OUR TAYLOR ROADTRIP

So from the beginning, I knew I was NOT going to miss the Taylor Swift Reputation tour. But imagine my surprise and sadness when I realized she was not coming to Salt Lake this time...what to do? what to do?

I guess we had to pick a city and go to her. Denver was the closest city, and I knew in a pinch it would be ok for us to drive if we couldn't fly. We ended up doing just that,taking off on May 24th  and we had quite the road trip. I continued my love of finding out of the box eateries by having lunch at the Chill Grill in Wyoming. We had a pretty good lunch, but mostly is was a giggly lunch. I couldn't get enough of my delicious soda float and we laughed as we watched this old couple take 100 pictures of their food and guessing what they were doing. Of course I had to ask them as we left and it was unfortunately the mystery was that they worked for a magazine and they were taking pictures for an ad. I liked our wacky ideas much better.

It was a long drive folks...8 hours. By the time we arrived in Denver we were all a bit delirious. But we were super happy to check in and be in our hotel.

We were pretty lazy on Friday. We wanted to conserve our energy for the big night ahead. The girls and I went to breakfast and then they went swimming.

We drove over to the stadium to get an idea of how far away it really was and what kind of neighborhood it was if we needed to walk. We went to Target and I had a major freak out about finding glittery slime all over the backseat of the car, then we headed back to the hotel to rest up and get ready. We had even more drama getting ready because Ava was overwhelmed and she didn't think she wanted to wear the outfit we had all picked out. But in the end she realized it was adorable and she was happy again. It was all just a lot really. So much buildup for such a big event. But as we made our way down to the hotel lobby to catch and UBER, all of that seemed to fade away in the excitement to see the show.

We had told the girls that everyone dressed up for Taylor, but as we walked in the concert all decked out, we really seemed to be the only ones dressed up. It didn't change the fact that we looked adorable and everyone knew it. Ashley had taken great care to make us amazing headbands, and we thankfully got a great deal on our sparkling jackets. We looked awesome and there was no denying it.

We had plenty of time to take pictures around the stadium and we did, but the girls were freaking out about getting inside. They were so worried they were going to miss it all. 

So when I upgraded my tickets to the Phoenix show, I checked the Denver show to see what they had going on there. And I found four tickets together in the same section that we were already sitting, but in the front row. The tickets were $30 more each. I knew it would be worth it. And I am not going to lie, I thought it would increase our chances to meet Taylor Swift by a ton. It isn't healthy to think you would be one of the 30 people chosen out of 60,000 to get to meet Taylor, but still...we couldn't all help it. If I am honest, I still surprised we didn't, because we really did stand out and we were the only people really dancing in our whole section, but (spoiler alert) we didn't. I guess part of the fun is in the trying.

We were pretty excited when we got to our seats. They were so good. But I have to say, that it isn't easy to have any sense of how big the stadium is while you are there. It was so massive, but it is too massive to even be able to tell how big it is. We danced and danced and got revved up for the big show. We were all so excited. Poor Ava was so excited that she started to cry, she couldn't handle all of it. It was a big night for everyone. Not gonna lie, I wish I could go back to that moment.

It started to get darker and we got our glow sticks as we rocked out to the opening acts. Sometime during all of that I realized I was in seat 13, which is Taylor's favorite number. I took it as a sign. Right before the show started I saw Taylor's mom come out. She didn't make it all the way to us though...and of course I am convinced that if she had, she would have chosen us to meet her daughter. ;)

And then the lights went down and the stage started to glow and Taylor was behind it and she asked us if we were Ready for It, and then I realized I was seeing stars because I had forgotten to breathe. I could have passed out and missed everything! I am so glad I didn't. It was all so amazing. The production was so over the top cool. And it was so beautiful, oh and Taylor, she is also the prettiest!

While Taylor was singing King of My Heart I was making a video with Stella and I totally missed Taylor's dad walking right up to Ashley and handing her a bunch of guitar pics. It is a big deal to see Taylor's dad and get a pic. He told Ashley to hand them out and so she started handing them out to the people next to us who had no idea what we were giving them. I pretty much wish she hadn't done that, but Ashley still stands by the fact that Taylor's dad asked her to do it, so she did.

Taylor makes her way in a glittery basket to the back B stages about a third of the way into the show. We were close to one of the stages, but the other one was so far away that we couldn't see much. However, confetti was falling to the ground and there were giant snakes dancing around with fireworks so it was so beautiful that I started crying for the who knows how many times. I loved it!

Each show Taylor plays and accoustic version of an old song. We were all so excited when she started playing Teardrops on My Guitar, which is Stella's favorite song. During that song and while Taylor was on the far stage I happen to look down and see Taylor's mom. So I yelled: "Mama Swift!" And she heard me and came right over to say hello. I told her that I loved her daughter so much and thanked her for raising such a beautiful daughter. She was so gracious and she said "I love her too." She went down the row shaking hands and saying hello which game me just enough time to get it together and get my phone ready for a picture. So when she came by again I asked her if she would pose for a picture with me. She told me that she loved my girls and was so lovely. It must take so much energy to be so gracious and lovely to everyone, but she seems to do it at every single show. She was in the sound box in front of us for most of the rest of the show with Taylor's dad and it was pretty cute to watch her rock out to her daughter.

Now Taylor was on our stage and she was SO CLOSE to us. She sang two songs. Then she hopped in her snake cage and flew back to the main stage in front of us. And when she saw Ava and Stella she pointed at them and that was the one thing that happened that they told everyone. And I do have video proof of this happening.

There were still some more awesome songs and our little girls were getting pretty tired. We did all sit down while Taylor sat at her piano and played to get a bit of rest. Still, they pushed through and ended the show with a bang. It was beautiful and amazing and wonderful and all of the other adjectives that I have used multiple times to describe the show. It really was the most amazing production I have ever seen.

When the lights went on, I started picking up a ton of confetti, because after the Phoenix show the confetti was selling for like $5 a piece. But of course, once I got home they weren't worth anything, so it was a bit of a waste to pick it all up, oh well.

After the show, we were all exhausted and the girls were saying that they didn't think they could walk back to the hotel. I just told them that no car was driving into the stadium to pick us up so we would just have to start walking. So we did, and the amount of chaos once we got out of the stadium was pretty nuts. People were trying to get out of the parking lots and people were waiting for their UBERs, so we just started walking. It was about a mile to the hotel, and for the most part it was pretty safe since there were so many people around. But as we got closer and Stella was crying because she was "dehydrated" it got a bit sketchy. But we kept walking with our sights set on our hotel in the distance.

We got to our hotel at about midnight I would guess. And we drank all the water. Then the girls crashed fast. But Ashley and I started watching the videos from the show and we were laughing so hard and feeling all the feels from such an amazing night. I was up until about 3 AM looking at pictures, and posting our story to Instagram. Finally a called it a night and went to bed.

No one was up in time to go down to our free breakfast, so we looked online for a good place to eat breakfast down in the city. We headed down there and we waited forever for a table. The food was good, but not good enough to go back. After breakfast we headed right on the road back to Salt Lake. It wasn't as fun of a drive as the drive to Denver, but we survived. What an epic adventure. It was worth all of the money and effort and drama. Thank you Taylor for showing us a good time!