Just to Be Close to You-Frequently Asked Questions & a Few Answers!

Vancouver Shopping Spree
September 30, 2001

My friend Keri & I spent the weekend of September 29 thru October 2nd at the Four Seasons in Vancouver. The concert highlights (or low lights since it was rather uneventful) will be in the Boise Concert story. The concert photos will be under the Vancouver Concert heading.

The hotel staff was very rude (they followed you around the hotel like a shadow) to anyone they thought was a guest at the hotel simply to see the boys so we tried to maintain our dignity and we did not camp out like some of the other girls did. Maybe this was a mistake since we didn't see much of the guys. The girls who did camp out though went over board. They were taking pictures of EVERYONE who stepped out of the elevator! They even have pictures of Keri & I! LOL! I have seen pictures of the guys from these fans who did camp out and I can honestly say, they were NOT flattering pictures. Nick was actually scowling at the camera in a few and even Kevin was holding up his hand to block shots. In the end, I think we made the right decision by not camping out. We had a list of places the guys frequent in Vancouver so we tried those instead. We also did A LOT of laps around the hotel and the mall. I am sure we didn't fool everyone but the Valet's believed us! We now have an uncle in Vancouver named Andre! We can even give you directions on how to get to his house if you ever need a pretend uncle in Vancouver! :o)

The Four Season's in Vancouver is attached to a HUGE MALL! I mean HUGE! 3 stories spanning 3 city blocks! HUGE! Keri and I walked every inch of it...SEVERAL TIMES! The first person we saw was Andre Csillag. We were taking a morning stroll through the mall. This just happened to be the time Keri forgot to take the cat ears off she had been wearing around the room! Andre spotted Keri and I, gave Keri a strange look, and then continued on his way. After he passed by I looked at Keri and that was when we realized she was still wearing her headband! We decided since we'd already been telling the hotel staff we were here to see our uncle (so they would quit following us around…), that we would just use Andre as our uncle. Which explains why we now refer to him as 'Uncle' Andre.

Second encounter. Funny part to the following story is Keri and I had set up a mental marker so we knew where to turn to get back into the hotel. It was a poster of a girl in a tank top and PJ bottoms who looked like Leighanne! LOL! Little did we know we would see the real thing! Keri and I were walking buy an aromatherapy store. I glanced inside as we passed by. There was only 1 person in the store aside from the people working there. I could tell from the back the person in the store was Leighanne! Her hair was straight down her back and kind of thin. Like mine when I let it grow out. She had on a tank top, a calf length DNKY skirt and HIGH platform sandals. She looked very relaxed and very cute. Keri and I hung out for a minute, pretending to look at essential oils. Thank God my Taekwon Do instructor's mom had given me lessons in the healing powers of oils so I knew a few names and uses & I could fake a conversation! We waited until Leighanne signed for her purchases and when she got outside of the store, I said, "Excuse me." She turned around and I said, "Are you Leighanne Littrell?" She smiled and said yes. I introduced myself and actually gave the one speech I had rehearsed! LOL! I guess I just had a feeling it would be Leighanne we met. I even mentioned that to Keri I think. Anyway, I told her I had seen her on "the Test" and I thought Jillian Barbarie had been incredibly rude to her but that I thought she handled herself very well. She thanked me and said she agreed, that Jillian was really rude and she felt slighted because Jillian had a friend on the show that night. A little girl about 3 sprinted between us while we were talking. She stopped talking mid-sentence and said something about "Oh look at the little one! What a sweetie!" I was caught off guard because I didn't expect any of that to happen. I asked if we could take her picture and she asked if I wanted to be in it too. I asked if she minded are you loving my command of the English language here? and she said "I would prefer it if you would so I don't look goofy or something!" Keri pulled my camera out of her bag along with her phone and something else. Leighanne laughed and said, "That looks like my purse!" so we had a brief discussion on the contents of purses. Keri took the picture. I thanked her and we went on our way. One thing I did notice is she is SHORT! She is maybe an inch taller than me. I always thought she had to be tall because she looks so much taller than Brian in pictures. I was eye to eye with Brian the time I got close to him but neither of us was standing up straight so I couldn't judge by that. Keri and I were guessing that Brian must be no taller than 5' 4" though. I commented to Keri as we started to do another lap around the mall that I got this vibe that Leighanne wants to be a mom and soon. It was just a feeling I got from the sound of her voice and the look on her face when the little girl ran by us. It was really sweet. We did another lap around the mall and it was about time for it to close. We had to laugh because we saw Leighanne walk into the store with the marker to us! It was the "Leighanne" store for the rest of the weekend!

Aside from this, the guys got in late on Saturday night. 1:30 Sunday morning to be exact! We were awakened by someone screaming: "OMG! Kevin!" close to our room. LMAO! Nope...wasn't Kristin... Yep...the boys had arrived! :o)

It was a Kevin weekend. He was the only one we ever saw leave or come back. We heard at one point on Sunday evening that Nick was the only boy in the hotel but again, the only one we ever saw was Kevin! We came back from checking out the venue yesterday (Test driving our route) and got stuck behind a van in line for the Valet. I looked up and I was like "Keri! There's Carlos!" He grabbed Kevin and they dashed into the van and took off! Kevin came back a short time later but that was the last time we saw him.

About 4:30 day of show, we saw 4 of the 5 buses in front of the hotel (Howard's was at the venue when we cruised by). We watched them load Alex's bus and then Brian's and then Nick's. Alex walked by us surrounded by Marcus and 3 hotel security guards but they wouldn't let him stop. I think I got a picture of the back of his head! :o) A few minutes after that a van pulled into the parking area. It stopped and then went on through. We saw a very disgruntled Howard sitting by the window. He didn't look at the crowd; he just waved his fingers... We later found out he had done a radio interview at 4:00. I THINK he thought he would get to go back to his room for a few minutes and someone else told him no, he needed to get to the venue so he was pouting! :o) The back of his head looked great though!

We did see John Dorough when we were in the hotel bar Sunday night. At least we think it was John. He was about 30 feet from us. Some girls stopped a guy who looked like him and had their picture taken with him so it was probably John. I am really good at just barely missing him! At least he didn't almost run over me with his car this time! ;o)