And So The Countdown Begins

Once again, we are near the end of October and here's what we HAVEN'T done yet:

1. Picked out a pumpkin


2. Carved said pumpkin


3. Found Boy Pop's Halloween costume

Hoo-boy!

So 2011 is speeding to a close all too quickly. I foolishly believed that once Fall Ball ended, we would have some breathing time. I fear that is not to be and here's why (another numbered list):

1. Halloween is in ONE WEEK and we've yet to complete the aforementioned Halloween must-dos.


2. Boy Pop is ring-bearer in a wedding in two short weeks. I just today purchased his clothing. He had nothing. So I bought pants, a shirt, shoes, and a belt at lunch. I'm praying it all fits.


3. One week after that, Dr Pop is leaving for the better part of a week in Jersey. I don't like when he has overnight business trips. Especially those that last several days. It's too long!


4. One week after he gets back, we will most likely be hosting Thanksgiving at our house. Last year, we hosted 11 and I cooked every morsel myself. That sound you hear is the very faint sound of my patting myself on the back for that one.


5. Two weeks after Thanksgiving, we are going away for a week. It will be a fun week full of snow and Christmas and snow-related activities.


6. One week after we get back from said snow-related activities, it will be Christmas Eve.


7. Then? The last week of 2011.


8. Do you know how I plan to spend the final week of 2011?


9. At. Home. Not. Working.


10. Gotta love corporate holidays and very strategic vacation planning.

I need a nap.

Thankful Thursday

Today, I am thankful for... Today. This moment.

Waking up every morning is a gift I too often do not appreciate. Being blessed with another sunrise is the ultimate thing to be thankful for.

On a side note, please remember that the reason we wake up in a free nation, with the ability to write and say what we please (for the most part), worship as we see fit (or don't see fit), earn a living, enjoy the highest standard of living in the world (even our poverty-stricken and homeless live better lives than those in the 3rd world), is because of those who made the choice to fight for our country, serve our country, and sacrifice for our country (and their families who too often have to make extreme sacrifices during their service).

High Gear

Have I mentioned here that I love fall? Well I do. Adore it, actually. I love the weather change after so many consecutive days of oppressive heat. I love that the clock rolls back an hour. I love the festivites, family, and football. And fall baseball. But for me, fall doesn't truly begin until November. It's too hot until then. Okay, really October after we visit the pumpkin patch. It feels like fall then.

Well, now fall ball is over. And except for the drinking, so is football for my two favorite teams. And we've survived another Halloween with our livers only slightly worse for the wear.

I just voted.

The weather is truly fall-like now (fingers crossed for the last day of 90+ temperatures in 2010!).

I put the Halloween decorations up into the recesses of our attic, past the boxes and boxes of Christmas decorations that will come down in about three weeks.

This Saturday is our neighborhood garage sale. I am so excited. Baseball scheduling has interfered with our participation in setting our junk out with price tags on it for the past two and a half years, so with the exception of a few desperate Goodwill drop offs, we've just accumulated. Once this stuff leaves my house, it will be gone. My guest room, currently the staging area for the sale, will be fit for guests once again. And if it doesn't sell, it will go to charity.

After that? It's all social obligations, all the time. We have three kid birthdays and one adult birthday this month (so far), a fight night hosted by us, and Thanksgiving at our house to round out the month.

So while I am still yearning for a weekend "off" this year, and while we are definitely going to get busier and busier, I somehow feel like taking a huge sigh of relief right now.

Happy November!

Behind on the October "To-Do" List...

No Halloween costume yet for Boy Pop.

No visit to the pumpkin patch yet.

No Jack O'Lantern.

Crap.

It's October 13th!

Yes, Virginia,

There is a Santa Clause.

Merry Christmas!

The Baking Season

One thing I especially love about the holiday season is the baking. I love to make and decorate cut-out cookies, breads, and assorted snacks. I also love trying out new recipes.

Two years ago, I tried my hand at gingerbread. I promptly realized that I do not particularly care for molasses and my husband does not care for ginger. Oops. My coworkers enjoyed my efforts, though, and I kept the calories off my thighs.

Last year, I tried making taffy. You can safely assume that it did not turn out quite so well.

Since we are going on a ski trip, for a week, in a week, my time to bake has been severely cut back. Therefore, I'm going to limit the baking to the essentials:

• Cut-out sugar cookies
• Gingerbread cookies (this is my new recipe to try this year)
• Puppy Chow
• Pumpkin bread

I think we'll do the puppy chow and one set of cut out cookies this weekend. I plan to pull out my mom's old recipe that we used when I was little. It's a little less sweet than, say, Pillsbury, but it is oh-so-good. I have so many memories as a child of cutting out shapes and decorating yummy cookies.

Also on the agenda for this weekend? A visit to see Santa and an engagement party. Plus the Big 12 championship game. Yikes!

The Post About Football and Thanksgiving

Hanging out in a tree, in the tailgate parking lot last Thursday

Well. Hmm... I don't think many of you give two figs about college football. Bear with me. You know I love my Longhorns!

For the first time since 1993, the University of Texas and Texas A&M university met on Thanksgiving Day to play a little football (A&M got a little bitty NCAA TV probation in 1994, so Texas played Baylor in 94 and 95 on T-Day. In 1996, after the formation of the Big 12, the game moved to the day after Thanksgiving). Naturally, this new scheduling, while really awesome, did create some conundrum around the actual meal of the day.

Thanksgiving is "our" holiday. It is the one where we don't travel, but instead force everyone to come to us. Having the only grandchild in both families sort of facilitates this. You'd think we'd get Christmas, too, but you will never see me letting my grandmother down. So we travel to her house for Christmas.

Anyway. Where was I? Oh yes, football quandry.

This year, we decided to have our Thanksgiving lunch a bit early so that we could spend plenty of time at our tailgate (which, as luck would have it, also included a completely catered Thanksgiving meal -- Imagine, deep fried fresh turkey tenders! Regular turkey! All the sides! Dessert! Wine! And, of course, beer!). I cooked. Since Thanksgiving is our holiday, I get to own the cooking and baking. It's my favorite thing! I do leave the turkey to the experts, though, and this year, we got a smoked turkey from Rudy's Country Store and Bar-B-Q.

I had set a time to eat for 11 AM, which was met by a bit of shock by some, but everyone arrived on time. Unfortunately, the food wasn't ready until noon. Oh well. That's what I get for planning, eh?

Here is what I made:

• Stuffing
• Mashed potatoes
• Crispy pan-fried sweet potatoes (using Renaissance Rub... SO yummy!)
• Green bean casserole
• Homemade cranberry sauce
• Garden salad
• Rolls
• This incredible chocolate cake

My mom made her usual strawberry jello salad. My brother brought a key lime pie from Houston's. My mother in law brought a pumpkin cheesecake and a large box of clementines.

There wasn't much left over. :)

Once the dishes had been washed, the counters cleared, and the kitchen looked like nothing had occurred there over the past 6 hours, we hightailed it down to the tailgate. A few Dos Equis (es?) later, we were ready for some football!

The Longhorns took care of business on Thursday night. We beat our in-state rivals by 40 points, taking out our anger over the results of the past two meetings on them in decisive fashion.

Unfortunately, what we did was not enough. Our coach, bless his heart, is a sportsman. And a good sport. In the fourth quarter, with the game well in hand, he removed our starters, and allowed the second team to play. If we had run up the score a little bit more, we just might have kept our #2 ranking and would be playing this coming weekend in the Big 12 Championship game. That is not the case, however, and the Big 12, in its infinite wisdom, allowed the polls to determine who the representative for the South would be. It is not us.

I'm not going to go on and on about the fairness of it all. The truth of the matter is that Texas should not have been in this situation. We should have beaten Texas Tech on November 1. And the pollsters look at the score. And who runs up the score the most. Oh well, here's to The University of Oklahoma once again having an embarassing showing in their BCS bowl game, most likely the title game (which is their probable next game, unless Missouri can pull an upset, but that's as likely as me having a White Christmas in Central Texas).

Bitter? Me? Nah...

All-in-all, Thanksgiving Day was everything I could have hoped for. Good food, family, friends, football, and a little booze for good measure.

Who Cares if it is Early?

One of the things Dr Pop and I accomplished while I was on vacation was our Christmas shopping. Well, about 95% of it anyway. On Monday, while the Boy was at school, we headed out and hit the stores. We got my parents, my brother, his parents (mostly), and Boy Pop pretty much done. I think we have a few bits and pieces to pick up here and there, and I also need to pick up a birthday gift for my brother who had the good fortune to be born on December 23rd.

What a relief we were done! That meant that we could spend Tuesday hanging the Christmas lights before the family descended upon us on Wednesday.

But we got a wild hare to go shopping again!

And Dr Pop picked up this:

Obviously, Christmas is a month away, but since I was with him, and I tried it on, and some other little extenuating circumstances occurred, I walked out of the store with this gorgeous bracelet on my wrist.

He's a good man and I do not care that I won't be unwrapping something on Christmas Day. This is perfect.

Or so I thought.

Fast forward to Friday. Black Friday. The day that is typically spent at home, avoiding the stores at all costs. Except this past one.

I won't go into the gory details of the day, but one of our five stops that day was at Sportsman's Warehouse. We'd been in a few times before, looking at pump action shotguns.

For some reason, both Dr Pop and I have been seriously considering buying a shotgun. At first, we wanted a handgun for home defense (hey, he travels and a woman was killed in our neighborhood about five years ago), but the more we compared handguns to shotguns, the more we were attracted to shotguns. Lemme tell you, the sound of the pump on a shotgun is one of the scariest noises around. Anyway, we had been intending to purchase one (ONE, mind you) for some time.

So we stopped by the gun department. Two hours later, we each had our own Mossberg Pump Action Shotgun. Dr Pop opted for a 12-guage, but that was too much gun for me.

I have this:

Scary, isn't it?

Seriously, though? The man buys me jewelry and firearms. He's perfect!

Plugging Back In...

Whew! I have been unplugged most of the past 10 days... Only my iPhone has kept me informed. I've done no blog reading, no updating, nuthin! I think I logged into my computer twice this whole time.

Boy, has it been a crazy several days! There's been tee ball, birthday parties, Christmas shopping, Thanksgiving, football, Black Friday, shotguns, family, cooking, baking, decorating, and a gorgeous early gift from Dr Pop.

It's going to take a while to get the pictures downloaded and the stories told.

But I've got material to last the entire month of December...

This Is When the "Second Shift" Gets Exhausting

All week long, I've been thinking that there's an extra week between now and Thanksgiving. Um, no there isn't. I've been doing the math and as of today:

• There are 6 days until the parent/teacher conference at my son's school
• There are 7 days until I have to take a mandatory offsite training class that I do not want to take
• There are 10 days until I get a week-long vacation from work
• There are 12 days until the "Butter Ball" benefitting Coats for Kids, an event for which I have nothing to wear
• There are 13 days until I get my permanent crown on my back tooth
• There are also 13 days until my parents come to town again
• There are 14 days until Thanksgiving
• There are 14 days until the UT/A&M football game and tailgate
• There are 14 days until my parents' 43rd wedding anniversary
• There are 26 days until I get a root touch-up
• There are 30 days until we go to Colorado for a week
• There are 40 days until my brother's birthday
• There are 42 days until Christmas

ACK!

I need to get on the ball here! To date, I've done no Christmas shopping, no grocery shopping for Thanksgiving, I haven't finished prepping for the ski-trip (still need socks for myself and Dr Pop and mittens for Boy Pop). I need to buy an outfit for this party (yay! new clothes!!!). My house is a disorganized mess. Boy Pop and I need to sort through his toys and choose what he will give to charity this year. I have a pile of clothes to take to the children's consignment shop and another pile of clothes for Goodwill and The Salvation Army.

We also need to put out some Thanksgiving decorations, decide on the Christmas lights, hang the Christmas lights, mail Christmas cards, and organize the closet under the stairs for the 4th time this year.

On top of that, I really, really, really, really want to reorganize every cabinet in my kitchen, clean out my office once and for all, go through Boy Pop's artwork and make collages for his room and for his grandparents, make my Christmas Card and gift lists, win the lottery, make some holiday crafts with Boy Pop, bake up a storm, and read some of the books that have been piling up on my bedside table.

And then there's t-ball. We have two games left (this Saturday and the next) and a team party following the last game.

Finally, I have to somehow fit in a Defensive Driving course between now and December 18th. Hooray for speeding tickets! That I got today! On my way back from the dentist!

I love the holiday season, I really do! Writing it all down like this makes me feel better about the upcoming 6 weeks. There will be time with family and friends, two vacations, and lots of memory-making with my husband and son. I just cannot believe that once again, time has gotten away from me.

Breathe in, breathe out.

And I have no idea what to get the man who has everything... My husband.

July 4th Weekend

Did I mention I was behind on updating? ;-)

This July 4th weekend was one that we truly enjoyed here at the Pop household. We had an especially good kickoff to the weekend on Thursday, the 3rd, with a parade at Boy Pop's school. It was so cute! All the kids wore different hats that they'd made and Boy Pop's class had red, white, and blue banners that they waved in the air.

Dr Pop and I try to never miss an event at Boy Pop's school. The look on his face every time he sees us standing there is priceless and beautiful.

After the school day was over, we loaded up and went to our local AAA baseball team's home game. Even though it was hot, we had terriffic seats behind home plate, in the shade. We ate junk food, watched our team win, and Boy Pop got to play with some friends.

The team moved its usual Friday night fireworks show to Thursday, too. They do it up right and their show rivaled the other local shows the next evening.

For the actual 4th, we lamented the fact that we'd left the planning too late and stayed home. But it wasn't at all boring. We had friends over, hung out at the surprisingly empty neighborhood pool for swimming, grilled good food, I made a cake, and we had our own little (ahem! illegal!) fireworks show.

Oh yes. There were also some beverages involved. The big boys acted silly while the girls and Boy Pop laughed.

After we decided to call it a night outside, we came in, ate some more, and watched The Spiderwick Chronicles. My only regret was that Boy Pop fell asleep before the end, so he did not see the good guys win.

Saturday and Sunday were lovely and relaxing days spent swimming and hanging out at home. Even though we did not turn the long weekend into a trip to an exotic locale, it was definitely a great one!

Happy 4th of July!

America, you're damn pretty for 232 years old...

The New Year

So it's only the third day of the year. I've finally gotten our New Year's Eve pictures downloaded onto the computer and then uploaded here for the blogging community to enjoy. Riiight...

New Year's Eve was relatively low-key. We had a couple of friends over, ate some snacks, drank poinsettas (champagne and pom juice), lit fireworks, and after Boy Pop finally crashed, we played a rousing game of Wii Olympics.

Oh Lord! We played for two hours. I twinged the right side of my neck, and my right shoulder, arm, and wrist and I'm still sore!

I finally called it a night (morning?) at 4AM. Our friend called a cab at 4:15 that did not arrive until 6AM, at which time, Dr Pop finally came to bed.

New Year's Day, obviously, got off to a relatively rocky start as you can imagine. I woke up at 10, feeling a little hungover and headache-y. I waited until 11:30 to wake up the Boy (Can you belive it??? He slept until 11:30!!!), but finally had to get him up because my parents were coming by on their way to Abilene from my grandmother's house. Dr Pop woke up and felt horrendous. He stayed in bed while my parents were here.

My parents stayed for an hour, during which my mother tried to lay on a guilt trip about me not letting them take Boy home with them for the remainder of the week. She pouted. I ignored it and offered them food, which they declined. Then they left.

Dr Pop was in a very bad way (lack of sleep, lots of beer, bad allergies), so I gave him a phenergan and left him to sleep it off. Turns out he fell asleep with it in his hand and woke up about five hours later, just in time to eat a few black eyed peas and some cole slaw (You know that black eyed peas bring good luck, but did you know that eating cabbage on New Year's Day is supposed to bring prosperity?) and then went back to bed. Boy Pop and I hung out and played and I watched America's Next Top Model for hours until we all finally went to bed.

I have this whole week off of work and I had some Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket, so yesterday, we all loaded up and went to the mall. Ugh. I really do hate the mall, but I ended up with about five new tops. Dr Pop bought two new pair of shoes, and the Boy came home with three new t-shirts.

Not satisfied, today I ventured out alone and came home with a pair of boots, two pair of ballet flats (red patent and bronze), and a pair of black crinkle patent pumps, three t-shirts, a sweater, a robe, and a pair of yoga pants (I don't do yoga). I'm done. D.O.N.E. Well, I still need some new brown boots, so I'm almost done. And I could use a new pair of nice pants and maybe a skirt. Later.

Tomorrow is my last official day of vacation, not including the weekend, and I'm not sure what I want to do with it. Our Christmas decorations are all still up because we are lazy like that. I need to clean out my closet. I need to do laundry. I need to throw out a ton of crap (Hey, tomorrow is trash day!). I need to do something more productive than shopping and watching ANTM as I feel my brain is rotting away.

Perhaps I'll figure out some resolutions to share with the world...

Christmas. A Recap.

Oh y'all. I'm wiped out by all the holiday cheer and such. Well, that and working all but Christmas Day last week. And the shopping. And worrying.

Mema came home from the hospital on Christmas Eve. While she's not 100% better (and there's a chance she might never be back at 100%), just having her home and with us all was Christmas enough for me and the rest of my family.

This was the most fun Christmas morning and Christmas season with Boy Pop. He really "got" it this year and listening to him sing his loud, off-key, slightly garbled renditions of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Jingle Bells, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, etc. was one of my favorite parts of the entire month of December.

We had Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning through lunch at my grandmother's house. After lunch, Dr Pop, Boy Pop, and I headed back home to have our own private celebration. Boy Pop was nervous that Santa might not visit both places, but we left him a note at our house. Santa made both trips. Dr Pop got new wheels for his car and a Dallas Cowboy's NFC East Champions t-shirt. Boy Pop got some giant dinosaurs, about one million transformers, magnetix, a new TV, some DVDs, and various and asundry other things, including a Wiggle Racer that somehow got left behind at my grandmother's house.

My gift from Dr Pop was out of stock and impossible to find, so he got me a placeholder. It was a Toy Watch and it was adorable! I was really surprised. But when we were out shopping this past weekend, we found my gift... It's sort of like the picture below, but instead of multi-colored stones, it just has pink sapphires and diamonds. It's a lot bigger than what I'm used to wearing, but I already miss it when it is not on my wrist. Dr Pop did VERY good this year. And hell, I must have been a really good girl to get this. ;-)

I have a million stories to tell, but I cannot seem to pull them from my brain to my fingertips in any coherent fashion. Perhaps this week, which I have off, I can find them. But this was definitely our best Christmas yet. And today, the last day of 2007, I wish all of you a safe, happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year.

All my best,

Mrs. Pop

Quick Update

I got my Christmas wish. Mema came home on Christmas Eve.

Santa was also generous with the gifts.

I am one very lucky girl.

Is It Time for Santa Yet?

Dr Pop walked in on Boy Pop looking for Santa this morning. Luckily, the camera was handy.

FYI, it isn't too late to make someone's Christmas a bit brighter and make yourself feel good to boot... The Christmas Bureau of Austin is still in need of people to sponsor families. You can donate money to a family, to the organization, or choose a family and do all of the shopping and deliver the goods yourself. If you're in Austin, go to http://www.cbofaustin.org/. I'm sure that there are plenty of organizations that still need help wherever you may be, though.

Trick Or Treat!

Finally! Halloween Pictures!

This year, we were old hats at trick or treating with the neighborhood... We all gathered in a nearby cul-de-sac and proceeded down our predetermined route. Unfortunately, the first few houses were hit or miss because we left so early.

Boy Pop was in rare form, however. Sometimes he'd go slowly and hang back, while other times, he would run so far ahead of everyone that I lost my breath trying to keep up. He was also a little off on the whole procedure of ring doorbell, yell trick or treat!, say thank you, run to next house.

Sometimes, he'd just go ahead and say thank you first. Sometimes, he'd not say a word. Then there was the house he went up to and said, "I want candy." That was cool.

I'd be remiss if I did not bring up the fact that at not one, but TWO houses, when the people gave him candy, he looked back at them and said, "I don't like this." That right there was a proud moment in parenting, let me tell you!

I'd have to say that the funniest moment came towards the end when he marched up a long driveway, then up the front steps of the house, all the while chanting, "A pirate is coming! A pirate is coming! Hey! A pirate is coming!"

All-in-all, though, we had a great time. Dr Pop pulled a wagon along that contained a small cooler with ice cold Coors Light for the adults. The wagon also served as a drop off point for the candy bag when it became too heavy. Boy Pop pulled in a ton of candy and we have pounds and pounds of it left over from our round of trick-or-treaters.

This was definitely a great Halloween! Don't ask me what Dr Pop and I went as, though... I still can't tell. ;-)

Christmas...

Well, it’s over. Just like always, we have over two months of anticipation (Really? Why do they start putting out the decorations BEFORE Halloween???) and then about 30 minutes of gratification, then it’s on to the next thing.

Christmas in the Pop family went about like usual… We drove to my grandmother’s house on Christmas Eve, went to run errands, went to church, had dinner with my cousins and my entire mom’s side of the family, went to bed, woke up, opened gifts*, had breakfast, visited for a while, got in the car, hauled ass home, unloaded the car, ran to the store before it closed since we had nothing to eat, watched football, opened our gifts to one another**, had a Santa surprise for Little Pop***, and, well, that was it.

Okay, okay, it wasn’t completely it. After Little Pop went to bed, some of our friends came over and we hung out and drank wine until the wee hours. I then had to get up and go to work with a wine hangover.

I’ll put up some pictures soon. The good news is that it is so slow at work that I’ve been able to do some neat updating of the ole bloggeroo.

* Santa, err, Mom and Dad got me some fun Obagi stuff, a pretty sweater, various little things, and money!, plus we got money from my grandmother and aunt and uncle. I love me some money! And my bro got me exactly what I asked for... "Something Juicy, preferably pink."
** Dr Pop surprised the hell out of me!!! I love my new tote bag, honey.
*** Little Pop got a painted wood Lightning McQueen bed. It is so bad ass and we totally surprised him and he loves it and it is awesome and it is a gazillion times better than the plastic version except it doesn't have a mouth on the front but that's okay because the bed is kick ass without it and that's the end of this run-on sentence!

Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!

Charlie Brown: [shouting in desperation] Isn't there anyone out there who can tell me what Christmas is all about?
Linus Van Pelt: Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you. Lights, please. [a spotlight shines on Linus]
Linus Van Pelt: "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the lord shone round about them, and they were so afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you this day is born in the City of Bethlehem, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, good will toward men'". That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie brown.

*Quotes from www.imdb.com*

Yes, I waited until almost the last day possible to mention this one. This is a reminder that Christmas isn't about Santa Claus, or presents, or reindeer, or any of the commercial stuff.

Christmas is about the celebration of the day that God gave the world the gift of his son.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

MAY YOUR COCOA BE WARM AND FULL OF MARSHMALLOWS
MAY YOU HAVE LOW INTEREST RATES ON THOSE GIFTS YOU CHARGED
MAY THERE BE NO ARGUMENTS OVER THE GRAVY
MAY THERE BE, IF NOT PEACE ON EARTH, AT LEAST PEACE IN YOUR HOME


Warmest wishes,
Mrs. Pop and the Pop family

Ballet Austin's 44th Annual Nutcracker

Editor's note: So, I took down my rant about the spilled salad. I should have focused on how nice the one or two people were who tried to help, rather than the losers who stood and stared. It isn't much, but it's a start...

I've written about my feelings on The Nutcracker both here and here. So you can certainly imagine my trepidation as I walked with my friend to our seats. The last time we were there, 14 years ago, I saw "twinkle fingers!" [insert involuntary shudder here].

Well, lo and behold, when the orchestra began playing the overture, I felt the familiar trembling of nerves inside. I was imagining the cast back behind the curtain, waiting for it all to begin, listening to the rising strains of the music as it hit its crescendo and then ending, thus cuing the curtain to rise... I was right there with them. All of them.

Then the curtain did rise and the show began. I won't go into all the details, but there were a couple of high and low points for me...

I was impressed by the skill of most of the dancers. I enjoyed the choreography of both the snow scene and the waltz of the flowers. The Arabian number was a bit over the top, but the dancers pulled it off well.

Overall, the flow between the scenes was a little halting for my taste, and I felt that the pace of the party scene was definitely too slow and boring at times. Then, after the battle scene is over, and the Nutcracker Prince takes Clara through the land of snow to get to the land of the Sugar Plum Fairy, well, I didn't buy into it. Clara and her Prince are supposed to be in the picture a bit more than just at the beginning. The snowflakes actually guide the couple through the land. The least they could do is make a cameo appearance at the end of the act.

The music was incredible. I thought that the Austin Symphony sounded so together, in tune, and on time that they could have been a recorded version. They got it. They were, at the risk of repeating myself, incredible.

My favorite part is the final act. They pulled it off and did it well. The rose did her job beautifully. Sometimes a solo performance or role (without the man) showcases great talent. It did so last night. I didn't see her miss a beat.

Oh, and there is one universal truth no matter which Nutcracker you may see, no matter where it is performed... The little plastic snowflakes that fall during the snow scene are slippery little devils! Someone *always* slips!

All-in-all, I proved to myself that I can sit and watch someone else perform it. I may not like all of the bits and pieces separately, but as a whole, it didn't suck. It was quite good. And it made me miss Mrs. Baucum, my former instructor, more than anything. Last night was a trip down memory lane for me... It was beautiful and I'm glad I went.