Beauty and the Beast

In 1991 Disney came out with my ultimate favorite princess...Belle.

I remember being so excited that there was now a princess with brown hair and eyes, who loved to read, and had the voice of an angel.

I fell in love with the gorgeous music, the larger than life characters, and who could ever forget the layer upon layer of golden fabric from her ball gown?

I remember memorizing the lyrics from my cassette tape soundtrack of the movie.  I would dance and act out the different songs in the orchards...just a little dramatic...but I just knew that I was Belle!

The winter of my sophomore year of high school I had the sad realization that all of my friends would be able to go to prom, except for me.  My sixteenth birthday was not until the summer and my parents were not going to bend the rule of no dating until your 16 for one night.  So I spent the next few weeks listening to all my friends describe their dresses and squeal about which guy was taking them.

When the dreaded prom weekend came, my dad surprised me by announcing we were going on a "Daddy Daughter" weekend getaway.

Anyone who knows my dad, knows how fun and crazy he can be, so I eagerly packed my bags thinking we were going to spend the weekend in Seattle.

We drove across the mountains, but did not stop when we hit the Pudget Sound.  We caught a flight down to LA where the new Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast was in the middle of it's national tour.

I could not believe it!  My daddy pretty much sealed the deal for best dad for eternity with this one!

Needless to say, it was way better than any high school prom!

So you can see why on Thursday night when I saw a commercial for the musical playing at the Golden Gate theatre I began to squeal out loud, nearly scaring Dallas half to death.
After talking to my brother Erik, we were lucky enough to find four tickets, third row center, on Craigslist for the Saturday matinee.
My sister in law, Heather, and my adorable little niece Ellis joined Dallas and I.  Over the past year I have gradually bought Ellis every Belle item I could think of at the Disney store and was SUPER excited when I saw that Heather had dressed Ellis up in her Belle dress!  Heather even did Ellis's hair in the half bun complete with yellow barrettes and bows!  
As for me, Dallas refused to let me leave the house with any Belle paraphernalia, so I wore my amazing SPARKLE jeans instead :)

Ellis absolutely loves her uncle Dallas and wanted a piggy back ride to the theatre from where we parked.  She was basically a cute puff of yellow!

Ellis got a little scared throughout different parts of the play, probably because she was so close to the stage and was having trouble separating reality from fiction.  After cuddling with Heather and eating lots of Skittles from me, she warmed up just in time to see Belle fall in love with the Beast and her look alike dress come on stage.  She was even more excited when the Beast turned into a handsome prince and they kissed a few feet away from her.

The voices were incredible, the costumes just as gorgeous as I remember, and our seats were AMAZING!!

It was a perfect afternoon.

Thank you Erik and Heather for finding our seats and for letting us help in spoiling your little girl :)