper was completely unnecessary after the late, huge lunch. We headed back to the hotel, got ready and went to the show! Mom, Keleigh, Tiffany and a friend of hers also were able to go to the show as well as Stefanie's husband and parents. What loyal fans!

We were the first group after intermission. Man those spotlights felt good! We sang so well and we were pretty pumped up after our little 10 minutes was up.

Unfortunately (I guess) jazz was not what the judges had in mind for the winners. They chose a local, all-male vocal pop band to win it all. I don't know if it was just coincidence at all that the judges were all also members of a local all-male vocal pop band, but I'm trying not to put too much weight on that. :) John said that if The Real Group themselves had been in the competition, they wouldn't have won! What matters is that we know that we can walk into an unfamiliar, high-pressure situation and do great! We did what we do very well, and we are so pleased with that.

I also need to say that the group that won, Confidential, was SO good! We didn't get to hear them do their set because we were warming up at the time, but we did hear their encore song, and it was tight! I'm happy for them and hope they do great at the finals in May!

We dropped Mom off at the airport after about 4 hours of sleep and had a good trip home, beating our first trip time by 30 minutes. Not surprising, though, since you pretty much coast all the way home from Denver to Tyler! Oh yes, we did go ahead and pick up the children from Kreg and Keleigh, though there was some debate about leaving them there. We got that worked out. :) I think they got some good cousin time in with Westin!

CV decided to take Monday's rehearsal off since we all needed rest, both vocally and physically! But we do look forward to a busy April! I'm so blessed to get sing with such talented and dedicated people!

Thanks to Kreg, Keleigh, Mom and Tami for helping out with the kids. We couldn't have made the trip without your help!

Much love to our CV fans!