Broadway's Award-Winning Best Musical

Yesterday we headed to Spokane to see "The Lion King." We dropped Marcus off at Kim and Brian's house, who happen to live just ten minutes from the INB Performing Arts Center, and he hung out with them for the afternoon. He had a wonderful time! I was a little worried that he would be upset with us for leaving him, but they said that he was happy the whole time, and he didn't even fight them when they strapped him into a grocery cart. He always fights me when I strap him into grocery carts.

Brian's parents got Brian and I tickets to go see "The Lion King" for Brian's birthday when it came to Portland when I was pregnant with Ethan, so when we heard that it was coming to Spokane, we decided to take them. So we met them at the hotel they stayed at, then walked across the street in the freezing cold to the INB center. We made sure everyone had gone to the bathroom (especially Ethan) two or three times before sitting down, and then we were treated to a spectacular performance.

The animals were amazing, the costumes were amazing, the music was amazing - everything was fabulous. There were times when the choir would sing a chord, and it would just hit you and you could really feel it. I loved watching the kids as they sat, completely enthralled. Brian's dad brought some binoculars, and Ethan loved looking through them to see the actors close up. He had them through most of the performance, and if anyone else borrowed them, he would soon ask, "Where are my by-noc-lers?" He actually went back and forth from sitting on Brian's lap to sitting on our pile of coats to make him tall enough to see, then he fell asleep when there was about twenty minutes left in the program. Alyssa sat in the row behind us, with Brian's parents. Every time I looked back at her, she was intently watching. She said her favorite song was "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" and her favorite character was Nala.

We splurged (big splurge!) and got the kids each a stuffed animal. We bought Nala for Alyssa, Simba for Ethan, and Zazu for Marcus. Alyssa loves hers, Marcus loves his, but Ethan is not happy with Simba. I think he might be a little afraid of it. He does claim it enough, though, to not want to hand it over to Alyssa. When she asks, "Ethan, since you don't want your Simba stuffed animal, can I have it?" he says, "NO!" But as you can see, he didn't even want to pose with it for the picture.