Taylor Swift Eras Tour concert in Las Vegas!

We had such a fun weekend going to Las Vegas as a family!  And, of course, the Taylor Swift concert was spectacular and something we will remember forever!

On Friday morning, Dad, Daniel, Jonny, and I all drove to Las Vegas. My goal was to leave at 10 AM and we left a little after 10:30 AM so that was pretty good. Dad drove the whole way so that was really nice. Michael and Andrew stayed behind and drove out later because of Andrew’s track meet. We stopped in Wickenburg at Arby’s at the Mobile station like we always do. That was our only stop until we got to Las Vegas. We went directly to the Saint Honore donut shop to get the donuts I had pre-ordered. I was pretty excited about my box of donuts.

Then we headed to the Homewood Suites and got checked in. The boys weren't sure where they wanted to eat and I already had the reservation for the barbecue place. I made them look at the menu and Jonny was pretty excited that they had fried pickles so that's where we went. The brisket was amazing! Michael and Andrew arrived that night and so did Nathaniel, Emily, and Audrey.

On Saturday morning, everyone came to our room and we had a family prayer and talked about the plan for our day. We gave Nathaniel his birthday card and Dad gave him his birthday card as well. Everyone had breakfast and finished getting ready. By the time we got to the Pinball Hall of Fame, it was close to 10:40 AM. 

I had fun playing ski ball and winning tickets with Jonny. We were able to use our 30 tickets to get three tiny pieces of candy ha ha. 

Dad went to the claw machine and immediately won an Elsa doll for Emily. She was pretty surprised. Jonny won a big green fish. Then Dad got a tie-dyed teddy bear and gave it to Audrey. Dad kept trying to win a yellow bear for me. Then Jonny kept trying to get it and finally won it. 

He gave it to Dad proudly, Dad said he was trying to get it for me, and I said Jonny should keep it because I know how much he loves stuffed animals so he seemed pretty happy about that. Everyone seemed to have fun. 

Emily and Daniel played Dance Dance Revolution like they do. Michael and Daniel played some shooting games. Nathaniel and Audrey played air hockey and then later Michael and Andrew played and Daniel wanted to play me. Of course, Emily wanted to play so she played with Dad but it was getting close to noon and we needed to get going. 

We finally left a little before noon and drove over to the Venetian. There was quite a bit of traffic. It was cool to walk around the Canal Shops. We got to where you get on the gondola ride and it looked like there wasn't a line but a worker pointed out the actual line behind us and we knew it would take an hour so we gave up on that. 

We walked around and saw the Wishing Tree and went to a rare bookstore. 

By then, everybody was hungry. I think it was about 1:30 PM by then. We backtracked through the Venetian to the cars. We drove over to South Point casino to go to the Garden Buffet.  That place is huge! It wasn't too hard to find the buffet. We've been wanting to try that buffet for a long time. The prime rib was just OK. It was nice to be able to get whatever drinks we wanted included. The desserts were amazing! I could've eaten twice as much as I did but I was so full I couldn't eat anymore. After lunch, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the concert. 

I really wanted to take my selfie stick but it was against the rules and I found out when we went in that they barely checked your bag so I probably could've hidden it pretty easily in the clear bag but oh well. Michael dropped us off and we just had a short walk down a path and across one road that had plenty of people directing traffic so it was easy to get into the stadium. 

Michael, Dad, Nathaniel, and Andrew had fun while we were gone. After they dropped us off, Michael and Nathaniel went back to the hotel to get Dad and Andrew and they went to go to go carts. They only had time for one race, though, because they had to go to the helicopter by 7 PM. I guess the ride was pretty short but they had a great time and it was really cool. The ride was only 10 minutes but Dad and Michael both said it was a very short 10 minutes.

 

The lines for the merchandise were really long. We bought some water and found our seats. We took a bunch of pictures while we waited. 

We had fantastic seats!

The view from our seats

The concert started at 6:30 PM and there were two opening acts and their names were Gayle and Beabadoobee. Taylor came out to perform at about 8 PM. 

The opening was really cool. There's a little countdown clock to tell you when she's coming out. Then the door slowly opened and these people came through this door with, the only way to describe them is like a big fan but it looks like a shell and it was a big piece of fabric that went over each performer to make it look like a shell and then one by one they all walked out to the middle and it looked really cool. Then, they suddenly all moved away and moved their fabric away and she was right there in the middle of the stage. I think she came up through the middle of the stage or something but it was really cool. By the second song, I was getting pretty emotional. Emily was, too. It's not like me to get emotional like that but I just was thinking about how long she's been a fan and how long she's dreamed of this and I was so thrilled to be there with her. She's never really talked about going to a Taylor Swift concert. Every time there's ever been a concert it's always like oh, there's a Taylor Swift concert and the tickets sold out in two minutes and we didn't know how to get them. Well, this time we decided we were going to get them and we did it. Anyway, the show was incredible. I didn't tape a whole lot because I just wanted to enjoy it. There were a few fun songs where we were all getting into it and I took some video.

Fearless

You Belong With Me

Love Story

Evermore intro

Reputation intro and Ready For It

Look What You Made Me Do

Enchanted

22

Shake It Off

Cowboy Like Me

White Horse

Taylor dives into the Midnights Era

Lavender Haze

The time actually went by pretty quickly. She didn't end until about 11:15 PM, which is what Emily had said would happen. There was one song toward the end where she was doing two unique "surprise" songs that are unique to the concert, like a surprise for that night. It was a song of hers called Cowboy Like Me and the guy she did the duet with showed up and sang it with her and everybody went crazy. Emily was shocked and thrilled she did that song with that guy. His name is Marcus Mumford. I had no idea who that was but Emily was pretty excited about it. Another cool part was when Taylor Swift was at the far end of the stage and a door in the floor opened up and she jumped in like she was diving and then the graphics on the stage made it look like she was swimming underneath the stage to the front. It's hard to describe but it was pretty cool. Anyway, it was a wonderful concert. Sabrine showed up right before Taylor Swift came on. Audrey knew all the songs and sang all the words and danced and had a great time. She kept telling me how grateful she was that we took her there because she loved it. Nobody loved it as much as Emily, but Audrey was pretty happy. The boys seemed to have fun but they also looked kind of tired the whole time. They sang with us quite a bit but they didn't dance very much. I asked Emily if Taylor would do an encore and she said no, that's just the end so as soon as it was over, we grabbed our stuff and booked it out of there. There were some posters of Taylor Swift on different posts and things and so we found the one that was Emily's favorite for Speak Now and we took one more picture there and then we headed out. 

There was so much traffic for Michael to pick us up so we waited for about half an hour. We went right back to the spot where he dropped us off. It was pretty cold but we got back to the hotel pretty quickly and it was fine. I said good night to Jonny and he went right to bed. Emily changed her clothes and came over to our room and had a doughnut. She and Daniel watched a few minutes of a Friends episode. When she came into the room she was in tears and she came over to me and gave me lots of hugs. She kept saying she doesn't think she can't thank me enough for bringing her here and getting those tickets for her. She was crying again, she was so happy. 

We got to bed pretty late. I think it was probably 1:30 AM by the time I got in bed but it was worth it!!!

Spring Break Fun

We had a fun spring break!  It was fun to have Emily with us for a couple days so she could attend the Taylor Swift concert.

A new haircut for Emily

  Bowling

Daniel applying for his first real job as a lifeguard.  He had to record his responses to various questions.  He did a great and got the job as a swim safety instructor!  That means he was able to teach swim lessons and also be a lifeguard.

Mini golf with Papa