Girls' Day Out

          Mikayla loves Taylor Swift.  So when we heard that she was coming to town, Mikayla asked if we could go to the concert.  I priced out tickets and found them to be a little too high for my liking.  My response instead was the only way we could go is if I won some tickets.  After a valiant effort to try and win tickets, I came up empty handed.  I kept looking on Stubhub to see if there were any good priced tickets available, and there were a few.  Alas, I went back and forth on whether she is really at the age to enjoy and fully embrace the experience and whether or not she would actually be able to even catch a glimpse of Taylor.  So after having a little talk with her about the concert, she came to the conclusion that she would much rather spend the afternoon just having fun at the mall then going to the concert {we are going to try and save that for next year}.  Since we were supposed to have a girls' day anyway, I thought it was a perfect idea.  We headed to the mall with Julie in hand {she needed an afternoon of pampering}.  Our first stop was The American Girl store to get Julie cleaned and her hair fixed.  At first Mikayla was holding quite the conversation with the stylist, but her attention soon shifted towards Kanani {this year's featured American Girl}.  She enjoyed playing with the ice cream stand while Julie was getting her hair done.  After all the styling Mikayla went around the store dreaming of all the things she could add to her Christmas list.  By the time we were done there we were both ready to eat.  Mikayla had this all planned out too.  She wanted to eat at the mall and after lunch she would get a cookie.  We ventured to the foodcourt for lunch serenated by some bellydancers' music.  After lunch Mikayla got to ride on the carousel ride.  It is something she always wants to do when we go to the mall, but I like to save it for special occasions such as this.  There was also some browsing in at the Build-a-Bear Workshop followed by some actual purchases at the Disney Store.  Our afternoon at the mall was completed by enjoying our cookie in the gorgeous outside weather.  We topped off the afternoon by meeting Mike and Noah at our favorite park, then it was off to home to enjoy movie night.