Montana Idol (and family) goes to American Idol

Well, a crazy thing happened in April. I have always been a fan of American Idol, especially in the past few years. A local radio station in Missoula has a contest every year called "Montana Idol." They have people call in to the morning show and sing over the phone. Then they narrow it down to ten finalists who come sing at the mall. There are judges who narrow it down to the top three, and then the crowd cheers to vote for the "Montana Idol."

Blah, blah, blah... who cares, right? Well, I did... because the winner gets a trip for two to Los Angeles (airfare, hotel, tickets) to see the finale of American Idol! The night when the winner is announced!

So I called the radio station and sang over the phone in my car on the way to school one morning. Then, they called a few weeks later to tell me I was a finalist. I rallied up the troops to come cheer for me - friends, family, and... STUDENTS. I had a lot of very loud students (and Frenchtown colleagues) there to cheer for me.





I sang "Baby I Love You" by Aretha Franklin, and... I won! It's about time this voice did something for me! :)

So Peter and I were off to Cali for a week. Since all we had to do was go to the finale one night, and the rest was just free time... and because Ben flies for free... we though, why not? Let's bring him too.

Luckily, Peter's friend Randy lives in L.A. and hooked us up with a car and babysitting services throughout the week! Thanks, Randy!

Here are some pics from the trip.

Our hotel was about 8 blocks from the Nokia Theatre, where the finale is taped. There was a big red carpet and interview area outside on both of the final two days and nights. There were famous people around, and lots of old "Idol" contestants. Naturally, we took advantage of the red carpet to have some fun!

Benjamin on the red carpet!!!

"Benjamin McKenzie! Ben, what are you wearing? Where's the after-party?"
"Whatever, Mom... I'm going to talk to Entertainment Tonight over here."

Now, really, because we had a baby (and, frankly, we were lazy), we didn't do too much except for the big finale. Here's a sweet park we found one morning (still in our P.J.'s).

I am a model.

I found a leaf!

Know where we spent most of our time? The hotel room. (Yes, we are lame.)

Ahhh, I love a king-size bed!!

So, Randy was all set to babysit Ben on the night of the finale. But then we picked up our tickets, and... DRAT! The finale taping was at 5:00 and we had to be there at 4:00! Randy works until 6:00! Whatever are we to do? Well, what else would we do in Los Angeles? Have a famous person babysit you. Randy is friends with the lead singer of Three Dog Night and his son. (Yes, seriously... the famous band Three Dog Night.) So he arranged for Ben to go to Three Dog Night's house. (Their real names are Danny Hutton, and the son is Tim, but I just call them all Three Dog Night. It's cooler.)

Here I am crawling on Three Dog Night's floor! When I got here, the whole band was sitting around the counter working on music... Oh. My. God!

Hey, is the band named after you?

Swimming in Three Dog Night's pool with Dad.

Hmmmm... all this California cuisine is getting to me... my gut's hanging out of my suit! Oops!

Prune feet from Three Dog Night's pool!

What else to do? Go to the Hollywood walk of fame. Here I am, by some random person's handprints, looking rather bored.

Who the heck is Jeanne Crain? We don't know. We just know she was in the shade.

The best part of our stay? The hotel pool. It was on the roof... it was awesome. And the perfect temperature for an 11-month-old. We had such fun!

I got a new swimsuit after the embarrassing "gut" incident at Three Dog Night's house.

The pool!

Dad is the MOST fun when we are swimming.

Swimming makes me SLEEPY.

Mom and I are adorable.

As are Dad and I.

All in all, it was an excellent trip! We got the whole L.A. experience... a 5.0 earthquake while we were on the 9th floor of our hotel. Yikes... Mom not happy. Also, we went shopping in the Beverly Hills mall - a nice place, mind you - and there was a gang shooting in the garage at the same time we were heading to our car in that very garage! A rapper was shot! Seriously... we got the whole experience.

More on the finale itself in the next post!