The Nutcracker

The annual girl's day out for my mom's birthday was a few weekends ago...
The Nutcracker Ballet
by Ballet Etudes

Seems like it was only a few months ago that we did this last year, and I was 3 months pregnant! The year before I took Corbin because he was still unpredictable about nursing... so this was the first year I got to go without a child. It was so nice to hang out with the girls.... although we did miss Mandy, Sarah, Julie and Macy this year. We always begin with lunch at MiMi's Cafe before attending Chandler Center for the Arts for the ballet. Here is this year's group:

Of course my mom knew like 4 or 5 dancers so this year we took a backstage tour after the performance. The little girls got to dance inside of the huge rolling Mother Ginger. The tour director was actually the MAN (a traditional role) who played Mother Ginger, and who is also the husband of the Artistic Director/ Founder of the Ballet Company.

We got to meet and greet many of lead dancers/ballerinas on center stage. Kylie and Alyssa (my nieces) got a few autographs. We also saw how they made the fireworks, steam, and snow from the Fight and Snow Scenes.

The set was impressive to look at up close. Here are the girls with the mouse trap from the Fight scene.

Here is Brittney (Jesse's girlfriend) with Kylie and Alyssa in the Snow Sleigh.

And here's my mom (the birthday girl) with 2 of her grand-daughters... pretending to be Snow Queens and Court Fairies.

As always, it was a beautiful performance and a lovely girl's day out.