Bucket list kind of weekend

This past weekend was a flurry of fun and excitement. Nick and our friend Andy and I participated in the Spudman Triathlon -- team ProcrastiTators. We usually wait to register for the race until the very last minute (included in this mentality is also our training routine) so the name is apropos. We managed to take first in our division and fourth in the teams overall. Not too shabby for a bunch of slackers! I should disclose that Andy is far from a slacker; he ran the 10K in 44 minutes and still managed to stop and take a potty break in the middle. As for Nick and I, we have some room for improvement for next year.

We appropriately carbo-loaded at my folks' house the night before:

This is my mom's homemade spaghetti sauce. We'll be canning later this summer, and I'll share this recipe with you all. Spanks any store-bought brand.

Team ProcrastiTator mentally prepared to put the hurt on in the morning.

Heather, our friend Ellie (who also did the WHOLE race!), Andy and Nick participating in a favorite family pastime: camera jumping. Endless hours of entertainment.

Berkley was upset she couldn't race.

The runner, the biker and the swimmer.

Heather and I were posed with an opportunity on Sunday that we debated. We were unsure it was worth the drive to Sun Valley, the late night and the early morning. Then we realized that opportunities such that was in our lap don't come around very often. In fact, this opportunity has been retired for some time and who knows if/when it will resurface.

The opportunity was seeing this man:

It really didn't take a great deal of deliberating to make us realize that a Garth Brooks concert is on both Heather and my bucket lists (Michael Jackson was on the top of each of ours and then, well, you all know how that ended. Sniffle). So we knew we couldn't miss this.

He played in Sun Valley proper with the Sun Valley Symphony. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Sun Valley, to say it is a stuffy place is like saying I like to eat cheese. This community oozes wealth and unfortunately often arrogance. It was my home for a number of years and it got a bit tiresome. However, what was so amazing about this show was the crowd: highbrow meets redneck honky-tonk. The symphony seats sold for $500 while the grass seats sold for $25! The mingling of the cultures was beautiful and made for some of the best people watching I've enjoyed in years.

Case in point:

This is the man to my left. Cowboy hat, undershirt, pizza.

This is the man to my right. His wife actually scolded a cute mom bouncing a baby to please sit down.

Garth, I say that like I know him now, really is the greatest entertainer on the planet. Down to Earth, told stories and in fact, talked the entire show! He walked us through his musical influences through his lifetime and played Simon and Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, Elton John, and many more. He gushed over his love for James Taylor and how he even named his oldest daughter Taylor after his hero. I am not going to lie, I choked up a few times.

Then, he invited his wife on stage who also happens to be amazing, Trisha Yearwood. They sang a few songs together as if they were just taking out the garbage. No big deal. It was so cool.

One of the high points of the evening was when he sang "Friends in Low Places." Imagine this for a moment, the symphony, the dichotomy of the crowd and then he busts out with that song! People went nuts.

I finally decided I had had enough of taking photos of the screen so I snuck up to the front and snapped a few shots. I managed to sneak out a few before a gruff security guard without a funny bone tapped me on the shoulder and instructed me to move back to the grass. Bummer.

Garth Brooks, check.