The Nutcracker

Last year I took the girls to see "The Nutcracker" which was put on by the renowned UofU ballet department. We even met up with some other mamas and daughter friends of ours, and we were all horribly disappointed. Not because the dancing was bad, but because it was some weirdo trippy version of something resembling The Nutcracker. And as I have been warned since, most all of their ballets are like that. We were all sad that we didn't get to see the traditional ballet. Not wanting to pay full price tickets at Ballet West this year (because the girls are so young and decent seats at $60 a ticket) I started looking around at other professional companies that were putting on The Nutcracker. I heard about Utah Regional Ballet and found tickets were only $20 a ticket, AND it was the REAL story, the TRADITONAL show.

So on the 15th the girls and I headed down to Provo. We grabbed lunch at their favorite restaurant, Rumbi Island Grill, and barely made it to the show in time. We hit nasty weather on the 45 minute drive down there and it delayed us a little, but we made it with five minutes to spare! The show was amazing! It didn't disappoint in the least. The girls were mesmorized during the whole thing, which shocked me because I was fully expecting them to lose interest about half way in. At intermission Lauren almost cried because she thought the show was over but she "wasn't wanting it to be over!" On the drive home the girls went on and on about their favorite parts of the ballet and how beautiful each of the dancers were. They are putting on "Sleeping Beauty" in February and I think we will make another date of it!

{My eyes look very swollen and red and puffy in these pictures because I had spent the last day crying....sobbing...heaving...because of the Connecticut shootings. Maybe one day I will journal about it. Maybe not. But for now, just thinking about any part of it makes me burst into tears. I don't know when our society will start to heal from such an event.}