So our good friend, Lindsey, gave us these fabulous tickets to listen to the Pacific Symphony make their salute to the brillant music of John Williams (you know... Star Wars, E.T., Indiana Jones, etc). So, at last minutes notice, we packed the kids into the car (I know... keep reading...) and headed over to the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre at the Irvine Meadows. When we got there, we learned just how generous she had been... the row behind the box seats! Well, we didn't know how this was going to work with our two, lovely children but we gave it a shot. Yeah... that lasted about 3 songs. During song number 2, Grant starts to make grunting noises and the people in their box seats, sipping wine of course, start to look over their shoulders at me. So, I nudge Cory to make a bottle in hopes that he will fall asleep. But as soon as Grant sees what is going on, he starts to cry for the bottle and for those of you who know my son well enough know his shrieking screams... yeah, you can imagine... it's the quietest part of the song (must have been a suspenseful film) and he lets out one of his ear piercing screams at which the people around me are probably wondering, "Why isn't that lady taking her baby OUT OF HERE?" I'm shrinking in my seat, pushing Grant to the ground (as if that will make him stop crying?) And finally the bottle is made and he is instantly pacified... until the song ends and the people start to clap. He pops his head up to see what's going on. Okay, so I respect that my social superiors in the box seats probably paid a couple hundred bucks for their seats so I decided it was time for us to leave. On our way out, we decided to give it one last try in the grass seats up in nose bleed section. That was the most perfect environment for our little family! It was pretty crowded so we picked out a family of four and gave them our jackpot seats so we could have a comfy spot on the lawn. We felt much more comfortable amongst other families, who didn't even notice the occaisional noises from our kids. It turned out to be a pretty fun outing for our family and it was worth all the trouble to see the fireworks show at the end. Thanks Lindsey... next time we will get a babysitter!
Oh, I almost forgot the best part... the Star Wars score lasted about 5 minutes, but from the looks of the crowd, you'd think it was a Star Wars convention. There were plenty of Storm Troopers, Darth Vaders and Rebel Pilots to make us wonder if we were supposed to dress up, too. (Okay, not really but there were a lot). I wanted to take pictures of them (and most of them wanted their pictures taken too) but I was too embarrassed. I did, however, get a picture of this special Star Wars mobile...
