Jonas Brothers Concert!!!

We’ve had a whirlwind 48 hours, and we’ve also had the time of our lives! I actually started out the day working half a day, and was given a nice little Starbucks gift card! Then I got off at noon, packed as fast as possible, got Emmie, ran inside Walmart, ordered us road trip drinks with my Starbucks card, and we finally hit the road around 2pm, on our way to Jacksonville!

I got an iced gingerbread latte, and added two pumps of chai, and it was delicious. And Emerson enjoyed her little strawberry acai refresher with cold foam too.

After we made it about halfway there, after lots of singing, a potty break at the Busy Bee (of course), she decided to take a little rest. She started out sitting mostly up-right, but then not too long later, she was totally asleep, and at a totally wacky angle. I actually took about five different photos as she progressively got more and more slumped over, but here are the first and last ones.

We actually went to my cousin Sydney’s house first (well, I guess technically she’s like my fourth cousin or something, she’s my mom’s cousin’s daughter… but “cousin” is really sufficient enough 😉 ), who lives on the outskirts of Jax. We had a little time to hang out and chat there, then we had Chick-fil-A for dinner, and the she ever so graciously drove us to the concert, so we didn’t even have to worry about driving or parking or anything! It was so stinking freezing, so we were bundled up in three layers, with blankets as well, to brave the 35-degree weather, to attend Emerson’s very first concert ever, in an outdoor amphitheater!

The first opener was a super fun DJ, and the second opener was the youngest Jonas, who’s not actually in the Jonas Brothers band, Franklin Jonas, and he did awesome too. But by 8:40 pm, we were more than ready to see the main event. And when the Jonas Brothers themselves actually came out on stage, we could barely stand it! We were so excited to see them live and in person, after sooo many tour TikToks the past few months. We couldn’t believe we were finally, actually there!!

And you guys, it was truly an incredible concert and an awesome experience! We were both having the time of our lives, dancing and singing and yelling and jumping around. We were the last two seats in our row, up against a tall fence, so Emmie stood in the last chair, kinda clinging to the fence, so she had a great view of everything from up there.

We’ve been listening to a giant playlist of the Jonas Brothers on repeat for about six months now, so her and I both knew almost all of the words to all of the songs. We both have our favorites though, and between the two of us, we had about four or five faves we really wanted to hear live. And we heard all of those favorites, except my very favorite, number one pick, “Walls,” which they didn’t sing, which made me really devastated, since I was waiting on that one, just hoping they would play it next 🙁

 

I found this graphic online today of our show’s set list from last night, so that will be fun to save for the future.

Sydney came back to pick us up at 11pm last night, and by the time we got back to their house, chatted a while, and tried to calm down from the high of the concert, it was almost 1am before we were both asleep. So we slept in a little bit this morning, and then Sydney’s husband Jesse made us an amazing breakfast out on their Blackstone, with pancakes, eggs, bacon, and sausage, and of course a giant mug of coffee to go with it.

We had a little time to hang out and chat all together this morning, and Emmie got to love on their doggies, who she was obsessed with.

We got all our stuff packed up to hit the road, and decided to search out a few Little Free Library’s in the neighborhood. One of them was by this nice little playground, and Emmie asked if she could stay and play and get her wiggles out. I just loved sitting in the bright sunshine, getting some fresh air while she played.

And girlfriend really lucked out at the LFL there too!

I’ve wanted to try Dutch Bro’s coffee for a couple of years now, but we don’t have one in Tally, and the times we’ve visited others cities where they exist, we just never made it work before. But today, we just so happened to come across one very nearby the playground, and I had a Visa gift card to use from our work Christmas party, so we treated ourselves to more delicious road trip drinks. Emmie got a Palm Beach fizzy soda (pomegranate & peach, I think) with strawberry boba, and I got some sort of hazelnut truffle latte thing off their seasonal menu, but I don’t remember what it was called. Both drinks were super delicious though, and I would definitely like to go back and visit again sometime to try more drinks.

And then we realized we were near a taco place that Jeff and I tried out back on our visit in October, so we decided to go have a light lunch before officially hitting the road. We lucked out there again, because kids meals were only $2 on Wednesday’s, and I ordered the triple taco lunch meal for only $11, and we had a great lunch, at a great price.

My cute little bookworm cracked her book open pretty much the second we were in the car, and read for quite a while, while I was navigating mid-day Jacksonville traffic.

Of course we stopped back by the Busy Bee on our drive home. Since we didn’t purchase a $50 tour t-shirt at the concert last night (sheesh, steep prices!), I let her pick out a cute little “Palm Pal,” which made her super excited and happy. We also picked one out for baby sister, a little black and white cow named “Sweetie.” The crazy thing, Emerson’s axolotl was named “Jax,” which is just so perfect and coincidental!

We made it back to town a little before 5pm, then spent the evening having appetizers and snacks and chips & dips that Nana made for dinner, and playing around with their plastic axe-throwing game thing in the garage. We stayed a little late, then went back through the Allison Christmas Lights Spectacular again one more time this year on our way home. Both girls fell asleep on our way home, and it was super easy to get them to bed once we got inside the house. Now, just praying they sleep through the night with all the fireworks, since it’s New Years Eve!

Just leaving one more picture of the finale song from the concert last night, because everything was so amazing. We truly had the time of our lives, and I am so grateful that we were able to make this happen. It was a perfect first concert for Emerson, and I hope she remembers it for the rest of her life!

And here’s a cute video montage I made of our awesome concert experience! We couldn’t believe we were actually there, and then we couldn’t believe how quickly it was over, and wanted to start the whole thing over again!