Sesame Street Live

This morning we surprised Grayson with tickets to see Elmo at Sesame Street Live. I had grand visions of his reaction involving squeals of excitement and jumping up and down. As you'll see in the video, that didn't exactly happen...

He did start to get excited once we got there and Bert and Ernie came out to kickoff the show. We thought we had purchased seats on the twelfth row, but when we got there we were actually on the fifth row. Score! We were also on the end of the row, next to an aisle that a lot of the characters came down.

Gray got to meet and touch Cookie Monster, Grundgetta the Grouch (Oscar's girlfriend), Telly Monster, Super Grover and even Elmo himself. I didn't have my camera ready for all of them, but was able to capture a few of the meet and greets.

 We also had a great view of the rest of the gang up on stage.

Big Bird & Grundgetta the Grouch

 Elmo getting his groove on

 

Telly Monster, Elmo, Abby Cadabby and Zoe

 

Grayson dancing along to one of the songs

Now, I must say the merchandising that went on at this event was quite a spectacle. Sesame Street knows what kids want and parents are given a choice between dishing out lots of dough or facing a very public meltdown from their kiddos.

Luckily, one of our friends (thanks Adam!) had warned us about the Elmo balloons that magically appear during intermission. Not only do they cost an arm and a leg, but you then have to secure them under your chair for the second half of the show so that you don't block anyone's view. Money well spent.

Michael and I had a plan to counteract this merchandise manipulation by bringing one of Gray's Elmo dolls along with us to the show (so we wouldn't have to buy one there) and also planning a trip to the potty right about the time the balloons appeared.

All of these were sold in a matter of about three minutes, along with two other bundles that other workers were selling around the arena.

Crazy commercialism aside, we had a really fun time. Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, we walked back to our parking garage through a sky bridge and Gray thought it was the coolest thing ever. 

 

Here's a video I took as we were walking out of the show. He was getting tired at this point, but was still a little more enthusiastic than my other video announcing our surprise.