Fertitta, Party of Five: Daniel the Tiger

"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor. Would you be my, could you be my, would you be my neighbor?"

I'm hoping for your sake that you weren't able to sing along with that first line. ;) As part of our effort to gift memories instead of stuff (and in accordance with my addiction to Groupon), ten days after Willa Kate's actual birthday, she and I went for the dream date of any three-year-old: dinner and Daniel the Tiger.

In January, I saw that Daniel the Tiger would be coming to Roanoke around the time of WK's birthday. Now, I've never actually watched a Daniel the Tiger episode, but I do know that it's a spinoff of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, it shows on PBS, and my younger daughter really likes it. So, I looked into the tickets, and just could not justify spending $200 on our family of four going to Daniel the Tiger for an hour and a half. But, in late February, I saw it pop up on our local Groupon, discounted to only $27 a ticket for orchestra seats, so I scooped up two in anticipation of a date night with my birthday girl. (This child should certainly feel celebrated-- the lake birthday, her Paw Patrol birthday, and ziplining together for her actual birthday!)

The girls have been on spring break this week (and so has Kasey!), so the girls have been spending the day at Corrie's or Sue and Dave's while Sam and I are at work, and they've loved it. They've played so hard with their cousins. Well, when I pulled up to get her from Sue and Dave's, Sue told me that she'd just fallen asleep and had probably slept for twenty minutes. Ack. Nobody wants to know No Nap Willa. She was really grumpy in the car, and for the first few minutes as we walked around, but after getting to pick Macado's for dinner, she cheered right up. Plus, it was sunny and she had on a twirly dress. All was right in her world.

We ate a quick dinner at the downtown Macado's, and made our way to the Berglund Center for the 6:30 p.m. musical. We saw lots of folks we know (hello everyone in the preschool child phase of life!), and enjoyed waving and chitchatting while we were waiting on the main event. I don't have any pictures from our seats in the auditorium because they clearly said several times no photography or video. Now, everyone around me snuck out their cell phone to snap a picture or get a quick video, but I left mine in my bag. As much as I wanted to, I've found myself noticing more when I'm "bending the rules" in front of my girls and what type of example that sets for them.