Picture Perfect

Yesterday, Steve and I took Olivia to her first live performance of the Nutcracker. Some may say that it is silly to take a 2 year old to a show that is $30 a pop in the cheap seats, but it was worth every penny for us!!! The Dayton Ballet's version performs at the Schuster Center, downtown which in and of itself is an event. In the lobby at Christmas time they have vintage animated window displays. We showed up early so that we would have time for O to walk around and look. I fully expected her to be wide-eyed with wonder and amazement. See here to the left. It brought tears to my eyes, in some ways I felt as though I was re-living my childhood.

Until we came across this!

It's one of those "games" where you send the coin down and it spins around and around whirling and spinning until it hits the hole that it drops down and in goes your donation. Yep, all nostalgia dropped right to the bottom of that vortex faster than that quarter could go. Oh well, I decided this was about O, not me and I might as well let her make her own memories. Stupid charity!

We finally made it to our FRONT ROW seats. Somehow when I was booking on line the computer told me the only cheap seats left in the whole theatre were here, in the front row. So after debating (and realizing there was no way we were paying more than $30 a seat w/ a two year old) I booked 'em. A bit hesitant 'cuz I figured if they were cheap and up close they must be really bad seats. But I gotta tell you, they were fabulous!!!! Loved every minute of it. I've never had that good of seats for anything in my life. Who knew people on stage preforming in anything had facial expressions. And sweat! We actually got hit by a few sweat beads from the lead guy once (gross but very very cool.!) Olivia was mesmorized. She never got ansy or bored. She was pretty much glued the whole 2 hours.

We even had a friend who was dancing in the show so it was fun to keep our eyes out for her. (Good job, Krisha!) All in all, the day was perfect.

My love for the Nutcracker goes way back. It really became a joke growing up because there was always an obstacle for my mom and I getting to go. In fact, I never went. My first live performance was when I was 29 living in China. It was the first Christmas present Steve ever got me- tickets for he and I (and 8 of our closest friends). We laugh because he didn't even arrange the tickets so that we were sitting next to each other (it was our 3rd date). Thankfully at the last moment, Steve switched with one of our friends so that we could sit next to each other. Smart move, mister! So needless to say, it was super sweet 7 years later to be taking our daughter with us. Sweet memories.