That One Time I Met Sara Bareilles in Chicago

I'm not sure if you remember, but for my birthday Chris put together an involved week-long scavenger hunt that culminated in me finding out he was going to send me on a girls trip to see my favorite singer, Sara Bareilles, whenever she went on tour again (see favorite thing #7 from this post).

Shortly after that, Sara announced tour dates for her "Little Black Dress" tour.

We narrowed it down to the July 10th show in Chicago (the first stop on her tour) and patiently waited for a couple of months.

It was SO so so so SO so so so SO so so so fun.

Here's why:

1) We went out on the town both nights (and took elevator "selfies" to prove it).  The first night we went to an delicious Mexican restaurant and then to a dueling piano bar.  The second night was the "Little Black Dress" concert- and we all brought along a LBD for the occasion.

2) I got to run in a new city with awesome city views.

3) The view from our room at the Hard Rock Hotel was pretty sweet.

4) We had PERFECT weather to do the touristy stuff that we wanted to do: Millenium Park, The Bean, Taste of Chicago, etc.

5) We had some awesome drinks, ate Giordano's pizza, and found a roof top bar with a pretty cool view.

6) We went to an UNBELIEVALBE sold out Sara Bareilles concert wearing little black dresses.

(I took a couple of quick video clips of a couple of my favorite songs that I was going to share, but unfortunately I was also belting out the songs (very off-key) at the same time and that is just not something anyone needs to hear.  Ever.)

7) WE MET SARA BAREILLES.

A lot of people may be wondering how the heck that happened.  Let me explain.  After the concert we went to the roof top bar I mentioned earlier to get some appetizers and drinks.  We stayed there for a little over an hour and then decided to head back to the hotel.  As we were walking back, we noticed her tour buses were still by the theater and a small crowd of people (mostly teenaged groupies and their parents) out there waiting.  So we decided to wait too.  After about 45 minutes they got everyone lined up, she came out and either took pictures or signed autographs for everyone waiting.  She was so nice and sweet, and even commented on our little black dresses.  It was crazy and awesome. 

8) All good things have to come to an end, so we took one last elevator selfie yesterday morning on our way to the airport.  After two nights of staying out WAY later than we do in our normal lives, we were super tired and looked like this (just slightly less glam than our previous elevator selfies, right?):


WORTH IT

So a BIG HUGE GIGANTIC thank you to Chris for coming up with this idea (and funding it!), and to Jenna and Bethany for making the trip SO MUCH FUN.

We have already decided to make some sort of girls trip like this an annual thing.