My Name is Kris and I Blah-g

Have I bitten off more than I can chew? I haven’t endured this much pandemonium since the 23 hour Garth Brooks autographing exgtravaganza at Fan Fair 1996. Now THAT was nuts!! This time around, I have camped out with my 5 year old daughter. I am sure it will be the first of many crazy things she and I will do together… that is if she is turns out to be half the teeny bopper I used to be.The day started at 5am. I had to get Michaela up and dressed and we had to be at our house in West Jordan by 7 to meet with ChemDry and the sprinkler repair person. ChemDry showed up right on time. I had gotten the 6 rooms and a stairway deal and good ol’ ChemDry included the hallways as part of the rooms so I got the upstairs AND downstairs all done. SCORE! The sprinkler person was an hour late. I was none too pleased because I had a lot on my plate. While I was waiting for her, I called up Rickey from Rickey.org. What a nice guy! He is so excited for this tour!! I think he told me at least half a dozen times how excited he was. I just hope that I am able to help him out some. It was kind neat talking to a cyber-celebrity (yes, YOU, Rickey). Gosh, I can only dream so big. You’ve arrived in the blogosphere, my friend. Rickey told me to try to get close to Jeff Archuleta. Um.. well, easier said than done. He is a mini-celebrity in his own right. More on that later. Rickey said he’ll touch base with me an hour or two before showtime so we can do a sound check. Woo! I feel so official!The sprinkler lady hasn’t shown up yet and I am getting a little perterbed. Thanks to my trusy new Samsung Instinct, I tracked her down with my mobile web browser. I called her up and asked her what was the big deal keeping me waiting. I am on a schedule! She finally showed up at around 9am and then finally, I was able to head off to Wal*Mart to get flowers for my dead yard and supplies for our Idol encounter.  Thankfully, after that, the sprinkler repair and carpet cleaning were able to get done with out a hitch. The flower planting is another story. My yard has gone so long without water, the dirt was like cement. I couldn’t plant a thing. Bummer. It was getting hot and my patience thin. I planted the flowers in pots and then it was off to make our Idols sign. Michaela chose to put I “heart” David on one side of the poster and on the other I “heart” you Idols on the other. When we arrived at the E-Center the crowd was a lot smaller than I anticipated. In some ways I was sad because today is supposed to be David’s big homecoming concert. There should have been thousands there. But on the other hand, I was kinda glad because this would mean more quality time with the idols. I underestimated people. First, as the time drew closer to 12:30, the crowd got larger. Once Fan Blast showed up, they got nearly out of control. Signs popped up out of nowhere. Parents showed up with their little children dressed up like angels and a few were screaming and crying so much they’d give that crying chick from last year a run for her money. Fan Blast had us do about 4 takes for the shout out to David. I managed to get Michaela in the front row and by the 2nd take she was hopping up and down screaming her head off. I had more fun watching her go nuts than participating in the shout out myself. I had to wonder though, did she know what she was screaming about? I’m not sure. Tell a 5 year old to scream and jump up and down and they’ll do it regardless the reason. Still, she was super cute.A bus pulled up shortly afterward and the crowd went from a low hum to ear piercing shrieks in a nano-second. The bus ended up being nothing – as was the Pepsi guy and UPS who each got their own set of screams. The temperature was definitely rising. There wasn’t much shade to be found but we managed to camp it out for a while in the shade of a pine tree across the way from the crowd. It meant losing our place of prominence in the crowd but I had a kid to protect. As I sat there I noticed a bus driving through the parking lot and it was a regular bus – not a pimped out tour bus, certainly not the fancy white ones that were in some of the pictures I had seen from the other tour stops. It couldn’t be them, I thought as I took Michaela for a walk to just give us something to do. As we ventured away, a roar came from the crowd as this bus turned the corner. There is no way this is them, I said. But then from behind the window I saw Brooke White waving in our direction. Whoa! That IS them. I could see David A.’s silouhuette rise from his seat as he jumped from one side of the bus to the other to wave to this sea of people who were screaming his name. How exciting! It was them and they were soon jumping off the bus and waving in our direction. The screams were deafening.  The idols disappeared into the bowels of the E-Center and soon the screams were silenced as we began a new set of waiting.First out were Brooke and Kristy Lee Cook, followed shortly there after by Ramiele and Syesha. Carly, David Cook and David Archuleta emerged a bit later. Michaela was a trooper. I thought for sure we’d have a bathroom emergency. Shortly before the bus arrived she declared that she had to go pretty bad and I knew if we left, our chances of seeing folks would be gone. I told her we could go but we couldn’t come back. I’ll hold it, she told me. Once she saw the idols were coming closer she forgot about the bathroom.I think Michaela’s favorite part was meeting the girls. Each one is so beautiful and petite. To a 5 year old these were living princesses. They were someone who she had only seen on TV but now here they were standing before her giving her their undivided attention – something that was very difficult to do in this surging crowd. We told Ramiele that she was one of Michaela’s favorites and she nearly cried when she left the show. Ramiele said she cried too. I told her that Michalea loved her and Ramiele looked at her and said “I love you, too.” Too cute. Michaela keeps talking about it.Once the Davids emerged the crowd got a little pushy. I wasn’t very pleased with the behavior of several of the people in attendance. The idols were doing their very best to provide everyone with an autograph. But still, there were people running to and fro and pushing their way past little children in order to get close to the idols. As a parent, I didn’t appreciate my daughter being pushed around like that. So we ended up around a corner and behind a new barricade that security had brought out. I thanked security for doing that and I think they must have thought I was being sarcastic but really, I was grateful for the protection. Those people were crazy and they didn’t think twice about pushing a little girl out of the way.Props to the idols though…they made their way around the far corners were the patient of us stood. David Cook was exceptionally nice and took the time to ask Michaela what her name was and made sure that he personalize her sign. I appreciated that very much. Michaela did too. She said later, “David Cook asked me how I spelled my name!” Jason Castro…aw..if only the world can be as easy going as Jason Castro. He just sauntered along and signed autographs and took pictures. He visited briefly with Michaela and told her that he needed to get a hat like hers. I asked, “You want a hat that says 100% princess on it?” Jason did a double take and stared at her hat again and with embarrassment said, “Um, no! Maybe not!” Ha ha.Finally, David Archuleta…I think he must have had a lot of friends on the other side of the crowd. He spent so much time with them. By the time he ran over to our side, all the other idols had come and gone. All that remained was him and his Dad who was also working the autograph line! David apologized for rushing. He signed like crazy but took no more pictures. He explained that they had to go do some press inside the arena. I know…I’m the press. I am writing about the show, too. But I guess I have the wrong credentials! So, no personal pix of David but I got quite a few of him close up and I managed to talk with him a bit. In particular, I asked him how the crowd in Salt Lake compared to the other cities. He said that it was about the same. Hmmm… Gee, SLC..I thought we could do better. But at any rate, I think he was genuinely glad to see everyone here. It probably means just a teeny bit more coming from his “neighbors.”Michael Johns and Chikeze never made it out of the arena. I’m not sure why but I would have loved to meet them. All in all, the Idols did well making sure to accomodate everyone there. By the time we saw Archey the heat had become unbearable. Not to mention, we hadn’t had lunch or anything to drink. Michaela needed to be hydrated and if she didn’t get a nap, I’d be really sorry come concert time. So, now we’re home, recouperating from our encounter and counting the minutes until showtime. It’s about time to wake Michaela from her nap. I’ll have more later after the show. In the meantime… Check out the photos here!