Rewind to last fall: Lily, Luke and I were hanging out at Elijah B's house while his mommy took Graham to an appointment. The TV was on the Disney channel and Miley Cyrus announced her BIG upcoming 3D concert movie. The moment is ingrained in my brain because I looked across the room to catch Lily's gaze, expecting: Can we go? Can we? Can we? but her actual response was...Oooh, that's a nice TV. Regardless, the same ad played for weeks upon weeks and although I thought it'd be fun, February seemed forever away.

Fastforward to Christmas: Lily opened a Hannah Montana doll that included a "backstage pass" accessory. Just a toy thingy, with a place to write your name, a fun little addition to imaginative play, but Lily didn't know that. She came to me with huge, excited eyes yelling, My ticket! My ticket! I get to go to the show! Two thoughts crossed my mind: tell her the truth, that the pass is just a toy OR agree, buy her a real ticket and she'll be none the wiser. I went with a third option, and explained that although the pass was just a little extra something with the doll, we were indeed going to the show...and in that moment I decided hell or high water, I was taking my baby girl to that movie. If you'd seen the look on her face when I told her the pass wasn't a movie ticket, the try-to-hide-the-disappointment mixed with her slight embarrassment for getting so excited, you'd have made the same commitment. The next day I was online checking into tickets, but again, even in December, February felt so far.

Now fastfoward to a couple weeks ago: One night I was on the phone chatting with Gina about who knows what (I'd guess Quest, our cute hubbies or what we'd do with unlimited cash resources) and the local news ran a segment about HM movie tickets being almost sold out! AHHHHH! Right then I jumped up, ran to my computer and secured 3 tickets to a Wednesday afternoon show. And honestly, I was pretty excited myself!


Next day: I had a happy little email in my inbox from Gina saying she and Abbey were going to join us...fun!

A week or so later: As Orange Tour approached, I told the kids about the tickets as a guilt offering. Mommy will be out of the house for the better part of 2 days, but guess where we're going next week?
That brings me to yesterday, the BIG day! We checked Lily out of school a few minutes early, her office staff was so sweet to the loser mom signing her kid out for a movie...they acted genuinely excited for us! With a purse full of Walmart candy and 3 very excited kids, Gina and I found our place in line...an hour early. We passed the time by taking pics as if we'd never been to the movin'-picture-show and quizzed each other: What's your favorite Hannah song? Later with tub o'normous popcorn and diet sodas (what else do you wash candy and popcorn down with?) we found our "concert" seats. Great seats, great kids, great junk food. It was everything a movie experience should be. I could have done without the 3D, gave me a bit of a headache, but the huge grin Lily flashed me every time our eyes met was so worth it all! Luke seemed less impressed (and was in the minority being male), but I know he had a good time. He's a Hannah fan, too. And he took his 3D glasses to show and tell today (as you can see by the pics, we were all about the glasses!)

On the drive home we played "Favorite/Least Favorite concert outfit" and I'm proud to say that the outfit that Gina and I disliked the most was Lily's favorite, and she didn't change her answer to suit us. What my girl lacks in fashion sense, she makes up for in being her own woman. I like that about her. And Luke? He didn't like or dislike anything, he's a lot like his daddy in that regard. He's just Luke, as in Luke-warm.