2009 was quite a year.  The most important and exciting thing that happened to me this year is that I bought my first home.  I’ve looked and talked and planned for several years.  The pieces all fell into place very quickly at the end of July for me to officially begin my search for a home.  The house I bought was the first one me & the realtor that assisted me looked at together.  Greg (my realtor & Lindsey’s father-in-law) found me the perfect house.

My other major purchase of 2009 was a Nikon D90 camera.  I’ve had fun playing with it this year.  Although, I haven’t ventured far from the automatic settings yet.  One of my goals for 2010 is to learn more about what all my camera can do.

Lindsey, Kelly, Hayley, & I saw the Paisley Party Tour stop in Tulsa in January.  It included Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley, & Darius Rucker.

My mom’s birthday in January marked the beginning of a very bad ice storm.  I don’t remember ever having weather like that.  The ice was crazy.

In March, Kelly & I went to San Antonio for a few days.  We saw a bit of a history at the Alamo, had dinner on the top of the world, and even visited the beach.

In April, we took our annual trip to Dallas/Fort Worth for some NASCAR.  While down there, we visited the Sixth Floor Museum & Dealey Plaza where JFK was assassinated.  Jeff Gordon finally won a race at Texas Motor Speedway.

Memorial Day weekend I traveled to Charlotte, NC to visit Penni and go to the NASCAR races that weekend.  It was a weekend full of rain but it was a great weekend of visiting old friends and meeting new ones.

In June, I went to a couple of concerts.  The first one was Casting Crowns at the Church at Pinnacle Hills.  The second one was Chuck Wicks at the Poultry Festival.  I got to meet Chuck in person twice (once by accident) that evening.  It was great!  He’s hilarious and very down-to-earth.

Lindsey, Shelby, & I made last minute plans to go to Junction, TX in July to our cousin Lacey’s wedding.  We made Mom come too.  We took our time going down to visit Mom’s brother (our uncle) Mark and also to visit Dublin for some wonderful Dr Pepper.

In the beginning of October, Shelby & I traveled to Dallas.  The University of Arkansas Razorbacks played the Texas A&M Aggies in the new Cowboys Stadium.  Shelby, our uncles Mark & Rod, and I went to the game.  It was an awesome game in an aswesome stadium.  I’m hoping we get to go again next year!

In mid-October, I traveled to Phoenix with a couple others in my department for an SAP conference.  Besides the conference, we took some time to do some sight-seeing.

The last trip I took in 2009 was with Shelby the first weekend of November.  We went back to Dallas/Fort Worth for the NASCAR race.

Here are the blog entries I wrote this year related to my year in review.

January 3, 2009 10:57 pm - The Nikon D90
January 4, 2009 5:54 pm - New Camera – Day 2
January 10, 2009 10:32 pm - New Baby
January 11, 2009 2:38 pm - The Red Coat
January 24, 2009 8:56 am - Tulsa Bound
January 26, 2009 6:40 pm - Family Tradition
January 28, 2009 1:34 pm - Be Still!
January 29, 2009 6:32 pm - Tulsa Time
January 29, 2009 8:27 pm - Ice Storm
February 1, 2009 12:02 pm - Ice Storm Aftermath
March 5, 2009 9:00 am - San Antonio Bound
March 6, 2009 9:25 pm - Where’s Dad When You Need Him?
March 7, 2009 8:31 am - 173 Years Later
March 14, 2009 3:03 pm - Life is like a box of chocolates
March 14, 2009 3:59 pm - A bit of history
March 15, 2009 6:38 pm - The San Antonio Zoo
March 15, 2009 6:57 pm - The Texas Beach
March 15, 2009 8:03 pm - Sea World
March 21, 2009 2:40 pm - Tower of the Americas
March 21, 2009 4:15 pm - San Antonio Re-Cap
April 18, 2009 4:05 pm - Who Dun It?
April 18, 2009 4:45 pm - He finally won
June 20, 2009 3:58 pm - Chuck Wicks Times 3
June 27, 2009 4:47 pm - Casting Crowns
August 9, 2009 4:58 pm - My New House
August 23, 2009 5:42 pm - My New House – Before
October 7, 2009 9:52 pm - Long Wait
November 6, 2009 3:32 pm - Shop a Little, Race a Little

As far as 2010, I don’t really have any plans for any major traveling.  I know we’ll go to both NASCAR races in Texas in April & November.  Other than that, this may be a year that I take it a bit easy as far as traveling goes.  I do need to catch up on here with some blog entries.  I really want to share what my house looks like now that I’ve gotten it painted and decorated.

The headliner of the concert Saturday night was Brad Paisley.  I know you are shocked that he would be the headliner for the Paisley Party Tour but it’s true.  I was already a fan of Brad’s but seeing him in concert made me definitely like him a lot more.  He puts on a great show that I recommend all of you see if you get a chance.

Brad has several duets with artists such as Alison Krauss and, most recently, Keith Urban.  I have heard that some of his duet partners make special appearances at some of the venues.  We didn’t have any show up in person but there were several to make appearances on the big screens.
Brad Paisley featuring Andy Griffith – Waitin’ on a Woman

Brad Paisley featuring Keith Urban – Start a Band

Brad Paisley featuring BB King – Let the Good Times Roll

For the song Celebrity, Brad put on his own version of Guitar Hero/Rockband – Guitar Zero.  He brought along some stars to compete.

(You’ll have to come to one of the concerts to see who won the contest.)

Brad Paisley couldn’t resist taking a break mid-concert to sing Tulsa Time.  He was, of course, in Tulsa for the concert Saturday night so it was a bit understandable.  I must say that I expected more people to know the song than did.  He stopped singing thinking the audience would pick it up but not enough knew the song to do so.  It was still cool to have him personalize the concert in some way.  (The above photo was actually not for this particular song.  It was shown during The World.  A Brad Paisley bobble head doll traveled all over the world and stopped in Tulsa.)

Brad has two very sentimental songs that I love – When I Get Where I’m Going and Waitin’ on a Woman.  Prior to When I Get Where I’m Going, the sister of a soldier who died in Iraq gave Brad one of his dog tags.  Brad immediately put it on and introduced the girl and gave the soldier’s name.  That definitely had us all in tears before the song even started.  During the song itself, they displayed pictures of people that had died that had a big impact on everyone (similar to the music video).  At the end, they displayed a collage of all of the people/events.

I loved seeing all of Brad’s guitars.  I have no idea how many he used throughout the night but it seemed like he was switching after every other song.  They were some gorgeous guitars, though.  Brad is amazing guitar player.

See the guitar picks on the microphone in the shot below?  Brad would use a guitar pick, then throw it as well as a couple more out into the audience, then grab a new one and continue on.

Darius & Dierks joined Brad on stage for Alcohol.  They definitely had fun goofing off on stage.  Dierks even did some “dancing”.  It was a great way to bring the show to a close.

Here is a slide show of the my Flickr photo album from the concert.

Monday night, I posted my review of Darius Rucker’s portion of the Paisley Party Tour.  It’s now time for the Dierks Bentley portion of the concert review.  I’m sure no one really cares about Dierks, though, huh?

Prior to the concert, I was most looking forward to seeing Dierks Bentley again.  I’ve seen him two previous times.  Given our seat location this time, my main goal was to get some really good shots of him and the other two artists.

Wait…I interrupt Dierks to tell you about our seats.  Given the price of these tickets (very little difference between all of the seats), we decided to try to get some seats on the floor.  I logged in as soon as tickets went on sale and managed to get some excellent seats.  You can see the diagram of the BOK Center and our seat location highlighted in blue.  The seats were perfect because we were practically in front of the little stage coming out from the main one and then were even with the end of the long stage coming out.  (The little stage is not pictured in this diagram, for some odd reason. It came off the end of each side of the main stage and went halfway down F1 and F2, respectively.)

The thing we noticed most about Dierks this go around was his lack of ability to be still…ever.  He was constantly on the go running from one end of the stage to the other.  That was good and that was bad.  He definitely has high energy and keeps the audience entertained during his set.  My problem was that I couldn’t get a picture of him at all at times.  I have several pictures where all I can see is a bright white blur.  You can kind of see what I mean by looking at the picture above of Hayley & Lindsey.

I love Dierks’ new(er) song Feel That Fire.  The thing I always wondered about hearing it on the radio was how it would sound live.  I have no idea what the term officially is but I like the way he plays with his pitch during the song.  I was unsure how it would sound live, though.  It sounded very good.

I included the following 2 photos in the Flickr album for the concert and thought you might want to know what was pictured.  At the beginning of the song What Was I Thinking?, Dierks came and sat down at the end of the long stage coming out into the audience.  The beginning of the music video for the song was shown on the big screens and Dierks pretended like he was sitting there watching a movie (with beer & popcorn in hand).

Here is a slide show of the my Flickr photo album from the concert.

Previously: Darius Rucker

Up Next: Brad Paisley

Lindsey, Hayley, Kelly, & I did a bit of partying Saturday night.  This party didn’t have anything to do with alcohol (the drink), though.  We were in Tulsa, OK for the Paisley Party Tour 2009 featuring Darius Rucker, Dierks Bentley, & Brad Paisley.

Overall, the concert was definitely a great one.  While this didn’t top Garth Brooks or New Kids on the Block, it is definitely high on my list of best concerts ever.

Darius Rucker opened the night.  For those that might not know him, he was the lead singer of the 90′s band Hootie & the Blowfish.  Darius released a country album in 2008 and had a #1 single with the song Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It.  Beyond that song & his Hootie & the Blowfish songs, I didn’t know anything else he sings.  This made me a little skeptical about whether or not I would like his portion of the concert.  I was very pleasantly surprised.  He kept us very entertained and I felt like I knew the songs, even if I didn’t.  He played his #1 hit and a song that I’ve heard several times on the radio since the concert called It Won’t Be Like This for Long.  The audience got a big kick out of a song called Drinkin’ & Dialing from his album.  He closed his set with the Hank Williams Jr hit Family Tradition.  I personally thought this was a good song for him to sing.

“Country music singers have always been a real close family but lately some of my kin folks have disowned a few others and me.  I guess its because I kinda changed my direction.  I guess I went and broke their family tradition.”

That line of the song made me think about Darius.  While I don’t think Hootie & the Blowfish’s music is very different from country music, Darius still made a pretty big leap to where he is now.  Based on his album’s hits so far, I would say that leaped has worked out just fine.

Stay Tuned: Look for two more blog entries – one about Dierks & one about Brad – coming in the next 24 hours or so.  (I’m hoping to get them all posted in the next 2 or 3 hours, actually.)

I’ll be leaving in a little while to meet up with Kelly, Lindsey, & Hayley and head over to Tulsa.

I’m very excited about the concert.  I’ve loved Dierks the previous times I’ve seen him.  I’ve heard Brad has an amazing live show.  Plus, I loved Hootie & the Blowfish so I’m excited to see Darius Rucker in concert.  I’ve heard guest stars have made appearances during this tour.  For example, Allison Kraus made an appearance last weekend when the tour stopped in Little Rock.  A girl at work has decided it is time for Keith Urban to make an appearance and sing Start a Band live.  I’m going with that.  A girl can hope.  Can’t she?

We’ll be heading back to northwest Arkansas in the morning.  Look for a concert recap and plenty of photos (gotta try out the new camera at a concert) in a couple of days.