the saturday experience

saturday was one of our busiest days ever.  first up, the bean's saturday math/science class, to which we were welcomed by one of the household mascots:

from there, we got a quick breather at home before heading out to her soccer game.  this one was particularly awesome not just because our team won, but because the bean somehow managed to get some field time playing in all sorts of positions.  she was goalie, offense, and defense all in one game:

at halftime, she got a little bit of personalized coaching.

the hub stood proudly along the sidelines, cheering and encouraging the girls the whole time.

when we got home, it was a mad dash to get cleaned up and ready to head out for the next item on the agenda.  i'd seen my friend nanette post about her daughter going to see something interesting here:

and when i checked online, it turned out that it was the final weekend for this:

the first thing we saw when we walked inside was this:

the second floor was full of all things t-swizzle.  childhood mementos:

costumes from her elaborate tour productions:

one of her bedazzled guitars:

handwritten lyrics to one of her earlier songs:

an entire wall dedicated to magazine covers she's graced:

of course, there was a grammy.

like my shirt?

we stepped inside this booth to do a little karaoke.  while the old lady and her special friend looked on in silent amusement, the girls and i happily belted out all the words to a recent taylor song.

those two had mixed reactions to this exhibit.  one was a little undercover excited, the other was a bit eye-rolly over it all.

but the rest of us had a blast with a dance party on the light board to "shake it off," which was on continuous loop.  while i adore that song, i'm sure the employees who work that floor are probably a little tired of it.

we all managed to escape the gift store without spending a dime on any taylor merchandise.  although i confess, that was solely due to the lack of sizes smaller than L.  being the last weekend, all of the stuff was pretty much picked over.

then we finally, reluctantly left the second floor to check out the other areas of the museum.

there was a whole display celebrating the music of tupac shakur.

r.i.p., whitney and michael.

when we discovered this area, playtime began in earnest.

the girls had fun in one of the interactive "mixing booths."

 there was a bit of boredom for some in the group.

so we made our way outta there.  after dropping our little friend off at home, we stopped at ours just long enough to grab the hub and our pre-packed bags and then headed off to the next destination:  the knott's berry farm hotel, where we all got a little face time with snoopy in our rooms.

 we went out one last time to grab some dinner somewhere super fun - farrell's ice cream parlor.

the old lady and i happily shared a plate of "ice cream nachos" - waffle chips, three kinds of ice cream, marshmallow, caramel and hot fudge sauces, and whipped cream.  oh, so delicious.

and we got serenaded by some of the talented employees before we left.

phew.  long day.  and the weekend still wasn't over yet!