Dear Taylor Swift,

I’ve made no secret of the fact that in our house, we love music. My daddy was teaching us Beatles’ tunes before elementary school and I was introduced to the awesomeness of The Grateful Dead my freshman year of high school. I’ve seen some pretty amazing shows in my lifetime (Hello, Lenny Kravitz in his heyday) and still have plenty left on the bucket list to conquer. I have a vast collection of concert tees and I don’t care how expensive or unnecessary they are —  if we go, I will buy.

Even while my girls were babes in arms, I thought about how fun it would be to take them to their first concert. It might sound silly, but I wanted to be sure their first concert experience was one to be proud of. I did not want them to fall victim to Nickelodeon bands and one hit wonders. I’m embarrassed to admit that I attended my first concert in the sixth grade and rocked this song out!

We laugh because their taste is music is so eclectic. At any given moment they may belt out a tune by John Mayer, the Lumineers, Stevie Nicks or even Aerosmith. When Sophie and I got our hair cut last month, she serenaded the entire place with Pearl Jam’s version of Last Kiss. Her daddy would have been proud.

I know that not everyone is a fan of Taylor Swift. I was never a country music lover, but we have managed to buy every single album she’s produced. Her tunes are catchy and my kids know the words to pretty much every one. Prior to this year, I would certainly say we were casual Swifty listeners. Then 1989 happened. I heard “Shake it Off” first and played the video for Josh one night after the kids were in bed. By the next afternoon, they knew every single word and were working on the choreography. Let me just say that once we downloaded the album, it was on heavy rotation from there on out. By all four members of our household. Josh and I kind of have a crush on her and may or may not have watched one too many videos on YouTube {this one and this one are my favs}.

I knew we didn’t have a hope or a prayer of her playing in Birmingham, but when she announced that she’d be in Atlanta and Nashville, I decided we would just have to road trip it to one of those venues. There was no way I was going to let my girls miss out on the phenomenon if I could help it. The tickets were released for pre-sale nearly a year in advance of our show dates. Not only did it feel really weird buying tickets for next October, but I had a hard time securing a pre-sale code and was worried sick the tickets would sell out.

I have been seriously giddy since the purchase and could not wait to surprise the girls on Christmas morning. My mom thinks it’s torturous that they have to wait ten months before the show and suggested that I save them for Ella’s birthday next September. I would rather have them ask me 1200 times how much longer we have to wait than to keep a secret for that long! It’s been painful keeping it for ten weeks?! The best part was, since she isn’t playing in Birmingham, our girls had no idea tickets were even a possibility. It was a complete and total surprise and worth every single penny.