Heading to Las Vegas

By Fawn Weaver on Friday, January 6, 2012

In November, when I went to Las Vegas, it was under very different circumstances.  This time, it’s not because my husband’s flight was rerouted there at the last minute (thank goodness!).  It’s because I’m going to see my favorite entertainer of all time: Garth Brooks!

Keith always jokes about our first conversations over the telephone almost 9 years ago when we were getting to know each other.  He wanted to know about my favorite music.  As an African-American woman, born and raised in Los Angeles, he had an idea of what my favorite music might be.  And he was dead wrong.  I’m a die-hard country music fan (yes, the kind who watches the ACM Awards and dreams of sitting in the front row of the CMA Awards at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, TN).

And if you followed my American Idol voting frenzy last season, you know I watched the show live every week for the first time since it debuted 10 years ago and voted for country crooner Scotty McCreery as many times as my hone would allow.  I actually sat through commercials for that kid!

As much as I love country music, that’s how much Keith hated it.  When we first met, he loved every kind of music, and I mean every single kind…except country.  I was determined to make him a fan.  

One-by-one I began playing him my favorite songs: I Hope You Dance by Lee Ann Womack, I Could Not Ask for More by Sarah Evans, The Dance and Unanswered Prayers by Garth Brooks, It’s Your Love by Faith Hill and Tim McGraw and the list goes on and on.  None were a hit.

Finally, in a last ditch effort to make the hubby a country fan, I played Real Good Man by Tim McGraw.  And it was a hit!  After that song, he began falling in love with the entire Best of Tim McGraw compilation and country music finally had a new fan.  When he proposed to me, overlooking the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, he did so while playing a CD of my favorite country songs :) .

So this weekend, in his never-ending expressions of love, he’s taking me to see Garth Brooks.  I’ve been trying to get tickets for at least a year but each time I tried, within a few minutes of them going on presale, the good seats would always be taken.  But four months ago, it finally happened.  I was able to get great seats for this weekend!

We’re going with another couple, good friends of ours, and Keith will be taking me to my third country music concert.  He took me to see Shania Twain at Staples Center almost 8 years ago and then to see  Faith Hill and Tim McGraw at the same venue 3 years later.  Now, he’s going with me to see Garth Brooks in a small theatre singing acappella with nothing but his voice and a guitar.  

Now, that’s love what I call love…

Question: What do you have going on this weekend?  What are you looking forward to doing with the family?  Share it with us here in the comment section below.

Until Monday…make it a great weekend!

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Fawn Weaver

Founder at Happy Wives Club
Fawn Weaver is the USA Today® and New York Times® bestselling author of Happy Wives Club: One Woman's Worldwide Search for the Secrets of a Great Marriage, adopting the same name as the Club she founded in 2010. The Happy Wives Club community has grown to include more than 900,000 women in over 110 countries around the world. When she’s not blogging or working on her next project, she's happily doting over her husband of nearly eleven years, Keith.

 

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  • http://christintheclouds.blogspot.com/ Ann

    You know he really loves you when he's willing to travel and plan a fun outing! My hubby is the same way. He just wasn't that into going to contemporary Christian concerts before I changed his attitude about them….He's taken me to see Sandy Patty, Michael W. Smith, Chris Tomlin, Casting Crowns, and David Crowder. (I love attending concerts!) Have fun!!!

    In His L♥ve, Ann

  • http://www.toodarnhappy.com Kim

    Garth Brooks: {Swoon}. I can remember years ago we wanted to go to a concert, but knew getting tickets would be an issue. Four of us set up shop in our family business main office, all on separate lines (pre-internet…), and started to dial as soon as the clock hit 9am. One of us got through and got great tickets for all of us. The concert was a blast and I hope you enjoy yours as much-a small setting-that is so awesome!

    You hit a lot of my favorite songs in your list, especially Unanswered prayers. I can remember wondering for years when I would ever meet my hubbie, but now I realize that I was on the sidelines waiting for Keith to be the man for me.

    What a great way for your hubbie to show you how he loves you! Does he like Brad Paisley? That is one of my Keith's favorites.

    On to your question re this weekend: Our lives are in limbo at the moment, waiting for the details of a promotion for Keith that would require us to move if it came to pass. We probably will go scouting the new town this weekend, if I don't miss my guess.

  • Fawn Weaver

    Thanks, Ann! I agree with you 100%. I love the artists you mentioned. I can only imagine how great those concerts were! @Kim- I love that our husbands have the same name! Scouting out the new town sounds fun. And yes, our ticket experience wasn't too dissimilar. Two of us synchronized our watches and got on the internet at the same time. We were on the phone with each other saying, "Okay, I got these seats, what did you get?" The adrenaline rush of trying to buy Garth Brooks tickets before they sell out is unreal. I can't wait! Have a great weekend and thanks for taking the time to comment. I truly appreciate it.

  • Paula S.

    Being here in the great place of NASHVILLE, TN all I can say is I LOVE THIS! Smile! I cannot tell you how much fun it is to attend the yearly CMA Music Festival, meet the "stars" out and about around town (most of them really are very friendly and normal…lol) and attend some of the best concerts ever! I bet you will have a fantastic time. Big thumbs up to your husband and his new appreciation of country music, too. Have a wonderful weekend. As for us, it's a Drill weekend so my husband will be out of town. I guess houeswork and other necessities for me. :-( Also, @KIm – we went to Brad Paisley's H2O II Tour with Darius Rucker and Jerrod Niemann last year and it was awesome.

  • http://www.toodarnhappy.com Kim

    Paula-Going to Paisley's tour does sound awesome!

    I LOVE Nashville. I was there this fall, and my brother and his wife took me around to all the touristy spots, although we didn't have time for the Hall of Fame. We did make it to the Opry, though. What a bunch of fun we had! My hubbie and our girls have all talked about moving to Knoxville (where my brother is) or Nashville-ish. We are pretty tired of winters, and so New England is not a good place to be because of that!

  • http://www.happywivesclub.com Fawn

    @Paula S- I'm definitely coming to Nashville! I would love to go see Brad Paisley in concert but he doesn't seem to come to the LA area. He's in Vegas on the 28th but since we're going to see Garth tonight and then Celine tomorrow I don't think I'll ask Keith to take me to see Brad Paisley and Scotty McCreery too :) . But when I come to Nashville for the CMAs one year, I'll let you know!

  • http://www.homeiswhereyoustartfrom.com Jenn @ Home is Where You Start From

    sounds like a fun time! Dh were country music fans for a time right before we were married and some time after. Funny, just last week I added some Garth Brooks to my itunes play list, I've been remembering some of my old country favorites and looking them up.

    this weekend we are spending time with my sister and her family, kind of a belated Christmas get-together after that, we are hoping to have time to sit with the kids, play games and maybe introduce them to the BBC mini-series "Cranford" -we are a bit nerdy :)

  • Fawn

    @Jenn- What is Cranford? The concert last night was amazing! I can't even put it into words but that man is legendary for good reason.

  • http://myraysofsunshine.com Faith

    My hubby and I were just talking about Garth Brook's Vegas concert this morning. Have a blast! Pleas give as review of the concert :-)
    We're going to Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw's Brothers of the Sun tour in June.

  • Fawn Weaver

    @Faith- Oh my goodness – the best concert we've ever seen! We've been to more concerts than I can even think of and this was hands down the best. It's worth every penny. If I could have gone to see it again the following night I would have. It's just Garth and his acoustic guitar. No dancers, no background singers, no set design. It's absolutely brilliant and by the time you leave there you feel as though you've been sitting in his living room learning about him and his family. The only thing I'd say is since the tickets are the same price no matter where you sit, definitely sign up for the presale notifications and set your alarm to go online and purchase them the moment they got on sale. They announce new dates about every 4-6 months. We had to wait a year to get good seats because I wasn't securing the tickets the moment the presale began. But I did that the last time and we ended up being four rows from the stage right in the center and our friends who went with us and got purchased their tickets just a minute before we did were two rows in front of us. But this concert was legendary — highly recommend it.