A Happy Birthday and Garth Brooks

Happy birthday you hunk of a man! Devin is the kind of guy everyone always wants to have around. If something breaks? He can fix it. Is your car making a weird noise? Call Devin, he'll identify it. Can't take the lid off the pickle jar? Devin can open it. And he's a big tease. My favorite though, is when something really gets him laughing and he just can't contain it.

So... his birthday was going to be awesome! Garth Brooks was coming to town. We were anticipating THE . BEST . SHOW . EVER !  .. and then... he didn't come. Talk about a let down! On his birthday we were supposed be reliving the concert... Basking in the excitement of our memories from the night before. But it had to snow two and a half feet, and Garth Brooks had to post-pone the show! Had he kept it Friday night we would have gone anyway! Despite the snow! Yes, we may have died (it snowed a lot more than we guessed... the weather man's predictions turned out to be right for once), but we would have been happy when we died. Instead we had a mediocre birthday party, thinking of what might have been. Gratefully the Tanner's put their snow boots on and trudged up the snow covered path to join us for cake and make it a bit more of a happy birthday celebration.

Can you see how thrilled he is?

Okay, I didn't even get the cake he wanted. No way was I joining the herds of people ransacking Costco the day before the storm. Sorry Devin.

One week and a couple days later, we did get to live the dream of going to a Garth Brooks concert. It really was awesome. He comes off as a really great guy too. There is no disputing he is one heck of an artist. He sings like no one's business. He's old too, but he's running up and down the stage and dancing, and he only had to stop to catch his breath a couple times. He seemed genuinely grateful to the crowd. Out of all the thousands of people there, only three people asked to be reimbursed for their ticked when he had to reschedule. The stadium itself was markedly inferior to Garth. Mind you, the crowd was huge. The volume was tremendous, the amplifier must have been at the max. The speakers blasted, the crowd roared, and... there was some crackling in the speakers.  Nonetheless, we experienced Garth! We sang along to all his songs, swayed, and toasted imagined drinks (and we don't drink). The crowd called him back twice and he obliged the encore. Since he came out of retirement Devin was tracking him, hoping and praying he would come to Virginia. Now that he did, he did not leave us disappointed. A night to remember. Garth lived up to his greatness.