One Directi♥n

Oh, yeah baby.  You read that right.  Today was THE day.  Probably the day that will live in my girls' memory FOR-EVAH.  And it all started 2 weeks ago, when I heard a spot on our local radio station informing the masses that One Directi♥n was going to be at Mall of America for a meet and greet.

My girls have been following them for about a year, since they appeared on Britain's X-Factor.

You say "One who"?  Well, let  me introduce you to the newest boy band, One Directi♥n (my girls use the heart...that's "their" thing):


So, the way the story unfolded was to be part of the MAG you had to go to MOA and purchase the One Directi♥n CD (ONLY) at Best Buy and you would get a wrist band.  Well, silly me STUPIDLY assumed that they would be selling the CDs for at least a couple days before they ran out of wristbands and NO I was not going to rush to MOA to buy the CD. And they sold out before noon the day they went on sale because OF COURSE they did.  But, my SIL will FOREVER hold the title of ROCK STAR aunt for going to MOA and standing in line for 4 hours to obtain 5 CDs and 5 wristbands.  THEY WERE IN!

Well, maybe. Because the "rules" were, they would begin signing at 1(30) on Sunday and they could quit whenever they chose to quit.  Even if there were people still in line with wristbands.  I questioned my girls...what if that is you?  Would you lose faith in them?  They said no, and NO they would NEVER do that to their fan base (OH, to have that kind of faith).  But, just in case, they slept, on the sidewalk (with their aunt...yet another reason why she is a rock star) outside the MOA from midnight last night, being let into the mall at 530am to stand in line there.  Luckily they ended up about 100 girls from the front of the line.  I went to church and showed up at 1245 and immediately "found" them (from the 4th level).

Yes, they wore matching shirts, ones they had made special.  The front read:

The back, I thought was unbelievably clever (lifted from Tumblr) (and yes, I cropped the P):

 

The rotunda at MOA was WALL TO WALL girls:

 

Each of the 3 levels were 3 deep in girls and the funnel went all the way back to SpongeBob.
I was pretty amazed that there was the order, if not silence, that there was.  I fully expected to see tons of pushing and shoving but NOTHING.  When the group arrived, the crowd went crazy, noise wise, but nothing unexpected for THOUSANDS of teenage girls. Slowly the girls started being funneled across a table where the boys sat:

Our girls were the third row back and it didn't take them long before they were almost there:

And then they were there.  They weren't allowed to hug but they each got high fives from all of them:

The girls made up a tshirt for the band that said "Minnesota ♥ One Direction" and they each wrote a message on the back.  Mostly corny(well, they thought clever) lines from their songs.

And then...they were done.

The question is...how many days will it take before we are able to peel the silly smiles off their faces?