A fast-rising Alabama country star says she “felt like a 12-year-old kid living her biggest dream ever on stage” when she recently sang alongside a country legend.

Ella Langley recently took home five Academy of Country Music awards, then appeared at the inaugural Sand in My Boots festival a few days later. While at the festival, she took time to talk to People.com about the “ridiculous amount of highlights” she’s experienced recently.

According to People.com, Langley spoke during a visit to the Scent x Sound Lab, a mobile attraction representing Bath & Body Works, after her Saturday afternoon set at Sand in My Boots. Langley is collaborating with the company, which shared an Instagram clip of her visit to the lab.

During her set at Sand in My Boots, Langley spoke emotionally about how, not that long ago, she’d been in the audience at the Hangout Music Festival, watching artists on the main stage she was now performing on. She reiterated that to People, but had a lot more to say about her collaboration with Miranda Lambert.

1/17

During the ACM telecast, Lambert brought Langley onstage to help sing her classic hit “Kerosene.” It was a memorable moment: Half an hour into the show, Langley was only the second act of the night who didn’t have a “greatest hits” album out. She brought a conspicuously youthful energy to the proceedings.

“I already knew that I was going to do ‘Weren’t for the Wind,’” said Langley, referring to her second ACM performance. “But when we got asked to do ‘Kerosene,’ God, I was like, ‘It just made the night so much better for me because I got that initial fear out’ — and that was our first time performing together.”

Langley told People that Lambert had always been an inspiration to her.

“She is who she is and she doesn’t apologize for that,” said Langley. “She stands up for herself, but she also stands up for others she believes in. And that’s just always been apparent by watching her as a young artist. So I’m really grateful to get to work alongside her.”

As for her “full circle” experience in Gulf Shores, Langley said: “It’s just cool to be included on this first year of Sand in My Boots. It’s definitely going down in history what this festival’s going to do.”