Hanging out with dinosaurs

Walking with Dinosaurs Live made a stop in town over the weekend. As luck would have it, Travel Zoo had a great discount on tickets. If you have never checked out the travel zoo website, I highly recommend it. We have been able to find some good deals on anything from hotels to theater tickets. http://www.travelzoo.com/ I was able to score 4 tickets for less than $100. What frustrates me on any of these live performances, are all of the ticket fees that get added on. The tickets were $16 each, but after this fee and that fee, they ended up totally about $24 each.

Let me start by saying that we tried to see this show the last time they were in town. That was in 2008, right after we moved here. Noah was pretty much home bound. His anxiety was severe enough that it prevented us from doing very much. But we always tried. We took the kids to the show back then, hoping that the appeal of the dinosaurs would keep Noah in his seat. No chance. He bolted almost immediately, so one parent sat with Nik, while the other parent sat with Noah in the lobby of Sprint Center.

So flash forward to this weekend, we decided to give it a try. Noah seemed a little apprehensive. The day of the show, he talked about being scared when he was little. We reminded him that those days were behind him, but that we would pack his headphones just in case.

The tickets were the least expensive seats, so I was fully prepared to be in nose bleed territory. But they were actually good seats. We were 21 rows back from the stage.

And Noah seemed pretty calm. Maybe the popcorn and cotton candy had something to do with that.

If you are familiar with the Walking with Dinosaurs tv series from BBC, you know that it took you right into the world of dinosaurs, along with paleontologist Nigel.  Well for the live show, we didn't get Nigel. We got some other dude. I forgot his name. But the show did a great job explaining what life would have been like.

Dinosaur and dude not named Nigel.

Of course, there were lots of opportunities to see what happens when herbivore meets carnivore. 

And volcano eruptions.

The show took us through the 3 ages of dinosaurs; Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. Some of the dinosaurs were small, and I could tell that there was a person inside. The larger ones were controlled by people and remote control. They were quite big.

  

A flying pterosaur even made an appearance.

And of course, the vicious velociraptor. 

And for the finale, T Rex made an appearance.

Mama T Rex came in to rescue her baby.

We all really enjoyed the show. And I loved that Noah could verbalize and be proud of the fact that this was something he could not do a few years ago. Way to go, Noah! We really cheer on these moments. Never let these moments pass, without acknowledging the struggles to get there. It makes these days that much more sweet.