Chris and Mindy 6-8-04

Now is where it really gets interesting. We decide that we wanted to go to New Orleans for American Idol auditions. We only had been dating two months at this point, but we decide that it would be fun. So, we drive the four hours there and get there at 5:00 am to get in line at the Super Dome. Pretty much everyone we're in line with were singing and we made some pretty good friends in line. At one point we even sang the entire song of Bohemian Rahapsody from beginning to end. We FINALLY get into the dome at 1:00 where they give a ticket telling us where to sit and a wrist band. They make it perfectly clear "DO NOT LOSE THE WRIST BAND" and we can come back the next morning at 6. Chris and I are exhausted at this point and we decide that we should just sleep there. So, we slept for a few minutes at a time it was hard to sleep because they never turned the lights off in the dome and people were singing ALL NIGHT and badly I might add. It drove me nuts! The next morning, they gathered us all together and made us sing "Dancing in the Streets" for the camera then started auditions at 8. The way it worked was they had about 6 tables with 3 producers at each table and they went through the stadium row by row and had people sing in groups of 4. If they liked you, they gave you a flyer to go on to the next round, if they didn't, they cut off your wrist band. They finally got to us at 1:00 and by that point I'm pretty sure the producers were sick of hearing people sing. I sang for Nigel who politely said "You've got a beautiful voice sweetheart, but I just cont." (English accent) and cut off my wrist band. Chris's got cut off too and after all that, we didn't even really care. We were SOOO tired we just went to the hotel and went to sleep. It was one of the most fun experiences I've ever had and I'm so glad that I shared that time with him. On top of that, it was a sign of things to come... we spent 3 days non stop together under extreme pressures and we made it through pretty much unscathed. In fact we walked away with a lot of inside jokes.