the lion of a date.

living in las vegas we access to some pretty cool things throughout the year. concerts, award shows, rodeos, and cirque de soleli shows, sometimes they even offer local discounts! i had been wanting to see the lion king at mandalay bay since it arrived in vegas a few years ago, but something else always seemed to come up. plus tickets were at least $100/person which adds up pretty quickly.

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i heard awhile back that they were doing 2-for-1 local tickets and that at the end of the year it was leaving las vegas forever. i missed mama mia, which was there before and was determined not to miss this one too. after my best friend tiffany went and raved about it i knew i had to figure out a way to fit it in. i thought i would have to convince richard quite a bit harder to go, but he was in as soon as i suggested it. we started looking at the beginning of november for a good weekend and with all the holidays and things going on it was going to be a tight squeeze. we finally decided on sunday the 20th.

we also decided to make it a date night, you know, dinner and a show. we made sure to run all our errands saturday and my long run early in the morning sunday so we could have plenty of time to relax sunday day till the show. we got a little dressed up to make it really fun and decided to try carrabas for the first time. last summer when we visited his aunt and uncle they raved about carrabas the whole time we were there. it was time to finally try it! we went a little early, about 545p because we weren't sure what the wait would be. turns out we walked right in and sat down.

dinner was really good as we were both starving! we had amazing conversations. very grown up and lots of good things about what the future might hold (i can't give away all the good stuff:) ). soon it was off to mandalay bay for the show! I had picked up the tickets the day before so it was easy to go right to the theatre. there were tons of people milling around waiting to be let in to sit. we checked out the souvenir store then it was time to find our seats.

time to celebrate the circle of life!

the show didn't actually start till 815p because so many people were late. once it started it was amazing start to finish! it had all the great things from the movie and then some. the animals were fantastic and the music was so good. it was a little different from the movie, for example rafiki was a woman and it felt a lot more african savannah rather than disney. timon and pumba in fact were really the only 2 characters that looked like the movie. but it was soooo good! I highly recommend it to anyone that loves the movie:)

we made home quite a bit later than I thought we would, but that's ok. the show, dinner, and all the conversation was completely worth it. we had an amazing night and a very different date night for us. it's fun to shake it up sometimes:) hakuna matata!

the super pretty tree in mandalay bay.