Monday, June 22, 2009

CMT Music Awards Trip!!! (lots & lots of pics)

I got to go to the CMT Music Awards in Nashville, TN!!! My aunts, cousins, and their girls were going for the second year in a row and they invited me and Hannah. There were 9 of us, girls, in Amy's Suburban! Our first stop was in Tunica, MS. We went to Paula Deen's Buffet! Wow was it good! I ate way too much and couldn't even stomach much of all of her many variety of delicious desserts. I was kind of bummed about that, but I was so full!!! Her hoecakes and her fried chicken were awesome!!!




This is a picture of the whole gang. Starting in the back is my cousin, Jolie, my Aunt Rosie, my Aunt Bet, Paula Deen, Aunt Suz, and me. Front row is my cousin Amy, Addison (Jolie's daughter), Anna-Blair (Amy's daughter), and Hannah.


The car ride to Nashville was really long! It seemed like every 30 minutes we had to stop for someone to go to the bathroom--especially after we all drank some of Paula Deen's sweet tea!! Hannah really seemed to enjoy the car ride though. She kept busy with the other two girls the entire time!



Once it started getting dark, we got a little delirious I think. Aunt Suz and I let Anna-Blair fix our hair. We actually walked into our hotel, the Downtown Marriot, looking like this.


At this point, everyone had the sillys!!


Tuesday morning we got up and got ready to head down to see if we could see any of the stars. Here are the girls getting ready.


Amy is a hair stylist, so she was in charge of fixing everyone's hair--especially for the actual Awards show later that night. Here she is fixing her mom's hair.



I had to put this picture in because I thought Hannah just looked soooo sweet!


Here we all are in front of the hotel about to go scope out some stars!!!


We watched them put together the Red Carpet area for later that night.


Amy and Anna-Blair with CMT's Katie Cook.


This is Amy, also known to me as, "No Shame Ame", talking to one of the many security guards that they had posted around all of the Stars' big buses. She was trying to sweet talk this guy into letting us get up close to them. He wouldn't budge of course.


Another really sweet picture of Hannah, just waiting.


We were so excited to get down to the Red Carpet! The Stars began arriving around 4:30. We got down there just in time to get some space up next to the barricades they had set up where the limos would be pulling up to drop them off at the Red Carpet.


Aunt Bet, Anna-Blair, and Amy


Anna-Blair, Hannah, and Addison



Jolie, Me, and Amy


Me and Hannah


My aunts (my mom's sisters)--Aunt Bet, Aunt Suz, and Aunt Rosie



Jolie, Addison, and Aunt Rosie



Us with Darryl Worley--known for his song after 911 called "Have You Forgotten". Love that song!

Just one of the many limos they all arrived in. They'd get out on the other side and some would come over to us and take pictures and sign autographs. Some just went on down the Red Carpet.


Ventriloquist Terry Fator


Probably my favorite pictures of all--Chuck Wicks. Right now he may be better known as a contestant on this last season of "Dancing with the Stars" as well as Julianne Hough's boyfriend. However, he is a country music singer.



He was kind of silly. I was trying really hard to get in this picture. Ha!




I'll take this one though--even though it looked like I had a double chin! Ha!!





Bucky Covington from American Idol.


This camera man came over to us and interviewed several of us. We never did find out who he was with!



Mark Ballas from "Dancing with the Stars" with Amy!!!



Aunt Suz & Jolie with Mark.



Everybody with Olympic Gold Medal Gymnast, Shawn Johnson, also this year's winner of "Dancing with the Stars."



American Idol contestant, Josh Gracen.



Dierks Bentley with his dog, Jake



Def Leppard. They performed "Pour Some Sugar On Me" with Taylor Swift! It was cool!!!



Amy and I with Kellie Pickler!!! She was really sweet. She actually had Addison and Anna-Blair give her kisses on the cheek at the same time. Some photographers got pictures but we all didn't!

This whole thing was a little overwhelming for Hannah. We had crowds of people pushing behind us and she was stuck in between me and the barricade so I could keep up with her. I held her some but it was too hard to do it for long and try to take pictures at the same time. So, she wasn't in many of the pictures.





Trace Adkins. He sang "You're Gonna Miss This" at the Awards. Really good!



Martina McBride. I've always liked her singing. She's probably one of my favorites. She wasn't extremely friendly when she came over to us though.



Naomi Judd. She came over to Amy and said that she had a green shirt just like the one Amy had on. Amy's a red head like Naomi, so she said, "It looks good on us red heads too doesn't it." Naomi laughed. Amy is crazy!



Alan Jackson with his family.


Kid Rock. I'm am by no means a fan of his. He came with Sheryl Crow.



Rascal Flats! They didn't come over to the fans so I didn't get great pictures of them.



The girl from Sugarland. They sang the song "Love Shack" with the B-52's on the show. It was fun.


Since Hannah and I are such huge American Idol fans, it was cool to see Randy Jackson!



I love this picture! This was Anna-Blair's face when she saw Taylor Swift start coming over to us.



She was SO excited to get her picture made with Taylor!!!



I would have LOVED to have been in this next picture, but as you might expect it was quite chaotic when Mr. Keith Urban came over.



Amy told him that "His voice was so sweet." He looked up at her and said, "No, yours is."


Actor Luke Wilson.



When it was finally time for the Awards, we all had seats in different places. We were not able to get them together. I was sooooo lucky with my seat! It was probably the best one and actually bought last! I was on the left hand side about 20 rows back from where most of the stars were sitting. I had a really good view. This picture was taken by Amy before she and all the rest of them came over and sat by me. For some reason almost my entire row was empty. So, we all ended up getting to be together.


By far the COOLEST thing that happened was when Keith Urban, while he was singing "Sweet Thing" ran all the way out in the audience and stood and played and sang one row down and about 5 seats over from my aunt. That was AWESOME! We went kind of crazy!


Hannah and I at the Awards.


Anna-Blair and Amy


I think this is Jason Aldean and Keith Urban singing "She's Country."


The final performance was Taylor Swift and Def Leppard.


The girls with Kellie Pickler after the show.


We took a bus tour before we left on Wednesday. We got to see some of the stars' homes. This is Alan Jackson's monsterosity! I think the tour guide said that his daughters had bedrooms that were like 3,000 sq ft. Amazing.


Whew! This was a long post. We had so much fun! I didn't want to leave anything out!