Sesame Street Live

Last week Zach and I decided to surprise Drew with a trip to see Sesame Street Live. We went to Sesame Street Live a couple of years ago when Drew was a newborn and Zach was not quite three, I think, and Zach loved it. I didn't know if Zach would be as excited this time around, but Drew sure likes Elmo, Ernie, and Cookie Monster, so I figured he'd be into it. The only date that worked for us was a matinee during the week, so I decided to just go for it. I don't think Mike was too upset to miss out.

We got down town and picked up our tickets at the will call window, and headed into the arena to our seats which were pretty good. I didn't want to pay the big bucks for the most expensive, so I went for the second price range. We were off to the side of the stage, but in the front row, which was nice because we didn't have any taller people blocking our view. We were in our seats about 10 minutes before the show started, and Zach pretty much started right away with, "Mom, can we get..." I am not a believer in the idea that you need to get a souvenir every time you go somewhere special- it just leads to too much money wasted on junk, and I think it sends the wrong message, so I had already pretty much decided we weren't going home with souvenirs of any sort. I told Zach right away that just going to the show was special enough, and he took it well. He asked one more time, but quickly answered his own question with, "Oh yeah, we're not getting anything." He did ask at intermission about the Elmo balloons when they brought those out, but again, me telling him no once was all it took, and I didn't even hear whining about it later, thank goodness.

Here are the boys before the show started. I didn't want to take our good camera in, so I just did the best I could (which was not very good at all) with my phone.

Here are some of the characters dancing and singing. I wonder how these costumes work. The voices are obviously the same as on the T.V. show, so I think they have to be recorded. So how do their mouths move at the right time? The people inside the costumes appear to have their hands free to use for all of their dance moves. I can't imagine how hot it must be inside those costumes, because those people can really dance. I just can't help but wonder if this is where these dancers pictured themselves when they dreamed of dancing as their career- inside hot muppet suits getting no glory.

Some of the characters came pretty close to us when they came out and high-fived kids, but I suppose they did pay the big bucks...

All in all, the show, called "Elmo's Green Thumb," was pretty good. It carried a good message about taking care of the earth, which was nice, but probably a little lost on a big chunk of the audience, which happened to be the 3 and under crowd. There was about an hour of show, then a 15 minute intermission, and then another half-hour of show, and that last half-hour Drew was getting pretty squirrelly. He never really left the area around his seat, but he was laying on it, standing in front of it, etc. If it weren't for Zach, I might have left early. The poor girl next to Zach, who was probably about 18-21 months old, cried basically non-stop after intermission. It was just her and her mom, and just when I was wondering why on earth the mom was staying when her daughter clearly did not want to, they got up and left. I wasn't terribly annoyed by the crying, but I just felt bad for the little girl who was being forced to stay at Sesame Street Live, of all things.

Anyway, it was a nice little change from our usual Friday activities, and something fun for the boys and me to do together.