Father Daughter Date Night

"Nice tie." said the cashier as I was getting a can of Red Bull from Safeway.
"I have a date tonight with my 9 year old," I said, acknowledging the "Super Dad" tie that NN made for me for Father's Day.
She said, "Best Dad Ever."  I smiled.... and left.

Tonight... NN and I went to watch "elf - The Musical" put on the San Jose Children Musics Theater's Rising Stars Ensemble. 

We were stuck in traffic longer than expected and had to miss dinner. =(  Got NN a bag of chips at a local bakery to hold her over until dinner...

The show itself was average.  It was the Rising Stars ensemble, so it wasn't CMT's best team.  But you can easily spot the talent out of the 40-50 children.  And those who are good... were stupendous.  I love [good] live performances...

There was one rendition that actually got me a little teary eyed - the song where the kid and mom stopped believing in Santa, but will start believing in him, if he can make one thing happen.  "If this is something you can do... then I will certainly believe in you...." That one things, was to be able to spend one full day with dad... =*(

Because we got tickets so late... we had literally the worst seat in the house.  Last row, all the way against the wall, equivalent to the last row, window seat on a plane.  And what made it more interesting was we were surrounded by people with special needs.  Your heart goes out to them... these aren't just kids... but adults my age.  What have they gone through over the years? Where are their parents? God bless the hearts of their counselors / teachers.

I wasn't particularly enamored with sitting around "these people."  Shame on me.  But as the show went on... it turns out that NN was very restless.  She couldn't see, so she ended up folding up the seat to gain an extra few inches.  The seat kept on falling and she made a lot of noise.  She'll get up.... walk around...  poke her head here and there.  Had we been surrounded by, shall we say, "normal people", they woulda hushed her.  But as it turns out... our new neighbors didn't really care.  Hrm...

Throughout the night... NN was obviously hungry.  But she didn't want me to worry.  Yet, she kept on asking, what time does Taco Bell close? What time does Taco Bell close? And that's how our date night ended.... through the drive through window of our local Taco Bell.  Something NN's be craving for.....