Wedding and a Concert

It had been three months since I got to go to Idaho to visit the wonderful family whom I grew up with. I was fortunate to have all of these events happen on the same weekend.

I didn't arrive in Idaho until 11:30 on Friday night. Friday was a very long day. Waking up for my second day at school at 7:00 and then going to work from 12:00 - 8:30 made a very long day. Fortunately my work day went by pretty fast. I was going to be able to leave early because I had accrued about 45 minutes of overtime over the week. When my shift was scheduled to end at 7:45 one of the supervisors asked if I would like to take some of the agents off the phone and play volleyball with them. Thinking this as an opportunity to meet some people, especially of the female gender, I accepted. I grabbed four females and three males to at least make the competition fair. After volleyball it was off to Idaho in Lester's natural gas truck, because I was picking up a chair from my dad at the end of the weekend. Although it was cheaper it was a hassle, because I had no cruise control, and in order for me to listen to my music I had to use my laptop.
Saturday was my cousin, Caitlyn's, wedding day. It's ironic, because Caitlyn and I had taken a trip to Utah only six months ago, and on the way to Utah all she would tell me is how she doesn't know if she'll ever get married. She told me she will never find a guy that she feels she will be able to put up with for eternity, and vice versa. Well evidently she was able to find one. The wedding was great, and as I was sitting there inside the temple I just had a strong witness bear testimony to me that this is the place to get married. This should be our ultimate goal for our future family. I don't know about you, but to me this life is way too short, and I can't stand the thought of me being without my future wife after death. I also decided that on my wedding date I'm going to wear a white suit jacket. Both Caitlyn's and Britanni's husbands wore a white suit jacket and it looks very sharp :)

As all of you know Sunday was Mother's Day. My mother and step-father had the opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting. Well my mom did. They only gave them enough time for my mom to give her talk and Bryan to share his testimony. Lucky for Bryan, he gets to give his talk next week. I just want to share with you how much I love my mom. It was exactly a year ago when i was up there giving my missionary farewell. No one expected me to be in this position a year from now, but my mom has always been supportive of me, and has just thought of me and what makes me happy. She has helped me so much this year and I greatly appreciate it. She's the most strong-willed and strong in the testimony person I know. Her talk was on charity, and to me she is a great example of charity.

Now that I got you all teary-eyed it is time to let you know how I got my soul rocked last night. I had never been to a concert before, and after going to this one, I can't wait to go to the next one. Zach and I had been planning this concert for almost two and a half months and we were finally able to go. When we got there we bought the official Breaking Benjamin tour shirts for $35. Pretty spendy but well worth it. As members of the church Zach and I were exposed to lots of things of this world that you wouldn't find anywhere else. The biggest example was all the beer. Everybody around us was drinking beer. It smelled nasty and people were doing some weird stuff. That was about the only negative of the show.

The first group up was a band called Sick Puppies. Sick Puppies is a three member band from Sydney Australia who is an "in your face" screamy band. I liked it. They sang some awesome songs and it was cool to see a female bassist. She was getting into it and she was pretty good. Many of you haven't heard any of their songs. They sang these songs, "You're Going Down", All the Same", "Odd One", and "Street Fighter" WARNING: These songs have explicit lyrics. Beware
Second was Shinedown. Shinedown is a rock band that sings some good hardcore songs as well as some great ballads that many girls would like. I would recommend listening to some of their songs. They opened up with "The Sound of Madness" and sang many other popular songs like "If you only knew" "Second Chance" "Devour" "I Dare You" and "The Crow & The Butterfly" The lead singer was the perfect impression of Jack Black in School of Rock if any of you have seen it. He had the best rocker voice of them all in my opinion.

The next group was Breaking Benjamin; Zach and mine's favorite of the four. Breaking Benjamin is a rock group that has a unique style. Besides the main group, they are probably the most known. They opened with "I will not Bow" off their new album. They also sang songs widely known like "The Diary of Jane", "Breath", "Until the End." They sang their new hit single which is one of my favorites, "Give me a Sign" and also their hit song off the Halo 2 video game, "Blow me Away"

Then it was time for the grand finale! NICKELBACK! They opened with a bang, and never quit. There was flames and a lot of stuff that you would see at a rock concert. It was amazing. Of course they played their songs and did very well at them, but they also took the time to mess around and do some other stuff to. One of my favorite memories was when they were sitting on stools. They had just got done playing Far Away and convinced the audience that girls think its great to make-out in the middle of a rock ballad. They started doing random things and then they said. We're going to sing a song of you. Chad Kroeger said, "I guarantee 100% of the women here no every word to this song, and about 3/4 of the dudes do," and then he started to sing "Don't stop Believing," by Journey. He would stop periodically to let the crowd sing along. He only sang one verse and stopped. Afterward he said, "You guys sing louder to freaking Journey than you do to our crap. That's messed up!" They were really funny.

I came to love each band a little more that night. Concerts are just amazing. If you haven't been to one I would definitely recommend it, but I must warn you. They are musicians and they get to say or sing whatever they want. All of them were crude at some points during their shows, except for Shinedown, but it was still an amazing experience, and can't wait to go to another one.