The first weekend in May we concluded our Team Dance season in Spokane, which is always my favorite city. The competition level is so high there, and this year did not disappoint. May was also the beginning of a new project for one of my best friends. Lilly started an organizational instagram/ blog and since I finally had time to even think about my house I went to work organizing everything we own. It has already made a huge difference this summer and I no longer cringe when I open my pantry. While I was at Team Dance, Stephen took that Friday off of work so that he could be home with Rory while I was gone and when I got home these two were inseparable. They've both really nailed the "we-love-you-but-we-don't-really-need-you-anymore" look lately.
Stephen and Rory are the cutest little partners in crime, and she seems so much more older and capable every time they work on a project together. When he is working in the backyard, like say fixing the sprinkler system, he will give Rory a task and she will attack it immediately. For the sprinkler project he had her scooping water out of the hole he had dug around the sprinkler head with a plastic cup and she scooped like there was no tomorrow, sighing the whole time at the work her little body was exerting to get the task done. Sure, at one point she said, "milk", and attempted to drink the dirt-laden water before Stephen could stop her, but I mean, that's still pretty impressive, right? Another project they did together was running the cables behind the wall on our mounted TV. There was less that Rory was able to do on that job, but she still sat right by his side in case he thought up anything he might need from her, and the few times he asked for tools she was right there.
Kendall, who just graduated BYU in April (during our wedding dress shopping adventures- she didn't attend any ceremonies), is now living in Washington for the summer, so after our Team Dance Spokane event she flew back with me to Phoenix. Back in December we had all decided to purchase tickets to Taylor Swift's Reputation Tour. It started with Mady and I because we are obsessed, but then eventually Kendall, Courtney, and Jules all joined the crew and we had ourselves an official Girl's Night Out. In order to purchase our tickets we had to go through this new "verified fan" purchasing process, which basically meant we had to watch Taylor Swift Videos for two weeks to prove that we weren't robots or scalpers. It was no small task having to play the videos over and over again for those two weeks, and everyone got on at some point to get our views in. BUT it all totally paid off when we got to buy our tickets at the pre-sale (on my birthday!) and we literally had our pick of any seat in the stadium.
So, Kendall flew down with me for the concert right after Team Dance. Courtney flew home from Spokane, packed up her kids, and drove to us the next day. Mady flew in the morning of the concert and lucky Jules lives just 30 minutes away from the venue in Glendale- we officially had our crew! With the craziness of finishing up the Team Dance season we didn't have a lot of time to think about or prepare for the concert, so the night before we found ourselves at Walmart purchasing supplies to make some concert t-shirts. We worked late at night after the kids were all finally in bed sleeping, and watched the Re-mixed Arrested Development Season 4 that Netflix had just put out.
In the morning we found our shirt had not turned out exactly as we had anticipated so we made a few quick corrections and found we could cover most anything with a little glitter.
With Mady finally joining us, we left for the concert, red lipstick in tow, and made our way to Glendale. We made it to Jules house, stopped for a bathroom break and a quick picture and then started toward the concert venue. Before we reached the stadium we stopped at an In-N-Out for dinner and ate quickly as we knew concert traffic would be bad. We could not have even imagined how crazy it would be. We were probably 5-10 minutes outside the venue when we got stuck in standstill traffic for OVER AN HOUR. It was so frustrating because the venue had sent out an email to prepay for parking, and then they specifically said to follow the signs put up around the venue and not your GPS because the phone directions would lead you astray. So we were just stuck. With a bunch of Taylor Swift teenage girl fans that had no clue where they were going just like us. The concert started at 7:00 and we hit the traffic around 6:30. We watched 7:00 roll right on by as we painstakingly inched our way towards the parking, then 7:30, then 7:45, then 8:00.. It was INFURIATING. Not even Mady's Taylor Swift Trivia could distract me from the rage I was feeling. I'm fired up just thinking about it! Finally, we get close to this stoplight and are just about to turn like the car in front of us when a police man drives up next to me. My lights weren't on and I didn't know it because I was driving Stephen's car. so he gave me a warning to get them on. Before he pulled away he said, "You're going to want to go straight here, there is nothing but lines up there and the parking lot is completely full." So we thanked him, went straight, and were able to park and run into the venue within minutes. I don't know what we would have done if he didn't save us. We made it to our seats right as Camilla Cabello began singing "Havana", the closing song of her set (having completely missed Charlie XCX and the rest of Camilla's set). About 15-20 minutes after we sat down Taylor was on the stage so I am so glad we made it when we did. The concert was INCREDIBLE. My favorite part was when she came to the side stage in front of us and did Shake It Off (with rainbow dancers, confetti, and dancing snakes), an acoustic version of Dancing With Our Hands Tied (so much better), AND an acoustic All Too Well, which made me want to cry a little bit because it's just the best song. I seriously feel like words can't describe how cool our night was. And our seats were fantastic. Oh! And Delicate. That was my other favorite part. She floated around on a lit up bubble thing and the screen made her look like she was made of stars. It's hard to explain but it was awesome.
With the concert over we still had one or two more days with everyone in town so we took advantage of it and took these babies out to play! We went swimming at our community pool for the first time this summer, which I quickly discovered would be a new favorite spot for Rory. We went to the pool quite a bit last summer, but she mostly sat around in her pool float looking displeased the whole time. I brought her baby float, not knowing how much she would even want to be in the water. Well, she decided the float wasn't for her, so I kept her in my arms. This, too, ended up being an undesirable option for her as she attempted to kick away from me so that she could follow Owen and Dean around everywhere they went. She was so eager to copy what they were doing and I knew we would be making a floatee purchase real soon if she was going to enjoy the summer at all. The one thing she did really enjoy about being in my arms was having me lay her on her back and swooshing around her hair in the water. Girls will be girls!
We also got to hit up our fave splash pad, but I did not get any pictures of the cousins together for some reason, besides a blurry Madden in the background. Just know that they were all there and we all had a total blast together.
In conclusion, Taylor Swift is incredible, I love spending time with some of my favorite people, and Rory still looks too darn cute in a swimsuit.
