A Pizza Party in the Garden

When we left Jammin’ Java two weeks ago, I thought that we wouldn’t see Justin Roberts again until we head to Brooklyn on the last day of April for Kindiefest. When his newsletter came out this week, I realized that he would be in Knoxville while we were in Blue Ridge – a distance of 2.5 hours….short for us.

After a nice drive (more on that later), we ended up at the Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum. We were there quite early, but for a fun purpose! When I got online to buy tickets for the show, there were two options, regular and VIP. VIP? VIP tickets included a pizza party with Justin, Liam and Gerald. Yes, please, sign us up!

The pizza party was a cozy affair. We joined about ten families in a cool stacked stone building for pizza and snacks and small talk. The girls sat at the kids’ table with a bunch of friendly strangers and had some lupper. Just as they were finishing up, the band came in to join us! At least two of the other families there were from at least as far as we were…and devoted Justin Roberts fans, so everyone was uber-excited to tell the band all of their stories.

My girls, having had just seen the band (twice), were happy to see them again but were more interested in heading outside to play in the garden. I stayed inside to chat with another mom and with the band.

Having a little VIP party just before the show was a wonderful idea! It was especially nice for those of us coming in from out of town, arriving early and needing to have a snack and to kill time waiting for the show to begin. Plus, we got to see Justin eat pizza. I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. Not only does he eat, but he even eats pizza.