June 15

Alrighty, who's ready for the first official post of the Summer 2011 series?! I know I am. :) Aaaand, begin.

On June 15th of this year, we (mostly my dad) packed up our clothes, boat, and everything else we needed for 2 weeks in the "wilderness" that is Minnesota. We left early in the AM and made few stops. I didn't mean to, and I hate that I did, but I slept the. entire. way. there. That's like 6 or 7 hours after about 4 the night before. I know, I know. Lazy. So, unfortunately, I missed the gorgeous journey from city to suburbs to pure country to suburbs and city again.

And guess what I did when we got there. Yep, I took a nap. :)

A few hours later, I got up, showered, and got ready to go to the first Taylor Swift concert of my summer! (I'm going to another one in August, but that's another post.) My aunt made quite possibly the most delicious meal I'd ever had (pork chops, I think, with rice and mushroom sauce), and my cousin drove us to the venue.

It was glorious. :) There were giant posters, like these, that were available for taking pictures in front of.

Plus, we got in line for a special picture (which, I don't know where it is) and we got free tubes of CoverGirl's gloss balm. If you don't know, and how could you not?, Taylor Swift is the face of CoverGirl's Natureluxe line. PLUS, they gave us a coupon for more Natureluxe stuff. Pretty cool.

So, we got to our seats, which were really close to the stage (thanks, Pa!), and waited. There were gigantic screens that played Taylor's CG commercials and little behind-the-scene videos from her music videos and such. Then, Randy Montana came on to open. Then the official opener, Need To Breathe, played.

Finally, Taylor Swift came out. Her first song was "Sparks Fly" and it was magic. Every song's set was so well-thought-out and executed so perfectly! Here are a bunch of pictures from the show:

She played 2 medleys: "Back to December" with "Apologize" and "You're Not Sorry" & "Fearless" with "Hey, Soul Sister" and "I'm Yours." The "Fearless" medley was on ukulele and it was dang awesome. That's the picture where she's sitting under a silver tree. And, she played "Fifteen" and "Love Story!"

I had an absolutely incredible time, and I can't believe I'm lucky enough to be able to go to another of Taylor Swift's concerts this summer! That's surreal to me, but it's coming up soon. It's hard to describe how much I look up to Taylor Swift. She's so wholesome, kind, generous, magical, and original, which is exactly how I try to be. She seems to be full of passion and dedicated to what she does, which inspires me to find my passion and pursue it in the same way.

Talk to you soon!