My niece Charlotte was performing in Edmond’s Nutcracker, and my mom and I decided to fly from Michigan to Oklahoma to watch her. My sister Tracy and her fiancé John drove from Kansas. (Did I mention I'm co-officiating their wedding? Then let me mention it to you ten more times.)
On our plane from Grand Rapids to Oklahoma City, the celling kept dropping little pieces of snow on me. I kept telling my mom, sitting next to me, and she never looked quickly enough. She starting making jokes about me seeing a gremlin on the wing like that old Twilight Zone. (I just looked it up and the main guy was William Shatner! Who knew?) I made it to our destination sane and well-cooled.
When we landed in OKC, they had an advertisement for a robot that painted your nails. Then I saw an automatic giant robot floor cleaner that was the size of a dishwasher. Way to be progressive, OK!
Gage picked us up, we ate a Qdoba – instead of a Christmas tree, they had a big, fake, decorated Christmas cactus, and I liked it.
We went straight to Rose State Performing Arts Center in Midwest City, OK to see Charlotte perform. It was put on by the Oklahoma Youth Arts Foundation | Oklahoma Dance Center | Oklahoma Youth Ballet.
Gage had gotten us front row seats, and we were so close! I loved it and could see everything. Charlotte performed as the Dew Drop Fairy, and it was so great – the whole performance. Charlotte was wonderful, beautiful, graceful, amazing!
We had gotten an Airbnb on 5th Street in Edmond, and it was such a great spot, because we could walk to lots of places. Tracy and I went for a walk in a nice neighborhood, and then we (my mom, John, and Tracy) met up with Gage and his kids (Evelyn, Jude, Ian) at Hideaway Pizza. It was about two blocks from our house.
(A funny thing about the Airbnb. It stated that you couldn't eat or drink on the white couch, but also that there could be no liquids or POWDERS on it. We joked about this the entire weekend - like John opened the cupboard and said, "There's baking powder right here. They are providing the powders! It's like they're tempting fate!")
At Hideaway, the food, the servers, and the company were great.
Then - we went to Edmond Electric's Luminance in Mitch Park. It was so pretty! We walked all around to see everything. The displays were dazzling, and we sang Christmas songs much to the delight of Ian, who ran away from us into the woods. I haven't been to a light display like that in real life, and I loved it.
Later, at about 10:30 p.m., Gage asked me – did I want to go to a smaller, smokier, crowded karaoke place, or a bigger, less smoky, more crowded karaoke place? I didn’t even know they allowed smoking in bars anymore! Surprise – I chose the bigger place. Gage and I sang separately and a duet, plus listened to some great and not-so-great singers. One thing I love about karaoke is everyone is so supportive of each other. The best people and the worst people are all enthusiastically applauded.
Day two
Tracy and I went running around downtown Edmond, where they have lots of very realistic bronze statues of people. We liked them but agreed they would be scary at night, when they were moving around and clacking their little bronze teeth.
We could walk from our house to 501 Boulevard, which was even closer than Hideaway Pizza. We could see it from our white-couched house.
The meal was really great, and the servers were so nice. We had a really nice time here.
We went to Gage’s house and walked around the property and house, since John hadn’t been there before.
Then – we went for our second performance! In this one, Charlotte was the Sugar Plum Fairy. So fun to see her in multiple roles! Both times she also was a Snowflake. So enjoyable, so talented! I cried, of course.
We all went to Braum's, which is an ice cream parlor we always frequent when we're in Oklahoma. They had all kinds of holiday flavors, like gingersnap and eggnog.
We hung out at Gage's house. Charlotte told us all the behind-the-scenes things about the show, which was super interesting. When Gage took us back to the Airbnb, he drove us to his neighbor's house, whose light show was equally as impressive as the Edmond one.
We went to bed fairy early, and left the house at 3:45 a.m. to get home by 3:00 p.m.
Long day, and totally and completely worth it to see Charlotte perform, and see my family!
Plus, we made it out of the Airbnb powder-accident free.
