Lion King Weekend!

I feel like I had been waiting for this weekend to come for ages! Last fall Jim, my Mom and I all got tickets to see the Lion King. My mom and I had seen it when she had come to visit me while I was in London and we just loved it so, when we found out it was coming to Des Moines there was no question that we would be there!

My Mom came in late Saturday morning. First my Mom had been taunting me with a present she was bringing for our house so I wasted no time trying to figure out what that was. Turns out, she brought us her big beautiful jade plant I have envied for quite awhile. This plant is so big and just amazingly beautiful and I can't explain how excited I am to have it in our house! Then we made lunch, mine and Jim's chicken fajita hoagies. It was quite tasty. Then, there were more surprises from my Mom! She gave us our Easter basket early so that was a lot of fun. Before we headed out for a bit we divided up Jayke's birthday pictures I had taken so her and Chelsea could each have some. From there we decided to head down to all the little shops on 5th street right by where we live. We had a lot of fun going through some of them!

We headed home with enough time to get ready for the show and head to dinner. We decided to try a new restaurant called the Iowa Beef Steak House. We had read online about it and it sounded like a restaurant we really like that is outside of town a bit called Rube's. The appeal and fun is that you can grill your own meat on these big grills and stuff. The difference was that at the Iowa Beef Steak House we were the only ones who grilled our own. At Rube's it's like a party around the grill, but here it was quite different. Don't get me wrong, the food was still great, but just not exactly as we had planned.

From there we headed to the show. Our seats were ok, but they were a little to far to the side to see some parts of a few scenes which was pretty disappointing for me, but there were some advantages to them. Throughout the show there are various animals that come up from off stage and they walked in almost right in front of us! That was really great to see some of them up close.

As far as the show goes, it was wonderful! The music and the costumes and the sets are all amazing! My favorite part is that they add a song that is not in the movie. It is when Mufasa is telling Simba about the stars being the old King's looking down on him. The song though is very touching and it makes the show. They carry it on to different parts of the show as well and it just really brings everything together and adds a larger sentiment to the show. It's my absolute favorite part.

All in all it was a fabulous Saturday. I was sad to see my Mom go that night because we had had such a good time, but she made it back to Carter Lake safely which was good. For any of you who have the opportunity I really recommend seeing the show, it truly is amazing!