Catching up - The Nutcracker

We have made it a tradition to see the Nutcracker at Christmastime for the last few years, and the girls were excited to be going again.  I purchased the tickets pretty far in advance, and the ticketing website has a new feature where you can see exactly which seats are open and select the exact seat you want, so we had some good seats this year.  We moved down a level in the auditorium, so we were closer than we had been before.

The night of the performance we got ready and headed out early because I wanted to stop at the bank and get some cash before we went to the show.  It was a good thing we left extra early, because just as we were about to exit the highway to go downtown for the show I realized that I had left the tickets at home.  We turned around and made record time back to the house, grabbed the tickets, and headed back.  We made it downtown, but the streets around the civic center have been under construction, and it wasn't cleared up yet.  We took a wrong street, which ran behind the civic center, so we could see it, but the streets were blocked with construction barriers.  Things were getting tense when we finally found a parking lot for the civic center, and literally ran for our seats.  We got there as the announcer was announcing the dancer substitutions for the evening, and as our rears hit the seats, the lights went down and the first bars of the overture began.  Whew! What excitement!  Needless to say, I am using will call next year.

Last year we went to a matinee, and afterwards the dancers came out and you could meet them and have your picture taken with them.  Gracie was a bit disappointed that they didn't do that for evening performances, but at the evening performance we didn't have to deal with many small children wiggling and talking through the performance like we did at the matinee.  I'm not sure which performance we'll attend next year.

After the performance we stopped by the Chesapeake campus to see all the lights.  This year they had a section of lights that changed colors, so we got out of the car and walked around.  They were pretty, and it wasn't too cold, so we enjoyed our walk.    It may not be cold, but it's beginning to seem a lot like Christmas when it's time to see the lights and go to the Nutcracker!