Spring Training and the ACM's (posted by Rob)

BYU doesn't have a spring break, but by golly we took one anyway. Jacque and I hit the road with the rest of the gang to go see spring training in Tempe/Phoenix Arizona. We all piled up into James' 4Runner (including someone in the very back laying on a homemade bed consisting of luggage, blankets, and pillows) and headed out. We stayed at the very nice Xona Resort and when we weren't out on the town spent a good amount of time just relaxing poolside. Watching the game, exploring the shopping centers there, and going out to eat was a blast but most of all it was nice to just hang out with our friends under the warm Arizona sun.

While we were checking in to our room at the Xona, Jacque got a call from a radio station she'd called into just a few days before. The radio host announced that she'd won two all expense paid tickets to stay at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas to attend the Academy of Country Music Awards. We thought this was amazing because we'd just won tickets to take a vacation while on vacation! The ACM's were a lot of fun and we got to see a lot of Country Stars up close and even took pictures with the Zac Brown Band. The MGM was amazing and our room was very nice. I joked with Jacque that I never win things like this on my own and she said the same so we decided that it's the combination of the two of us that makes us lucky (kinda how two negatives make a postive.) I started to doubt this for awhile but as we were heading to our seats in the nosebleed section of the award show a woman pulled us aside and said "You two look like a fun young couple... would you like to stand near the stage?" Of course, we said yes and we spent the rest of the show standing basically on top of a side stage where many artists performed throughout the night and we were in a great spot to see the main center stage. During the trip we saw Reba McIntyre, Blake Shelton, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Zac Brown, Kelly Pickler, George Strait, Julianne Hough, LeAnne Rimes, and a lot of other country stars. We had a blast!