Can you imagine being 11 and having a friend like...?

Shelby woke up a couple of weeks ago and on a Friday morning, stumbled down the stairs and before her eyes were even opened she said, "Mom can we drive to Columbus tonight?"

I was like (and I am not very nice at 6 am), "Why in the world would we drive to Columbus tonight?"  

She said, "Well, Hillary might have left us tickets."

I had to explain to her that we were not driving to Columbus to "see" if someone left us tickets.

So... now... I'll explain to you that... several years ago, a friend of ours moved to Nashville, TN and began dating a girl.  He very much cared about our opinion in almost every area of his life and so he asked if he could bring home a young lady for us to meet.  Of course, we were thrilled to meet anyone he dated because we LOVED him! (Still do!)

He brought a girl named Hillary Scott to our house.  He told us that her mom, Linda Davis, used to sing with Reba McEntire and that she was in a little band and that they would probably be pretty big one day.

Yeah, right... we thought.  Everyone thinks they are going to make it big.  But, it mattered not to us.  We REALLY liked Hillary.  She was very down to earth.  Super fun and easy to talk to and she loved our kids.  She would bring gifts for them when she came to visit and she payed lots of attention to them.  Once she sat in Shelby's room forever and wrote a song with her.

We were sooo sad when they broke up, but because I really liked Hillary, I stayed in contact with her.  And, because she is exactly who I thought she was when I met her, she has allowed Shelby to keep in contact with her too!

And, as it turns out, she kinda made it big.  She sings with a little group called Lady Antebellum.  You may or may not have heard of them.  They're only setting the country music world on fire right now and cleaning up at awards shows.

She won 5 or so Grammy Awards this year and the next day she was chatting with Shelby (11 years old) on Facebook.  That's her.

While they were talking, she said the next time she was around she'd love to see us and she would give us tickets to a show.

Well, Shelby had tried contacting her twice about tickets as that particular date drew near.  She had not heard back from her... which was why she wanted to drive to the arena to check on tickets.

Since I nixed that idea, she wanted to email her again.  I said, "No."  She asked if I would email her.  I said, "No."

But, later that morning, after Shelby had been long gone to school, I thought about the look on her face and thought it wouldn't hurt to email her one last time.  I had no intention of her returning an email that late.  However, a couple hours later, she emailed me back saying that she had left 4 tickets at will call along with meet and greet passes... and she said she, "I can't wait to hug y'alls necks!"

And, so we went to watch our little friend Hillary sing that night and my girls were in heaven.

I can't imagine being 11 and having a friend like Hillary.

Lady Antebellum

Can't you just see how sweet Hillary is with the girls?  We've never been to an official meet and greet.  It was disappointing in the sense that we barely had time to talk with her.  The other times we had lots more time with Hillary, but we'd never met the guys.  

Shelby and Gracie sat by AJ Hawke the whole night. In case you don't know him... he is a former Ohio State football player and now he plays for the Greenbay Packers.