dancing under the stars

i think there should be a rule that when you're buying tickets, for an event that is supposed to star louis van amstel, the ticket seller should have to inform you, pre-paying for your tickets, that louis is not going to be there that night because he's off meeting his dancing with the stars partner.

not that i think louis van amstel is all that and a bag of cheddar-flavored sunchips, but it would have been cool to be able to tell my mom that i saw one of her "stars" in person. instead, matt, todd, and i got to see a lot of other lesser-known-to-me dancers and singers perform at the scera shell in orem...or provo...or wherever.



we got a picnic from jason's deli and joined the crowd to see the show. for the first couple of hours the sun was beating down on us and there wasn't much of a crowd, but once the sun descended beyond the hilltop, more people showed up.



brandon, from so you think you can dance, was really the only dancer i recognized. but at one point 2 little boys did a dance that was pretty cool and afterward they announced that they were the 2 kids that played the younger versions of troy and chad in high school musical 3. i liked the junk yard scene from that movie, so that was cool.

many of you may already know that i not-so-secretly wish that i could sing and dance well as a god-given talent, but neither of those gifts happened to be bestowed upon me. still, i get a little teary-eyed when i get to see others excel in those areas, so i had a fun time. even though we were sitting on a slippery blanket on a very slanted grassy hill for 5 hours...that was painful.

at one point, in this crowd of thousands, matt looked backward and said, "is that clint eastwood?" when i turned to see if i was really in the vicinity of dirty harry, i realized matt was referring to a handsome older, gentleman in the crowd...who happened to be my prom date's dad. imagine, hours away from home in a giant crowd and someone from my past is randomly pointed out to me. stuff like that actually happens to me all the time. i went to talk to this man and his family. his daughter is still really good friends with my oldest sister, so it was exciting to see them all.

anyway, here are some admittedly not-so-good photos of the event. i didn't want to get up to move closer and my flash wouldn't carry far enough, so this is all i got:

the first singer...singing to a practically empty amphitheater (oh, the top 6 singers were chosen to open for the lone star concert):



some of the dancers:



some of the dancers...on fire (this is what happened when i tried to get a shot with my camera on the "fireworks" mode...kind of cool?):



some of the crowd:



anyway, i'm glad to be able to be experiencing some of this fun stuff while i'm up here. the world has so much to offer...and i'm ready to take it all in.