When tickets went on sale for the Arctic Monkeys, one of Serafina's favorite bands, I decided to scoop up three tickets. It was the farthest in advance I've ever bought concert tickets. On the checkout screen, it said "congratulations! Your show is in 380 days". Ha! Over a year in advance! I figured if she no longer liked the band when the show finally came around, I could sell the tickets. Tastes change when you're a teenager, after all. We gifted her the tickets last Christmas with an Arctic Monkeys sweatshirt. As the date finally approached, she decided to invite her dance friend Karin (who also join us for her birthday dinner). I wasn't sure if her folks would be okay with me taking her to San Francisco on a school night, but luckily she was allowed to come along. The show was at the Chase Center where we saw Lizzo last year. I pretty much repeated all the steps - parked in the same lot, ate pizza at the same restaurant, even stopped at the crazy Restoration Hardware store to take some pictures on the roof.
Here are a couple of those pictures.
After being sooooo far away at Taylor and Beyoncé, it was a delight to find we had very good seats. Since I bought the tickets so long ago, I forgot that we were nice and close.
The girls wandered around and bought t-shirts while I enjoyed the opening band. Arctic Monkeys put on a great show and the girls learned the important art of moving up as close as you can, even if you don't have tickets for those seats as long as you don't get kicked out by security.
Almost five years ago, I got to see Beyoncé play at Levi's stadium. It was awesome and I was so excited when she announced her Renaissance World Tour. Tickets were pricey (of course) but I splurged on two - one for me and one for the second biggest fan in the family, Serafina. Serafina has dance to Beyoncé songs in competitions, recitals, classes and at conventions. Plus, I knew she would appreciate the amazing visuals and dancing in the show. So even though it was a school night, we headed to Levi's to experience this true legend on stage.
Serafina looked gorgeous.
Our seats were high up, but with a straight on view and the first row of our level so no one directly in front of us. They were definitely better seats than we had for Taylor Swift. But next time Beyoncé comes around, I'm selling a kidney and getting close up.
Silver cowgirl hat is one of the best merch table purchases I've ever made. Epic photo shoot prop, for sure.
Even though we got home extremely late and were dead tired the next day, we both thought it was completely worth it.
When Serafina was nine, she went to her first big concert. It was a triple bill of Spoon, Cage the Elephant and Beck. Though she liked songs by both Cage the Elephant and Beck, they weren't her top picks of bands. But she enjoyed herself until she got tired and fell asleep in the seats! She didn't complain or ask to go home, just figured out a way to lay down and snoozed until it was time to go. I told Tom that we owed her one for being such an absolute trooper, so the next time Taylor Swift came to town, I would find a way to take her. Of course, a pandemic hit, during which Taylor released three albums. Serafina's musical tastes have shifted and matured, but she always has a deep love for Taylor. Then Taylor announced her epic "Eras" tour which would cover songs from all 10 of her albums. My friend Kristi (Sunny's mom) managed to get two pre-sale codes for tickets. I was waitlisted for pre-sale but never got a code. The day the tickets were released, it made national news and sparked an immense outcry from her fans because the Ticketmaster site crashed a lot and most tickets were scooped up by scalpers that resold them for thousands of dollars each. But Kristi and her husband, Ricky, both logged on to put their pre-sale codes to work. Ricky, by some sort of miracle, got through and purchased tickets at face value. And two of the tickets he scored were for me and Serafina! Amazing!
As Taylor's tour made its way across the country to us (the second-to-the-last stop), I had heard about the intensity of the fans, the insane merchandise lines and the over three-hour set list. Now I've been to a lot of concerts, big and small, but nothing prepared me for this experience.
First we did some prep.
Pretty nails for Serafina.
And making beaded bracelets with album and song titles to trade with other "Swifties". I made most of them because I do love a handicraft.
Serafina looked so pretty that night. Gorgeous make-up, beautiful dress. A lot of attendees were dressed very over-the-top, and I think if she could do it again, she would have also worn a more elaborate outfit.
So parking was a bit of an issue at a sold-out show for 60,000+ people so we parked at Ricky's work and hoofed it a little over two miles.
Serafina and Sunny in front of Levi's Stadium (home to the 49ers football team).
Our seats were way the hell up there! And in the sun for a while. The adults wandered around a bit, getting food and drink and taking in the crowd. Everyone was so dressed up and the merch lines were the longest I've ever seen at a concert. I ordered Serafina's t-shirt ahead of time online thankfully.
The girls were too excited to do much walking around. Also, Serafina ended up with blisters so she wasn't doing any extra walking. They took plenty of selfies though.
I made them smile for me too.
A selfie with Sidney (Sunny's older sister), Kristi, me, Kristi's thumb and a stranger's cleavage.
Shortly before the show started. I'm not sure if you can tell how far up we are but we are waaaayyyy up there.
There were two opening bands before Taylor took the stage a little after 8pm.
Here's a little clip of her first appearing on stage and the girls losing their minds. I love the look on Ricky's face when he realizes that these girls will be doing this the entire time.
The entire stadium was singing along. And swaying under our feet! Not just a vibration, a full rocking, undulating movement. For a moment I thought I was having some sort of vertigo episode, but Kristi confirmed she felt it too.
Do you have a favorite Taylor Swift song? I do. It's Lover...
When we entered the stadium, we were all given light-up bracelets. Just a simple plastic square on a ribbon. When the show started, the bracelets lit up and were in-sync to the music. It was an extremely cool effect.
Here's a video that shows that off pretty well.
Taylor performed almost non-stop until 11:40pm. She only left the stage a handful of times for very quick costume changes. She even made some of her changes, very creatively, on stage. She sang 45 songs, some while dancing, some while playing guitar and some others while playing piano. It was an absolutely incredible night. Both Serafina and I felt very lucky to be there. The recovery from pure exhaustion took a while but man, it was worth it.
Leo's friend Hadley came to visit from Missouri during her spring break. Our whole family loves Hadley because she's hilarious and very genuine. She came with us last summer to the lake house and the beach before she moved away. Hadley and Leo went to the mall, had multiple dinners together and took silly pictures in a photo booth.
Leo has been pestering his music teacher to let him try to baritone saxophone. She finally let him take it home on Friday and he was thrilled! The dog? Less so.
Hadley came over that afternoon and helped Leo negotiate this massive instrument. It's very large and loud.
He'll leave this big sax at school during the week and only drag it home on the weekends. He'll also have his alto sax.
A big storm rolled into Northern California earlier this month, so we weren't able to go to the lake house like we planned. We'll get a chance to spend time up there after Christmas. In the meantime, we've been trying to have some fun and enjoy the holiday season.
I took Serafina, Sunny and Leo with me to Cost Plus for some Christmas shopping. The girls found this Barbie Dream House gingerbread house and talked me into buying it.
They were quite proud of their masterpiece.
Serafina and I went to see her friend Rozalynn dance folklorico at a Christmas Festival. Their friend Arya was also there to cheer on Rozalynn.
We also went to see Arya dance in a Nutcracker. She was awesome and it was fun to see all the 6th grade friends again. From left to right: Serafina, Arya, Rozalynn and Mia.
Speaking of Nutcracker, I was asked, along with several other veteran moms, to come back and help with the elementary school Nutcracker because the last time it was performed was December 2019.
Leo came along on Monday night to help. I had him pose with the former Vice Principal, recently promoted to Principal, Mr. Fuller while he was in his sheep costume after he took the stage with all the little kids. There are sheep in this version of the Nutcracker so they could give even more kids roles since Nutcracker is a very popular activity.
Here's all the directors after the final show. Well, all but the head director that tested positive for Covid right before this show. She's the one that got me to come back even though I didn't really enjoy my time. It's just not the same when you don't have your own kid in the production.
After a brief recovery from the Nutcracker performances, we got to see Leo appear as a "special guest" at the middle school winter concert. The music teacher called me herself to ask if he could attend the concert and demonstrate to the middle school kids how high school musicians perform.
I'm sure she called everyone, but these are the five that showed up.
They sat in the front while different groups of kids took the stage. They know all the songs that were played, but when they did know and join in on a song, they sounded great.
The concert was in the school cafeteria, which is also where Serafina had her school dance the very next day. Yes, day. Immediately after school, the winter dance took place in broad daylight. According to Serafina, no one really danced and it wasn't all that fun. But from pictures she took with her friends, it looks like she had a pretty good time.
Here she is with her school besties Bella and Sidney.
Silly photo booth pictures.
She took some time this weekend to volunteer as a Teaching Assistant for the dance studio's Christmas Party. She's a TA during the week for a pre-jazz class and some of her little friends were at the party. Here's an adorable selfie.
Leo started with the school band at the beginning of the school year and opted to play saxophone, even though this is a completely new instrument for him. Since the school is brand new, they sometimes make plans for events that don't actually happen because the facility isn't ready or they don't have the manpower to pull it off. But last night, they successfully held their first Winter Concert. The performing arts center at school is impressive, even though it's not finished. It was close enough to done to host us last night.
The school is small since it's just 9th graders currently. So that means the band is small too, just 16 kids.
The small band lead to a small crowd so I had the perfect seat to watch Leo perform. I love an unobstructed view!
Here they are playing "Holiday Sampler". Leo is one of two saxophone players. The other sax kid, Treyvon, has been playing for a while. It made me extra proud that Leo held his own next to him.
Star Wars is always going to be a crowd pleaser.
Leo gave a snarky introduction to the song Seven Nation Army. He isn't a fan of this song or the band that wrote it.
Louie Louie was my hands-down favorite because of how Leo moved and grooved while he played.
The teacher wanted some additional numbers to round out the program. Originally Leo was going to perform a duet with another kid that plays guitar. Unfortunately, they didn't get enough practice time to play that song, so the teacher asked Leo to perform a solo. He played part of Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. It was great to see him play guitar as well. He was one of only four soloist.
Here's my multi-instrument musical master! I was so proud. I smiled the whole time and he was clearly pleased and a little relieved when it was over. He said he really like performing in the theater because he couldn't really see the audience from the stage and that made him less nervous.
I'm also glad that Nana got a chance to join us and see him play live.
Serafina's "big" birthday present this year was concert tickets to see Lizzo and we got to go this past Saturday night. My friend Kristi was nice enough to drive us up to the city where we had a yummy pizza dinner. Afterwards, before walking to the arena, we stopped in a big historic building. At first we thought it was a hotel, but there were endless living rooms set up and no actually hotel rooms. The girls decided it was a "bougie IKEA". And sure enough, it turns out it was a Restoration Hardware store with a restaurant and bar on the first floor. It was kind of surreal experience and I'm glad Kristi was there to marvel about it with me.
Of course it was a great photo opportunity and these two goof balls had a lot of fun.
A highlight was the rooftop with fire pits and amazing views of the Bay Bridge.
A short walk from there is the Chase Center where the Warriors play. They ususally have these cool mirror balls in front, but because humans are terrible they have been vandalized recently and were covered up. That didn't stop us from taking some pictures.
Found our seats!
Ready for the show.
First a little ice cream treat.
It was a fantastic, high energy show. Lizzo was amazing and did a wonderful job engaging the crowd. It was an all around awesome night.
