One Year Anniversary! :)

At this time last year, I was in Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, standing next to my best friend, rockin out to the Idols Live! Tour. Both of us had starting watching Season 7 not expecting to absolutley fall in love with the top ten contestants, considering our connection with Season 6. It happened so quickly I don't even know how to explain it, but I do know that I am SO glad we had an open mind about everyone.

We went to the Indianapolis show and wound up running into the Idols downtown. I'll never forget just standing on the corner talking to Michael Johns when Chikezie walked off the bus and Sam hit me and said "daaaannng" or how we rushed past Syesha and Ramiele as if WE were the famous ones...or how Carly kept looking at us like she knew us.

The highlights from this day
- Ramiele "Is it dark outside?"
-Syesha loving us and our sign, being SO excited to meet her because of the inspiratoin she had been to both of us.
-Archie was very rushed before the buses, but he was so grateful for his gift from Sam and was just as sweet and humble as I expected him to be.
-Carly! She was so talkative and sweet to us and was so grateful for her gift.

-Jason Castro yelling "BOB MARLEY!" after I gave him his gift, and him trying to explain to me that he was happy because he needed new ipod earphones.
-MJ and his obsessoin with us.

The show
-CHIKEZIE. Do ya'll know how long I had been waiting to see his man perform live? He was awesome.
-Syesha's standing ovatation for Listen. Take that, haters.
-Hearing Archie sing Angels live for the first time.
-Please Don't Stop The Music, Chikezie going out of his way to point to me.

The After Party
-Running to Syesha to hug her
-Michael Johns "This is ridiculous!"
-Archie "Are they done...OKAY BYE!!" and reaching out for a hug from Sam. Yeah, the kid who doesn't like to touch people just reach out and hugged her. Take that fangirls. She also told him the Amanda story and the thanked her for telling him that.
-Chikezie! I asked him if he got my gift...his response was "Yes. Come here." LOL. My first Chikezie hug! He also thanked me about a gazillon times. That made me really happy to be a proud Chikezie fan, to see how happy I made him.
-Brooke told us we were sweet. Brooke White told US we were sweet.
-Jason said to tell Melinda he said he wanted to hang out sometime.
-Carly was so excited to see us at the after party and said she saw us in the audience.

As we were walking out we walked past all the crazies by the buses and heard screaming- some girl was climbing over the barricade SCREAMING "MICHAEL JOHNS!" we almost died of laughter.

We had such an amazing experience with every Idol (besides Cookster). We were blessed to get AP passes.

It's probably obvious that my two faves from the season are Syesha and Chikezie. I have to say I am pretty blessed to have been able to meet them as many times as I have. I miss the HECK out of Sye. I haven't seen her since last September. I am BEYOND proud of that girl, especially for her recent Dreamgirls gig! She is perfect for that role and the world better be on their toes for Miss Syesha Mercado.

I can't express how lucky and blessed I feel to have gotten to know Chikezie in the way that I have. He inspires me, he makes me want to try harder at everything I do and to never, ever give up. He has been beyond sweet to me, shown me more appreciation than I probably deserve. I only hope that he has as much success as he deserves, his talent is overlooked and that makes me sad. He's such a great guy.

I would also like to say that Mr. David Archuleta is one of my favorites. See, Cook is one of my faves because of his talent and performance...but Archie is a favorite for so much more than just his amazing vocals. He's just such a great kid, so polite and humble. You can tell that he is incredibly genuine. Plus he's done so much for people I love!

I can't tell you how much I miss last summer and every good time we had with the Idols. I will tell you that I am SO grateful for those experiences!