"it's not a scarf, mom"

yeah, i'll explain later.

mommy & me time with the old lady continued on monday, when we headed out to the west side for something super fun:

oh yes.  britney spears "the zone" is one of those pop-up experiences that we love so much, and we decided to head out that way when it was just the two of us.  no one else in our family would have appreciated it as much as we knew we would.  britney was the old lady's very first concert way back when she was about 3, and she had dolls and the tour bus play set and shirts all sorts of fun stuff.  i'd known about this when it was first announced, but it wasn't till one of my friends tagged me in a post on facebook that i asked the old lady if she wanted to go.  and we were amused to see that even the spots in the parking lot were painted pink:

it was fairly early and so when we walked in, we were greeted happily by the staff that was waiting at the check-in desk.

since the experience was about an hour long, we were encouraged to hit the restroom before we started, and even that was fabulous.

and right outside the restroom, a taste of what was to come:

we waited here for our guide and another father/daughter couple to get scanned and wristbanded.

our first stop:  britney high, made to resemble the set from the "baby one more time" video.  we were invited to take a seat and watch a quick safety video.

the next room was the locker room, where you could check out the gear inside several of the lockers and pull on the pink sparkly "fire alarm."

 the official britney high gym.

here you could write a quick note to britney which we were assured would be given to her at some point during the run of the pop-up.

then it was time to go out into space...via the "oops, i did it again" video set.

"but i thought the old lady dropped it into the ocean at the end?"  well, here it is.

this was a special photo op that you could pose on, just like the one that britney rolled around on in the video.  we may have taken advantage of it, but the resulting photos look so ridiculous that i just can't share them.

next up:  the "stronger" set.

her duet with madonna - "me against the music."

here, too, was another photo op - actually, a video.  you grab a cane and do some dancing against the wall and the video clip they'd send to the app you downloaded on your phone at the beginning would magically add britney dancing on the other side of the wall with you.  we let ourselves be talked into doing the video, but remember that i'm a terrible dancer and the old lady flat-out refuses to dance at all.  it's so embarrassing that even me, the oversharer extraordinaire, won't ever post it.  heh.

then it was time for a "toxic" flight aboard brit air.

 when you answered this phone, you'd hear - what else? - britney herself telling you "it's britney, bitch."

when we "landed," we were at the "circus."

 i'm not sure why i felt the need to pop my leg for this picture.  it just came naturally.

 boomerang op!

 the old lady decided to lower herself carefully into the ball pit for a quick photo.

but of course, i went all in and did a total trust fall:

that ball pit was clearly made for adults vs. smaller kids, because it was really deep.  like, when i landed i was a good foot below the surface and i couldn't get my bearings to push my way out.  the old lady told me later that she could actually feel me starting to panic, and she and the guide talked me through it until i was finally able to find my feet on the bottom and make my way out of there.  sheesh.

time to go to church:

here's where we met the snake...a la "i'm a slave 4 u."

the cage with the snake to pose with was another boomerang opportunity, and we both went for it.

of course, that's when i asked the old lady to take a quick still photo and i inexplicably wrapped that snake around me like i was accessorizing for the snow.  "it's not a scarf, mom!" she said, and everyone in the room started cracking up.  when we were done laughing at me, she took another, slightly more appropriate photo.

the next photo op was for the "paparazzi," for a magazine cover.

 and the final room of the experience.

 of course, there was a shop here with merchandise exclusive to those who went through the pop-up.

but we chose to head on out of there and check out the merchandise we'd walked through briefly when we first arrived.  they also had a few of britney's actual costumes used in videos and the dress she'd worn in her appearance in "star search" when she was a little girl.

i had to work hard to talk myself out of grabbing one of these.  i would've taken it happily to orangetheory and to barre classes, but honestly, the last thing i needed was another water bottle.

we were both amused at this wall.

all the merchandise was really fun, and we had a blast going through it all to pick out some souvenirs to take home.

while we hadn't really known what to expect (because we avoided looking at posts and photos online), we were pleasantly surprised at how much fun we'd had as we went through the whole thing. i'd been a little anxious about how much the old lady would enjoy it, again because she doesn't dance, and it was all about britney after all.  but we both had a really good time giggling through it together, and it made for more fun memories to look back on later.

plus, we've got that ridiculous video that will never see the light of day.  muahahahahahahaha.