The Moscow Ballet's Great Russian Nutcracker

In the hopes of starting what might be an annual holiday tradition for Zoie and me, I got tickets for her, Mom and myself to go see The Great Russian Nutcracker ballet. It gave us a chance to get dressed up - Mom & Zoie both looked so pretty!



Mom's blouse had a spray of different sized pearls on it as embellishment and Zoie would touch them and say, "Gwamma, I like your bubbles!"

The ballet itself was very beautiful - it was a first for all 3 of us to be at an event like that. Zoie's eyes would get really big watching the dancers and they also used local young dancers to accompany them onstage, which was just too cute! We weren't able to take photos of the actual ballet, but I found some online...they don't do it justice! I have to say that along with watching Zoie's wonder at the dancing, I, too, was transported to a time in my youth where I was a beautiful ballerina and was dancing all over the stage and spinning around in beautiful costumes...I guess those feelings never really leave you no matter how old you get, which was one reason I wanted to do this with my daughter; having my mom there as well was icing on the cake for sure!


Earlier in the week, I took part in a local radio station contest where they were looking for the funniest company Christmas party story...and I won! (NOTE: I will NOT be relaying my story here...some of you already witnessed it first hand!) The prize was my choice of 2 tickets to this ballet or to see a band I'd never heard of...well, I chose the ballet tickets and gave them to my good friend, Angie, and her daughter, Madalyn. We all weren't able to sit together at the ballet but we did meet up afteward for dinner...the girls had fun being silly together and talking. They're both SO grown up...and are totally where the joys of the holidays (and most days) come from!




We were at Cracker Barrel - where you can't leave without looking around in their store - and Zoie found a cute little rocking horse!