GARTH BROOKS

Today started out horribly, but ended greatly. To make a long story short, I foudn out that Matt & Shane had tickets to the Garth concert tomorrow, had extra tickets, but never asked me to go. Apparently they thought they had, but LUCKILY they still had an extra ticket and I'M GETTING TO SEE GARTH BROOKS TOMORROW!!!!! This may have made my year. It's a "one time" concert in Kansas City. Well it started out as one concert, but turned into 9 concerts. He sold out 9 concerts in less than 2 hours....and I'm getting to go. How AMAZING is that? Ok so if you can't tell I am a little excited about this concert. Let me give you some background information. When I was in 3rd grade (I think) Shane Brooks, a kid my parents had in school in Breckenridge, was supposed to go to Abilene and sit and line and get us tickets to see Garth Brooks. Well something happened and he didn't end up going and I was DEVESTATED. Ironically, Shane ended up going to Nashville for a while and had a short career. He produced a song that was even on CMT at one time, but was under the name Shane Stockton. He also wrote one of the songs on Garth Brooks' The Lost Sessions CD, it's titled My Baby No Esta Aqui. Now this isn't one of his most popular songs, but look on the papers inside the CD--Shane Brooks is a writer of the song. Well anyways, I am still not completely over not getting to see him as a 3rd grader. Then we move to Tulia and I am in JH and Garth comes to Amarillo. Richard & Becky had tickets and had a few extras and Kristi invites Emily to go with them, but they don't have enough tickets for me to go. Needless to say, I was CRUSHED. Emily gets home that night and says, "You should have gone, they were selling tickets at the gate." I was not a happy camper and to top it all off she tells me they were right by the stage (more in the back but that is irrelevant) and she touched Garth. I am still a little bitter about this. So that's strike number 2 of not getting to see Garth. Then I hear on the radio one morning on my way to work that Garth Brooks is going to do a one time show in Kansas City, but it's on November 14th. So I get excited, first thing I do when I get to work is check the calendar...dang it, of course it's a Wednesday and I have a home volleyball match--there's no getting out of this and it's televised. So I don't even try to get tickets, then I find out they have opened 9 shows, but all sold out in less than 2 hours. So I am thinking...3rd chance down the drain. But Shane & Matt LOVE me and are letting me tag along tomorrow night. So my day has been GREAT since. THANKFULLY, we don't have a volleyball game tomorrow night, it just happens to be our off week. I know I was griping earlier about not having a Saturday off, but having a Wednesday off worked GREAT. I can't wait to tell you about my night!

Anyways, enough about Garth. I am pretty sure I get to go to the Jack Ingram & Dierks Bentley concert on Friday. They will be at the Hearnes Center and since it isn't a sell-out crowd, athletic staff gets complimentary tickets. Should be a good time, but definitely won't hold a candle to Garth.

As for volleyball, the season is winding down. We have 5+ games left. These are 5 very important games. So for the update. Thankfully, our being swept in 3 games has come to an end, and playing 5 game matches has become a trend. We will start where we left off. We traveled to Kansas to play what is one of our biggest rivalry games. Luckily we held them off in 5 in one of the longest matches in Mizzou history. Scores were 30-32, 30-22, 33-31, 26-30, 15-12. This was a big win, and helps us with the overal Border Rivalry that we have with them. On Halloween we traveled to Nebraska to play the #2 Huskers (they dropped after losing to Texas). It was a night full of eerie happenings with Jekyl & Hyde being present. We ended up losing in 5, after a crazy night of scores being 30-19, 32-34, 30-11, 24-30, 15-10. Although it was the first time a Big XII team has beaten Nebraska on their home court since 2005 when Missouri took them to 5 as well. It was definitely an exciting night despite losing and really helped our tournament chances. Friday we hosted Baylor and won in 5 again, 30-21, 25-30, 29-31, 30-22, 15-13. Then we got 3 days off, which was AMAZING. We don't play again until Saturday at Tech, so our coaches decided a few days off would be nice. I am very excited to go to Lubbock on Saturday, as I get to eat at Rosa's :) (Abuelos or Cagles would be amazing, but I don't have that much time) and get some Chicken Express sweet tea. Oh the simple things in life really are the greatest. I wish I was going to be home Friday night for the annual post-game chili supper at my parent's house, but will be very glad to see them on Saturday. Pam & Robert are coming to see me as well, which I am super excited about because I haven't seen them since July. From the pictures I get I can tell he has grown so much. Other exciting news is that the Sunray girls advanced to state in cross country and will be running on Saturday in Round Rock. I really wish I was going to be there to cheer them on, but they know my thoughts are with them.

Well I guess that's all I have for now. Christmas is right around the corner and I can't wait to be home for a few weeks. I will be spending Thanksgiving here because we have a volleyball game on the Wednesday before and the Saturday after, but no fears, my adopted Missouri family has already offered me a place at their table---I wonder if they do it buffet style...if so, no worries Ashton & Seth...I'll go first! :)