Aaron and Mommy's Adventure to A Show

It's likely to take the entire week to share our weekend. I don't know when October became an entire month of birthday festivities for Aaron, but he sure did love every moment of it. And showed so much happiness during each moment that every bit of work or weariness was totally worth it.

Last week on Tuesday, I entered a contest of Toni's at The Shopping Adventures of Cheapo McFrugalpants (I love this blog name). It was for 4 tickets to a Disney Live show in Chicago. Since we travel back to that area somewhat often, it seemed easy to work into our schedule, especially since school got cancelled for the rest of the week for the flu.

Hubby and I had discussed the possibility of winning, just in case, since there were only a couple of other names when I entered. Then came the email Friday morning...I won!!! Let the logistics discussions begin.

After quite a few back and forth calls between hubby and my SIL, we decided that Aaron and I would make the 3 hour drive to Chicago for the evening and go to the show with my SIL and her 4 year old daughter. Aaron and Kira are such good friends, and they are our Disney fans. Steve stayed home with Noah and they had their own boys night.

So at about 2:30 in the afternoon, Aaron and I loaded up the car to head out. I looked up the address online for my GPS and we were on our way. After a short stop for dinner, we were about 45 minutes from our destination when we got a to traffic jam BIG TIME outside O'HAre. Aaron was such an awesome trooper in the car and we were finally at our destination, 4 hours after we left.

Or so we thought...

After paying the money for parking, we parked and we started getting excited. But then, entering the arena, we noticed that the only people we saw were dads and boys in hockey jerseys. Realizing right away that we were at the wrong place, I threw Aaron on my back and we RAN to the car, pretty much in a panic knowing that my SIL and niece were at the RIGHT place, waiting at will call since they couldn't get the tickets without us.

A call to them to get the CORRECT address and we FINALLY got there, two minutes before the curtain rose.

Aside: I won't go into detail about how I got the address wrong, but it was kind of legit)

The kids were definitely excited to finally see the show. The first half was fun for them, and nice and short so it kept their attention pretty well.











When the first half was over, the kids were VERY bouncy, especially after just having bounced with Tigger, and they walked off into the lobby for popcorn holding hands.










After taking a break to get popcorn and souvenir cups, it was time to head back in for the second half.

















Aaron was a little more drained the second half, since it was an hour past his bedtime at this point, and spent much of the time nestled into my lap, which I always love since it happens rarely.















But the very last thing of the entire show was one last moment of bouncing with Tigger, and while the entire audience was full of bouncing preschoolers, Aaron finally perked up and joined into the bounce.















What did you think of the show kids?














After discovering that it would cost $12 to pose by the big posters of Disney characters, we settled for a nice picture posing next to the table skirt with characters, and we were on our way home.










Getting to the car, I got Aaron's jammies on and it took him less than ten minutes until he was sound asleep for the entire ride home, which was about 4 hours with Chicago traffic.




So after 9 hours total of driving for a 90 minute show, I was finally home in bed with memories of two very excited cousins having the time of their lives.


Was it worth it, you may ask.


You Betcha!!