Vaudeville and Newsies

Yesterday we had three special things on our schedule. First, Paul took the kids to Home Depot for the 9:00 workshop where they each nailed, glued, and painted three lawn ornaments. Once they were home they put stickers on them to finish decorating them. Paul said that Ian is making a lot of progress with his hammering skills! After eating lunch at home, the five of us headed to Bucknell for a free show by Parallel Exit. Five men put on an hour long vaudeville show that included tap dancing, slapstick comedy, etc. Ian laughed his sweet little head off for the majority of the show. Oliver even paid attention to the whole thing! We thought for sure he wouldn't last through the whole thing, but he did! After that we drove to Harrisburg. We stopped at a Toys R Us so the kids could buy their Christmas gifts for each other. I took Ian shopping for Oliver and Nadia, and Paul took Nadia shopping for Oliver and Ian. Oliver was with me so he saw what Ian picked, but I put it away in the closet, and we'll still wrap it up and let him open it in a couple of weeks.

After eating dinner in the mall's food court, we headed to Christian Life Assembly for their production of the musical, The Christmas Post. The band, singing, sets, acting, etc. were all excellent. I would definitely return there again. The tickets were very reasonably priced, and for two of the nine performances they offer free childcare for kids ages five and under (they sold over 15,000 tickets altogether and their average church attendance is "only" 2,800). Before the show started the kids enjoyed seeing a live nativity (the baby playing the role of Baby Jesus was such a happy little one in the manger) because they had doves, sheep, donkeys, and llamas in the foyer. Oliver was in a room for two year olds, and it looked like he had a lot of fun playing with balls.