And so, to recap:

And so, to recap:

Wow, what a day. I’ll try not to repeat too much from our posts yesterday. Oh, and to clarify: we were both posting yesterday, but they’re all listed with Alexis as the author, since we were using her Blackberry. Apologies for the jumping back and forth between first and third person narration, but it was a long day. Proper grammar kind of went out the window.

Anyway,

I picked Alexis up around 2:45 a.m. We stopped at the gas station first because the tank was on E. We didn’t want to run out of gas on the way to the mall! Alexis realized that she’d forgotten her wallet at home, so we had to go back to her house to get it. After searching for a few minutes at home, she checked one more time in the bag that she had thrown into the car and found it.

With gas in the tank and Red Bull in our bellies, we headed to the mall, arriving around 3:30. The driveways leading into the mall were all barricaded off from the north side (where we were). We pulled into the surface lot across the street, where several other vehicles were parked. We noticed that people were walking in the direction of the West parking ramp, so Alexis took one for the team and sprinted in their direction. The “official” word from the mall was that nobody was going to be let in before 4:00, so she was surprised to see a line already forming in the skyway between the ramp level P4 and the level 3 mall entrance. There were cars in the ramp too! She called me to tell me to come up the back (south) way, so I was on my way.

By the time I made it into the ramp, Alexis had parked herself in line.
This is what it looked like from where we were sitting:

I think somebody counted and we were numbers 60-something in line. 63 and 64 maybe? If only we hadn’t had to stop for gas…

We had to walk an obstacle course of stanchions before reaching the skyway.

We sat in the skyway until 5:00, when they opened the doors to the mall. The new Best Buy is right inside the doors at level 3 East.
That line looked like this:


We made a tent:


Around 9:00, Magic Johnson showed up. He was also part of the Grand Opening festivities. We didn’t get a very good photo of that, but maybe one of these people did:


Shortly before 10, I ran back to the car to stash a blanket and pillow, before the CD presale started. I noticed a group of fashionable young boys being photographed by lots of girls… I had no idea who they were, but I mentioned it to Alexis and other people in line.

She grabbed the camera, told me to grab the dolls, and we headed in that direction.
Apparently they are a new boy band, formed by Maurice Starr (who also created NKOTB). Alexis explained to them the importance of taking photos with Barbies:



I think they are called the Heartbeat Boys, but we could never remember their name in time… Yesterday, they were They Hardy Boys, The Funky Fresh Fellows, The Heartbreakers, Heart Throb USA, Don’t Break My Heart, and Menudo.
They wandered the mall all day, but didn’t perform anywhere, at least as far as we knew.

At 10:00, the line for the CD presale finally started moving. Unfortunately, they only had ONE cash register set up for this event. Seriously?

By 10:45, we finally had made it through the presale line, and headed towards the next line at the rotunda.

It was like a human feedlot, with people winding back and forth, back and forth, between the stanchions. It was very cattle-ish.

The first people in line that morning (the Return of NKOTB girls) were naturally the first people in the rotunda. Technically, they should have had to move all the way to the end of the first row. That would have meant that they were all the way to the side instead of front and center. Luckily for them, the Best Buy folks were being nice and let them only move partway down the row, so they wouldn’t have to deal with an obstructed sightline. Luckily for us, we landed in the row right behind them and to the right a little bit. I overheard the deal that was being made with the Best Buy staff and security, that if they needed extra room, that more people could fill in along the sides.

We made a deal with Kim (not OUR Kim, the Return of NKOTB Kim) that as long as she could be the first person in the autograph line, that she’d let us cut “in front” of her in line.


So now we were in the front row, just off of the corner!

So, now on to the final stretch of waiting.
As long as you had somebody sitting next to you saving your spot in line, you were free to leave the line to eat, use the restroom, change clothes, etc.

They had videos running on the big screens over the stage.

That was fine… except they only played three things on a continuous loop:
1. The May 16 performance from the Today Show, which consisted of Summertime and an old-school medley of songs.
2. The Summertime video.
3. The making-of video of the Summertime video, for which the soundtrack was – naturally – Summertime.
That’s it. For SEVEN HOURS. It’s as though the Dharma Initiative was running the soundboard. Way to torture us with something that we once found pleasing. I was nearly ready to jump off of one of the upper balconies.

These are some of the nice people that we met in line. Unfortunately, we spaced on many of the names. If you see yourself here, let us know who you are!

Heather & Sadie from Iowa




(love his t-shirt!)


Kim, Kristin, and Mandie




Kim and Kim (gosh, there were a lot of Kims there)






Adorable 14-yr olds Sara and Cheyenne, and their aunt Jenny


The group of “TC Blockheads”


The line thickens:






Cheyenne, Sara, and Mandie


After sitting for several hours, we needed to go stretch our legs for a little bit.
This is what the stage looked like from above:


We grabbed a quick happy hour drink at the new Corona Cantina on the fourth floor, then headed back to our place in line.

Shortly after we got back, a security guard who helped us out setting up some photos (thanks to the hookup from the TC Blockheads), asked if we wanted to be on TV. KARE 11 was covering the event (as were other media outlets). I guess 31-yr old women who otherwise seem normal, but who play with Barbies, might be good for a soundbite?


The article
And the 11:00 news clip (11 instead of 10 because of the Olympics):


The 6:00 news clip included a snippet of me saying that we’re doing this now because “we have disposable income, vacation days, our moms can’t say no!!!”
The show was scheduled to start at 5:30, but Dave & Lena from KDWB came out to make some announcements, including the one about the start time being delayed.

Dave said it was due to a flight delay, but another media personality who will go unnamed said it was because they were being “bitchy,” especially their publicist, who he likened to Cruella DeVille.

We were starting to get pretty ripe by this time… We’d been up and at it for nearly 16 hours by that point.

We’re still pretty cute though.

The Fine Flying Funky Bunch (I mean Hearty Boys? Heartbreakers? I give up.) and Maurice Starr used the delay as an opportunity to mingle some more.




You never know. They might be famous someday. Whatever their name is.


Finally, FINALLY, the show started just before 6:30.

There are dozens and dozens and dozens (okay well over a hundred) photos of the show.
Rather than post them all here, you can find them here and here

Here are a few of our favorites:





















I will swear until the day I die that this kiss was thrown right to me. There was full eye contact going on. It’s not my video or link, but I’m going to post it anyway because, SERIOUSLY??? I have been waiting 20 years for that.

Thanks to Kim/2008Blockhead for the link.

They sang Summertime (ugh, but it was fine live), Tonight, and Single. Ne-Yo is actually on the studio version of Single, but I wish it wasn’t too late to fire him. That song is HOT, and it was awesome without him.

Another link that's not mine:

And then, just like that, the show was over.

They left the stage for about 15 minutes. They came back (some of them in different clothes), and did a short meet & greet with the folks in the special needs section.







Jon was running late when the rest of the guys had already gone up to the table on the stage. A chant of “Jon! Jon! Jon!” was started by Donnie & Danny


He was actually just spending extra time in the “special needs” section before the on-stage autograph session started.



The autograph session was yet another organized line to go through. We were some of the first people to go through it.

We lined up at the edge of the stage. As we approached, if you had a bag or purse you had to put it in a basket, and someone carried your stuff to the other side of the stage for you. Like at the airport, but without having to take off your shoes.

As we posted about last night, Donnie made both of our days complete. He personalized Alexis’s laminate with "follow your thing" after she yelled at the security guard who was trying to move her along. He made me a 14-year old girl again, when as I was waiting for Danny to finish, he touched my hand then winked at me. So trivial, but so awesome.

Kim’s laminate:


Alexis’s “follow your thing” laminate”


The backside:


So, in a very large nutshell, that was our day.
We went to Spanky’s afterwards to try to upload photos, but couldn’t get a signal. We mostly just stared at each other, with several good fits of giggles thrown in. I was ready to crash after a couple of beers and half of a burger, but Alexis went out on the town (wearing her laminate, naturally).

This morning we discussed future NKOTB-related plans. We’ve rethought our Boston decision. We think that we need to go. We also think we need to go to Los Angeles. Crazy? Yes. But how can you put a price tag on something that you’ve dreamed about for so long… and that can make you SO happy?

The savings accounts will be visited… plans are in the works. Stay tuned ;)

The tiny version of the day