So it’s been a few weeks since I’ve written a blog. Summer is flying by before my eyes! But we’ve had a great few weeks spending time at the lake with friends the last weekend of June, had one of my best-friends and Quinn’s godmother visit us over the 4th of July week/weekend, played “single mom” while Jared was gone last week for a work conference (PS… God bless the single mothers out there….) and this last weekend went to Minneapolis to experience the best night of my life. Now, some of you may think “That can’t possibly be true? Isn’t the best day/night of a woman’s life the day you get engaged, married or have kids?” Um, no. As you can see from the picture above, this last weekend I lived out all of my adolescent hopes and dreams with one of my besties at the Boyz II Men/98 Degrees/NKOTB concert. This isn’t a joke. This is literally the inspiration of my blog.

Let me take you back to 1988 – I was 8 years old and heard “Hanging Tough”. It was life changing. NKOTB literally took over my adolescent dreams for at least 5-6 years. I had posters, sheets (yes, for an actual bed), cassette players, beach towels, t-shirts, VHS concert series, every cassette and single ever released (remember “singles”? They were $1.99 for 2 songs and usually came in a cardboard cover – classic), board games (my dad frequently likes to talk about that game I never played but just had to own), etc. I think the only piece of memorabilia I didn’t have was a doll because let’s be honest…. they took my semi-stalking tendencies to absolutely creepy on the “you need a life” meter.

Then we’ll move on to 1990 when Boyz II Men hit it big. I’m positive I cried over high school heartaches to every Boyz II Men slow song they ever made. I remember thinking “It’s like they know my life!” This was an extremely dramatic justification considering now that I’m older, I don’t see how “I’ll Make Love To You” had anything to do with a 16 year old….

Then comes 1997 – 98 Degrees came into play. Having a love of boy bands early in life, I didn’t care if I was 16-32. I love a good boy band (currently they’re more of a “man band”). N’Sync, BSB…. I love them all. Nick Lachey – Hi. So as you can imagine, seeing all 3 of these bands in one night for the first time about sent me over the edge. I literally lost my marbles. We were lucky enough to score 2nd row seats. My friend almost had a heart-attack. However, after heavy flirting with the security guard (you learn to do this at concerts), he let us move to the front row.

You also have to understand because of the era these bands were popular in, it was “mom jean central”. I’ve never seen so many 28+ year olds scream as loud as they did and shove themselves into old concert t-shirts from their youth. It was magical. At 3 different points in the night I looked at my friend to say, “Don’t judge me. I have tears in my eyes right now.” but she was right there with me. Ladies (yes… ladies, not girls) around us asked multiple times if we were ok. Nick Lachey laughed at my friend because she gave him the “ok” sign with her hands and mouthed, “Ok? Really?” Towards the end of the NKOTB set, Donnie Wahlberg made eye contact with me and I mouthed, “FREAKING CELTICS!” (we’re bonded by this) to which he pointed and mouthed it back. We could have both died in those seats happy.

Donnie Wahlberg said, “It’s been 25 years since our first album” – It was the one moment of the evening where I realized “Mother of God…. I’m old. And I’m screaming like a hormonal 16 year old at men who are now in their late 30’s and some into their 40’s.” This thought immediately went away and I decided it was best to pretend it was ok to act like little girls do at One Direction concerts. My point is this: I don’t care how old you are. I don’t care if you’re a wife and mother. It is totally acceptable to act like a buffoon for an evening and pretend you’re young again. This has also led me to hope if we have another child, it’s not a girl. I didn’t see men acting a fool…. So back to my statement about this being the best night of my life – The only way anything would have beat this is if a Boyz II Men song had been playing in the background when Jared proposed, NKOTB played at our wedding and 98 Degrees sang “You Are My Everything” as I gave birth. Jared is so embarrassed of me…. Until next time 🙂