Hakuna Matata!

When we decided to visit LA over the holiday, I checked to see if ant good musicals would be in town. As luck would have it, The Lion King is touring, and had performances during our visit. I booked our tickets a couple months early. I was not able to find any discount codes, so had to pay full price. At $112 a ticket, it wasn't cheap, but we were only 10 rows from the stage. A few weeks later, my sister, nephew and mom decided to see the show. The closest seats were only 2 rows behind us.

The boys had really enjoyed our previous Broadway musicals, so they were very excited to see Lion King. To get a jump on LA's horrible traffic, Alex and I decided to head over to Hollywood at 3. We figured we could walk around a bit, eat at world famous Pink's hot dogs, then head to the Pantages Theater. We did run in to some traffic, but it was light by LA standards.

We got to Hollywood in 1 hour. Believe me when I say that is fast. Oh look, here's glamorous Hollywood.

We did get a bit of street traffic. Hey, there's the Hollywood sign!

We made our way over to Pink's. This is one of those fast food joints where you can find yourself in line with either a tourist from Ohio, or George Lopez. This place gets crazy packed.

See what I mean? It was a long line. This night, it was filled with Ohioans, not George Lopezins. Yeah, that's a word! Anyway, we waited in line for an hour. Can I just give a shout out to my sons? They were so patient in line, despite the fact that we were standing in a long line, and on a busy/loud intersection.

When it was finally our turn, we ordered an assortment of hamburgers and chili dogs, plus sodas. It came out to $26.  We sat at the outdoor patio and enjoyed our junk food. Was it worth standing in line for an hour? Hell yeah! My boys patiently stood in that line.  Boom! Learning opportunity right there.  Mastering the fine art of waiting patiently is something that our family could not do a few years ago. So yay us!

By the time we had finished dinner, it was time to meet up with the rest of my family at Pantages Theater. We paid $20 to park (OMG!), then looked for my family at the front of the theater. 

We had time to kill before the doors opened, so I bought a program for the boys, then checked out some of the stars. Aaaaaeeeeyyyy! It's the Fonze!

One the doors opened, we headed inside. I had read that the Pantages does not allow photography, but everyone was taking pictures. I had left my camera at my in-laws house, so all I have are bad cell 

phone pictures. They don't do this place justice. The theater was gorgeous. It was built in 1930, and was the home of the Academy Awards for many years.

We walked around for a bit just to soak in the atmosphere. Of course, we made a stop at the souvenir stand. $65 for 3 Lion King stuffed animals. It was getting closer to curtain call, so we headed to the orchestra area. We spotted Lion King masks and snapped a quick photo.

We had great seats, only 10 rows back. Check out the beautiful interior of the theater.

My mom, sister, nephew and niece were just a couple rows behind us.

And the stage before show time.

The show was excellent. I did let the kids wear their noise reducing headphones. I gave them the option to not wear them, but once the music started, they both put their headphones on.  My favorite part was just watching my kids leaning forward in their chairs, with the look of pure joy on their 

faces. What a night.

It was 10:30 when the show ended, so we just headed home. We did get a nice view of downtown. 

And still some traffic.

Tomorrow, The Hat and a movie.