Fresh Beat Band Adventure

I feel that I have the civic duty to tell you this story
to make you feel really good about yourself at my expense...

The word "adventure" doesn't quite to do anything justice, actually.  Sunday's trip with my friend Lila to take our girls to see the Fresh Beat Band is one for the history books.  It probably would have been just fine had I not had the brilliant idea to put the girls' tickets in their stockings Christmas morning.  Because after that point in time, it's a mystery to me as to where they went.  And being that the show was months away and Christmas morning is always such a whirlwind, any thoughts about those tickets ended right there.  I realize that I'm the only person in America who would do such a ridiculous thing and that if I had my act together I would have immediately put them away in a safe spot.  But I didn't.  I'd sort of even forgotten about the concert until one day last week when Lila called and asked me if I remembered that it was coming up.  We worked out the details of who was driving, what time we'd meet, if we needed to eat dinner before or after, etc.  But never once did it hit me that I had no idea where I'd put our tickets.  Until Sunday afternoon at 1:55 (five minutes before she would be here to pick us up) when I put my hands on the FedEx envelope where I thought they were, opened it, and proceeded with a nervous breakdown at the sight of only seeing Lila's three tickets.  Our three tickets were missing.  Of course they were...I'd gotten them out at Christmas.

Typical.  So typical. 

We planned to leave three hours before the 5:00 show just to be on the safe side.  After sitting at the computer with Bethany and Lila standing over my shoulder trying to help me figure something out, an hour had passed.  I was a certified wreck.  We sent the girls to the backyard to play so they wouldn't get the idea that our big plans were pretty much ruined.  Disaster, let me tell you.  After being outside for an hour they were all hot, sweaty, dirty, and had put really dark, really permanent makeup on each other.  Finally, we realized that there was nothing I could accomplish by staring at the computer screen, so we told the kids we were leaving and both prayed we'd figure it out before we got to Nashville.  Before we pulled off J told me to calm down and that it wasn't a big deal - we could just buy more tickets when we got there.  Ticket scalpers?  At a Fresh Beat Band concert?!  Lord help us.  It only gets better.  Any time the two of us are together my side hurts from laughing so much and it's sure to end up being a good story.  It was no different on this little trip of ours.  Between Decatur and Nashville, I'd left three messages for a guy in New Jersey who I bought some of our tickets from (two separate transactions thanks to only being allowed to buy four at a time), emailed him five times, burned up a lot of minutes trying to talk Ticketmaster into working some sort of magic, and desperately tried to use hushed tones so the children wouldn't have any clue what was going on.  When New Jersey guy called me back I didn't answer with a "hello".  It went something like this, "hey listen, I know you think I'm psycho but I need your....hello?  Are you there?  Hellooooo?"  I think he all but thought I really was a psychopath and finally said, "um, yeah, I'm here."  He helped me...reluctantly.  I'm sure I would be a little reluctant if I had me on the other end of the line, too.  All the while Lila is in tears from laughing so hard.  After stopping at a Holiday Inn Express just inside the Nashville city limits, running in exclaiming that I had an emergency and needed to use a computer and printer stat, and making a total fool of myself (what else is new?), we had our tickets in hand and could breathe.  Finally.
If you know me, you're probably not surprised by any of this.

We found parking and booked it to get to the Ryman just in time...
The poor children were breaking a sweat seeing as how we had them running so hard.  Cate had on high heels because at the point in the day when she asked if she could wear them, it sounded like an ok idea.
Bless her...

It's sort of hard to run in high heels when you're four, but she handled it like a champ!

The irony of it all is that when we got to the door and handed over our handful of tickets, the 85 year old greeter didn't even bother to count how many of us were going in.  I could have handed him the three we started with and he would never have known the difference.  I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.  Technically it wouldn't have been dishonest since I really had paid for all six of us to get in...right?! :)

It probably sounds as if we'd heaped child abuse and torture on the girls thus far.  I assure you that they were having a blast.  We could have simply driven them a few miles down the road, turned around and come home and they would have been happy.  They watched movies, made up songs, and giggled their little heads off all the way up I-65.  But nothing compares to finally being in our seats and watching them having so much fun with the Fresh Beat Band!  It was priceless...

Everything was so colorful and happy...pretty exciting stuff to four little girls (ok, ok...and their mamas, too)!
When they pulled this little move out of their hats I was wishing I was on stage with them...
I really think I missed my calling...back-up dancing surely should have been a degree at Auburn.

Throughout the whole ridiculous ordeal Lila kept saying that something amazing was going to come out of all this - like we'd end up getting front row seats or something fun like that.  Low and behold, right when we sat down she turned my attention two rows in front of us to Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban.  I was a little starstruck, I'm not going to try to pretend I wasn't.  I immediately texted J and Bebs.  Of course B was totally intrigued while J asked me what the big deal about that was.  Men!  I was one of those people.  The kind who discreetly snaps iPhone pictures.  Lila put me in charge of that since I was closer.  I'm totally embarrassed by this now and refuse to show anyone the pictures I took of the two of them just trying to enjoy a concert with their daughter.  The nerve of people like me...

 We sang, we danced, and we had a ball...

It was so much fun to hear all of our favorite Fresh Beat songs in person...the girls couldn't believe that they were actually seeing the people that are "in the TV".  Cate has decided that she and Ella will be on TV with them soon.  She's pretty serious about it.  I think she'll be our child who moves to LA in hopes of making it one day...

When it was over (which was much too soon for us), we made our necessary purchases and took a quick group shot...
And since we didn't want the fun to end, we ventured down to Broadway and hopped in a carriage for a ride...
That picture tells the story of three girls who have been through the ringer.  I don't think I had a stitch of makeup left on my face, while I couldn't scrub my children's faces hard enough with baby wipes to get theirs off.  It wouldn't budge.  By the time we made it home at 10 o'clock Sunday night, they were in tears from being so tired and had mascara running down their sweet cheeks.
All four of them agreed that they'd had the best day ever.
Mission accomplished...in a round about way!
Sometimes I have to stop and wonder if I'd be bored out of my mind if I didn't get myself into messes like I did that day.  At any given moment there are a hundred different things I'm trying to keep up with, so I suppose it's par for the course!
One thing I do know for certain?  It's always an adventure.
And the truth is, I wouldn't really want it any other way.