Denver Country Showdown!

OK so Jim and I won the Colgate Country Showdown in Price city, and the next step was Denver! All week long we were so excited to go to Denver. We did a radio interview with the station that sponsored us from Price city, we counted down the sleeps left and FINALLY Thursday got there and we were so excited to hop in an RV with our parents and Jim's little sister, that we practically ran out of our schools when the bell rang....but that's not very different from every other day. :/
Anyway, so they all got in the RV up in Orem and drove down to Beaver to meet me. I couldn't WAIT to see them...well mostly Jim...but them too. :) We got in the RV and started our drive to Grand Junction for the night. We stopped at a rest stop for preggers (Jim's lil sister) and there were sooo many bats and a bunny! It was rad...totally worth the nasty potty stop. Anyway, we got to Grand Junction and Jim's family and I stayed in the RV for the night, and my parents stayed in a hotel room. We used the facilities in the hotel lobby...it was quite funny. The next morning we got ready to finish our drive to Denver. We went to breakfast at "Starvin' Arvins" and it was delicious...but the server was crazy. Haha. ANYWAY, so when we finally got to Denver we stayed at my Uncle J.R.'s house. We stayed out in the RV but it was fun...Jim's dad actually slept out on the trampoline, but that's another story.
SO Saturday finally got there. Game day. er....somethin.
We went to the venue (at Elitch Gardens Amusement Park) in the morning for a meeting and sound check...but UNFORTUNATELY we were tardy because it was freaking RIDICULOUS to find! SO when we finally got there we were frazzled, OH and don't you fret...mother nature decided to pay me a visit that morning...so THAT was perfect timing. So we were frazzled, frustrated, I was hurting, Jim was sick, it was hot, and then we had to sit and sit and sit for like an hour and a half until it was our turn to sound check. While we were waiting Jim's awesome dad went into the ghettoville to try and find me some midol at the gas station, because we decided to stop at the two gas stations along the way that DIDN'T have midol! LAME! So needless to say, it was stress city trying to get there. After we waited around and listened to some of the other contestants trying to gauge our competition we finally got up to do our sound check. The house band sounded pretty ok with our song, but it definitely wasn't tight enough. But Jim was amazing, his communication and just knowing exactly what he wanted made it an awesome experience. It was just great to watch him work so intensely in such a short time. Anyway...enough about that. So then we finished, went home and got ready, and then headed back. Luckily enough for us, we were able to get TWO carloads of people into the park without them having to pay...RAD! So we got there, got psyched and pumped, and we did our show. We nailed it! We were told that we were easily the best up there. Well it came down to the winner announcements....and the winner is..."The (something) Brunson Band"! WHAT?! LAME! The audience was even shocked...it seemed like we all looked out and it was like, "What? Ok, I guess we'll clap for them then." And when they came by to shake our hands afterwards he said, "I had you two pegged for the winners." Flattering...but didn't make us feel better. SO we weren't going to be the next Colgate Country Showdown Champions, but we had a BLAST trying! We went to Red Lobster afterwards to celebrate our loss (?) ;) and 4 of us got the all you can eat shrimp. Jim ended up eating 70 shrimpy's! Holy CRAP! I loved it!
The rest of our trip was so fun. We ate Mexican food, had an awesome breakfast in Golden, saw some AMAZING art in Denver (Thanks Paul, you're amazing), took a potty break in the beautiful Vail, stayed in Green River, Grand Junction, and Golden, read a million magazines, played the metro game on the RV, snuggled (yes...all of us) :P, ate...LOTS, laughed...LOTS, and cried...a little bit.
It was seriously one of the funnest trips I've ever been on! I was so grateful to have had the opportunity to have the reason to take that trip with all those people I love so much.
We lost, but we had a blast losing! And there's always next year! :)

This is Jim and his dad while we were waiting for our table at the restaurant in Golden.



Everyone at Breakfast in Golden. Ummm...Jim is hot!



Jim and I in some city in Utah...we ate at Denny's and then saw these crazy large sodas and said...this is a photo op. :) So here it is. I like this kid.

Performing Machine!

SO this last weekend I went up to Salt Lake AGAIN because I was performing with the Jim Huish Band. We had three shows and it was SOOO much fun to feel like we were just going from one gig to the next. Friday, after my 4 hour drive, I got to Jim's house to practice with Heidi, Jeff, and Jim for Saturday's show. We practiced for an hour and then we had to pack up the car and head out to our first gig of the weekend at the Talon's Cove Golf Course in Saratoga Springs. It was a beautiful setting and it was so much fun to perform there, there weren't many people watching ....cough....5...cough cough. But it was a great show none the less. Saturday morning Jim and I went to his bro's house for a crepe breakfast...mmmmm.....DELICIOUS! Then we ran a few errands and headed back to get ready for our first show that day at the Pleasant Grove Heritage Festival. We got to do that show with one of my best friends, Heidi Potter. It was pretty lame because we weren't able to start on time because of some announcements the people had to make and consequently we had a 2 minute sound check (no bueno) and we had to cut some pretty good songs out of the show, which was a bummer, but what do ya do? Then after the show we said hi to all of our family and friends that came out to support us (Thanks lovey's) and then we packed up all the gear in Rich's van and drove out to the Utah State Fair Park and did our final show of the weekend at the State Fair. It was a BLAST! Wasn't my best show, vocally, but it was so much fun because the crowd was way into us, the sound was great, and we had cool lighting so it was just a fun fun show. It was so fun feeling like a little bit of a rock star for the weekend. But all of the performances were so much fun in their own ways. And I feel like I'm growing and learning from each performance, and hopefully I'm improving...if not, that sux. :P

Anyway, it was good times. Mosquito's at the golf course by the lake Friday night, Crepe's in the morning on Saturday, BBQ competition whilst we entertained those consuming the pork Saturday afternoon, and Fried PB&J sandwiches and adoring fans on Saturday night...well...maybe not ADORING, but they seemed to dig us. :) All in all it was a blast of a weekend, not much of a relaxing weekend, but that's what Monday night is for, relaxation.

Here's a video of the Golf Course the first time we played there. I don't have any vid's of this last weekend yet. Soooo enjoy. It's a few songs, Jim wrote both of them, I helped write the bridge of the second song. Enjoy it...or not. ;)

Two Posts in ONE!! LUCKY YOU!!!

UPDATE! UPDATE! GET YOUR UPDATE!!!

OK, So I'm the BIGGEST slacker in the WORLD! These past few months have been insane!

I've learned that Eureka is an awesome lil land, how to shoot guns, that being single is quite fun, and I've cut all of my hair off! ...well...not ALL of my hair. ;) But most importantly, I got my very first teaching job at a brand new Performing Arts Charter School in St. George called "Vista". I will be teaching Musical Theater! I'm SOOO excited!

Tonight we had an open house for the students and their parents to come and meet the teachers and find out about the school. It was really fun meeting my students and telling students "You're going to be in MY class." There was a sense of pride and accomplishment when I would talk to them. So that's pretty rad! I'm pretty stoked about meeting new people down here. The past few days I've been pretty bummed about leaving, but as my scooter ride home from the Dixie Center proved to be not-so-awesome (my scooter broke down like 4 times on the way home) and 3 guys at the Texaco I pulled into helped me out and fixed it, I realized then that I might enjoy it here. :) (And no, it wasn't because they were cute guys, because they were soooooo not, but they were really nice, and it was nice to feel welcome and at home so quickly).

ANYWAY, So I'm now excited, but I still miss everyone!

School starts in 2 weeks and training for the teachers starts on Monday. AHH!!! Crazy! I'm a teacher! I'm still getting used to that. Now to decide if I have the kids call me "Miss Brittany", "Miss Andersen", or just "Brittany"....? Hmmmmmm....suggestions?

COLGATE COUNTRY SHOWDOWN 2009

OK. So here's the scoop. My boyfriend, Jim, told me about this competition that he had done once but had to drop out of because he wanted to go back to school, and while he was telling me this, I was like, "Why don't WE do it?" ....So we signed up for the next possible location we could compete at. Price city here we...came? Whatever...anyway, SO we went to Price City to compete in the preliminaries. We had to make the top 6 at that competition in order to go on to the final for the local competition. We sang "Where Your Road Leads", a Trisha Yearwood/Garth Brooks duet that is lesser known, and we made it to the final...YAY! We then had about 3 weeks to prepare for the final competition. We had to do 2 songs at the final competition so we decided to do that same duet, and add one of Jim's original songs so that we could get the extra points for doing an original. We decided to do his song called "Look Who's Hangin' Up", because it's a fun song with some fun lyrics. So, we had to get the original music to the house band, pay them $100 to learn the song, and then just trust that they would play it well for us. :/ SOOO anyway, day of the competition I'm freaking out, but we just kept our cool and did the performance and apparently it was good enough because we WON!!! WOO HOO!!! SO now we're off to Denver for the State final on September 19th. Please bless we win that, because we'll win $1000 and then it's onto regionals, and if we win that we get to go to Nashville and compete on TV for $100,000. So YAY for THAT!

Listen to our performance in Price City:

Look Who's Hangin' Up

Where Your Road Leads

Announcing the Winner/Encore Performance

10 year reunion, St. George, and Califorrrrnniaaaaa!!!!

I'm old! Officially! I had my 10 year High School reunion last Friday night. It was really funny to see how nobody has changed. I ended up hanging out with the friends that I have stayed in contact more so than anyone else, so that was fun. You see, I'm not my sister, I find it really difficult to strike up a conversation with someone I haven't seen for 10 years who maybe had a few classes with. Frankly, I couldn't really remember their names. But I still love em!

Anyway, my friend Jonny Fleetwood (Mike Fleetwood's son, for those that know my dad's band mates), invited me to attend his wedding that was on Sunday. SO my.......er........"FRIEND," Jim, and I made a road trip out of it. We finished up at the reunion and drove straight to St. George...yeah....at 11 PM! We wanted to get to St. George in order to break the trip to California up a bit. It was a fun drive because Jim was asleep the whole time and I got to sing my little lungs out. It was a much needed, nearly theraputic activity. :)

Saturday we took our time getting out of the condo, then we drove to Cali stopping and shopping a bit at the Primm Outlet Malls...fun fun. Saturday night was drama drama drama.

We ended up getting to our hotel in Irvine at about 10:30 PM. I went in to get our rooms, and turns out the travel agent booked them for the NEXT weekend!!! I guess that's what happens when you use trade to get some rooms. And Brittany plus tired, plus driving through California when I don't know where I'm going, PLUS hungry = NO BUENO!!! SOO anyway, we ended up having to drive from Irvine to Anaheim and stay in a Super 8 (right by Disneyland, and it was nice enough AND cheap enough that I highly recommend it) ANYWAY, when we FINALLY got in our room at about 12:30, we totally crashed! The next morning we woke up to go check in to our OTHER hotel that the agent got for us to make up for his mistake. (nice) We stayed in rooms at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Irvine. It was beautiful, so that was fun. Sunday we went to Newport Beach and ate at my favorite beach restaurant, Charlie's Chili (another britt recommendation)...I got the french toast and my oh my...it was so good that Jim and I tried to recreate it for his brother and sister-in-law when we got back to St. George. ANYWAY, so we walked up the beach for a while, people-watched a bit, then went back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding.

THE WEDDING.....

OH. MY. GOLLY. It was beautiful! It was at the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, and it was a beautiful setting. It had been cloudy and kindof cold all day so I was sad for Jonny's bride for it to be so ugly for their outdoor wedding, but it completely cleared up and was beautiful during the wedding. It wasn't so much the aesthetics of the wedding that blew me away, it was the couple (both gorgeous people) and their vows. The two of them read their vows to each other and it was the most beautifully romantic thing I had ever seen and heard. Jonny talked about how she was his North Star (because he's really into astronomy) and that she was what would guide him through this life, and she talked about how he was the most amazing man she had ever met and never imagined that she would have him in her life. (clearly they said them more eloquently than I did...but you get the gist.) It was beautiful. Then they did the dinner and reception after they took pictures, but the DJ was WAYYYY too loud and it was mostly annoying. But the food was excellent, and the DJ was able to get EVERYONE up and dancing when the time came, so that was pretty impressive...yep...even my dad!

Some pics we took in their "photo booth" at the wedding: (they didn't scan well but you get the idea)

So anyway, Monday we drove back to St. George and caught up with Jim's parents before they headed back home. Tuesday we hung out with his brother and sister in law all day (this is the day we tried to re-create the french toast...it was good, but not Charlie's Chili good). We ended up going to dinner at Pirate Island, this awesome pirate-themed pizza place, then we went swimming...well hot tubbing with his bro and neice. It was so fun. Seriously could not have asked for a more relaxing way and fun day.

We came home Tuesday...I wish I had taken more pictures, but alas, I was not so camera happy this trip. But it was so fun to hang out with Jim and just do nothing and not really have an agenda for the vacation, except the wedding of course. It was great!

Here are the few pics I DID take. Mostly of Jim being his rad self...so enjoy. It's kindof like a getting to know Jim thing for you all. ;)

This one's my favorite...cuz he's rad.

This one's my favorite...cuz yeah, umm...pretty hot lips if I must say so! And I just did...so there's that.

This one's my favorite...cuz he's funny even when he's flossing his teeth after eating Panda Express!

This one's my favorite...cuz he's hot even when he's trying to be silly and make fun of hats in the Wally World!

Sorry this is the most boring post I've ever written about a trip. I'm lame. Peace!

booo.....

Sooo. I didn't get the job in Cedar City, but I'm hopeful that I'll find SOMETHING! ...please bless.

Anyway, life is pretty good right now, just hanging out, finishing up my last 4 weeks of classes. Then I'll be finally OFFICIALLY graduated with my Masters of Arts Education! HOORAY!
Life is good. It's hard some days, but it's good. I love my friends and family and am grateful for you all. Anyway, so one door closes and another one opens...I hope. ;)

That's all folks!

Interview....

So, I have an interview for a Drama Teaching position at Canyon View High School down in Cedar City. I am soooo nervous! I had a "screening" interview for the new Canyon's School District up here in Sandy, but that was NOTHING like this is going to be. I will be interviewed by the principals, the teacher who's leaving, and some other people. I have no idea what to expect at this interview, which is scary but what do ya do?

I am trying not to put all of my eggs in one basket, but this position would be such a blessing. I would be able to move away from a lot of garbage and struggle through my first year of teaching on my own.

The position is split part time between the high school and the middle school (which are right next to each other, so that's good). It would be a great position for me because I would enjoy the constant change, and all of the hard work that it would take to make 2 programs run smoothly. I know that I am capable of the job, but now I just have to figure out how to convince a room full of strangers that I am. sheesh! interviewing is lame sauce!

new blog

Hey folksies.
So i had to create a new blog, and I'm pretty sure I will go private with this one, (due to ex-in laws that feel they need to give an approval or disapproval of what I write about) but I'll keep ya posted on that.
Well folks,
This blog is for me. About me. and it may get quite annoying reading about me. I'm not that exciting. Though...I may say, I AM a pretty good story teller. ;)
Anyway, so I promise to not get bored with writing about myself, if you promise to not get bored reading about myself.
wait..I'm already bored. so maybe not EVERY post will be about me. 'Cause I'm surrounded with some pretty rad people. so it may be about them. ;)
love love.