Doing the Colorado (Taylor Swift) Louisiana Thing

So, last time I wrote, I wrote about things in Japan, but the time before I hadn't finished writing about my trip to the states, so I think it's time to do that now. :-)

After California, I hopped on a plane with Kristen and Shawn (it really wasn't as easy as hopping on a plane - I swear the whole flying thing gets more and more ridiculous every time I go home. Talk about taking away our right to privacy), and headed on over to Colorado. I was super excited to get to hang out in Kristen's classroom and and to get to meet all of her new students and see some of her students from last year.

And then, Kristen and I went with Krist's friend Katie and her daughter Riley to see TAYLOR SWIFT!

Katie had found this wooden rooster and decided that she needed to bring it with her everywhere. So that's J-Z the wooden rooster in the picture with us.

Taylor Swift was absolutely AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL! And her voice was just as sweet and princess-like as ever.

She sang MOST (unfortunately not ALL of them, but I guess that just means I'll have to see her again) of my favorite songs, and it was more like a Cirque du Soleil type thing than a concert. She changed outfits between every song, and there were acrobats or dancers and stories that seemed to go with every song. I think my favorite was Haunted, when she was banging this huge bell and her hair was flying all manically around her. It was just amazing!

Anyhow, so Taylor Swift was awesome, and I had a GREAT time hanging out with Krist and Shawn. Unfortunately, it was over way too quickly, and before I knew it I was on a plane to Louisiana.

Louisiana was fabulous, though I unfortunately didn't really have all that much free time, as I had doctor's appointments every single day. I did get to hang out with Donald and Christine, though, and with Russell and Miranda and Tyrone. And plus I got to meet Mom's new boyfriend!

Mom and I took a trip to Lafayette to see Aunt Debbie and Brittni on my first day back! It was super fun! Brittni's already in college, and she seems to be doing great! Mom and I just about to start our journey.

Mom had a lunch, so I decided to give Russell and Miranda their wedding present. This is them. Perhaps you'll notice how the knives have Baker carved into them in Japanese.

Tyrone, Miranda, Christine, Donald, me

Tyrone loves me!

Dad and Tina also gave me a shopping spree at this really cute store in Alexandria for my birthday, so I went and picked out lots of fun sweaters! Yay! I've been wearing all of them all the time, and every time I do, I get compliments! It's fabulous! Then we had a birthday dinner for me over there, and Tina made the most DELICIOUS chocolate pecan pie with my favorite - polenta stuffed butternut squash. Talk about yummy!

And then it was already time to head back to Japan.
Good times were had, and it seems like it's almost already time to head back for Christmas. YAY CHRISTMAS!!!! I can't believe how excited I already am about it! :-)

Stateside: Colorado

And now I'm really almost done writing about my stateside experience.
After hanging out a couple days in Louisiana, Kristen and I hopped in her car and headed up to her home on Colorado.
The first night, we stopped in Dallas to spend yet another night with my Aunt Diane and Uncle Greg. It was so good to get to see them so much this summer.
In Dallas, my birthday got to CONTINUE (the day we spent the night there was my actual birthday) as my aunt had prepared a delicious birthday dinner for me and the most scrumptious of birthday cakes. It was SO good, and I have taken the recipe from her to try to recreate it.

Me with Aunt Diane, Uncle Greg, and the cake


Sorry about the quality - you can tell that my camera was still having issues.
They gave me the most beautiful little blue Swarovski jewelry case to carry my jewelry in when traveling. I love it!

The next day, we hopped back in the car and spent the WHOLE DAY driving (and, of course, rocking out and singing at the top of our lungs to New Kids on the Block and other fantastic 80's music!) until we arrived in Colorado, where we had a great time just relaxing and hanging out. We watched some fantastic movies - "Princess Protection Program," which I love love LOVED! It was so cute, and I totally wish a cool princess like Demi Lovato was in this movie would come hang out in my life.
We also watched "The Christmas Secret," which, aside from the annoyingness of the actor they chose for the main character, was AWESOME and basically proved that everything about Christmas really can exist. Kristen and I, of course, BELIEVE, so we didn't really need proof, but it was a very touching movie that should definitely be watched by all of the non-believers out there. For example, I am SO making Guillaume watch it with me this upcoming Christmas season. Which is coming up SO soon!!!! Yay!!!!

We didn't just watch movies, though. I also had the pleasure of getting the most WONDERFUL massage ever. It was an ashiatsu massage, which I had actually never even heard of before. Ashi means foot or leg in Japanese, atsu means pressure, so as you can probably guess, it was like a shiatsu massage, but done with the feet instead of the hands. It was super amazing. (I wonder if shi is supposed to mean hand or finger. Because I thought te was hand and yubi was finger. . .hmmmm. . .I wonder if shi, which also means 4 and death, is also another word for finger).

We also, of course, WENT SHOPPING! I think we both had a little birthday money left over, so we decided to go on a shopping spree, and we found ourselves at the biggest Forever 21 in all of Colorado. It was so huge that it was almost overwhelming. I'm convinced it had to have been the largest Forever 21 in existence. Afterwards, we decided to have a fashion show with all of our new clothes. Check it out!

Kristen and Audrey Fashion Show 2009
I unfortunately can't figure out how to get the video on my computer to embed it in this post, so hopefully the link will work.

We also got to drive up to Keystone to visit my Aunt Boogie and her husband Charles Martin, who I guess is my uncle but whom I refer to just as Charles Martin.


Aunt Boogie!

It was good to get to hang out with them some. Charles Martin whipped us up a delicious dinner, and afterwards, we watched Miss Potter. Now, I am totally NOT a Renee Zelwegger fan. She kind of annoys me, and I really thought they could have done a better job choosing someone the play the role of Beatrix Potter. She is why I had actually not previously seen this movie. Let me just say, though - if you are like me and not seeing this movie because of the presence of Renee Zelwegger in it, GET OVER IT!!!! This movie is absolutely FANTASTIC! Forget Becoming Jane (which was, withount a doubt, a marvelous movie), this is the most heartwarming, breathtaking, enchanting, touching story of a writer ever. Period. And that's all there is to it.

We spent the night there and then had some time in the morning to hang out chatting and letting mister photographer Charles Martin try out some new things with his camera.


Me and Krist rocking it in Keystone!


Then we had to drive to the airport in Denver, and I had to fly home to catch my flight back to France. ::sadness::