A rockin' birthday celebration

I've always wanted to take the kids to a Disney show or some other character show, but have been disappointed to find that many are on a weeknight at 7 p.m. Hello! My kids go to bed at 7:15 on school nights. So when a friend posted that the Imagination Movers and Choo Choo Soul (both Disney shows) were going to be in Ames, on a Sunday at 4 p.m., I jumped at the chance. Despite the expense (I don't even spend this much on an adult concert) and the fact that this show is never on when my kids watch TV I figured they would enjoy it. They have one of the CDs and they've watched it in the past.

Though the outing was considered a special celebration for Zander's birthday (remember we were at the waterslide hotel for Nick's special day) Nick probably enjoyed the show a little bit more.


The show started with the Choo Choo Soul. This funky duo does a little short half-animated show between the longer shows on Disney. Zander was still pretty awake for this part of the show and actually got up and danced a few times. Nick was up dancing around for most of their performance.




Then it was on to the main event -- The Imagination Movers! Zander's favorite part was the gigantic Warehouse Mouse puppet! His eyes lit up every time the critter came on stage (which wasn't very often).


I was very surprised at how interactive these guys were with the crowd. They were regularly down in the audience, sitting in empty seats and getting the crowd all riled up. I truly believe that (other than the balconies) we were sitting in the only corner of the auditorium they did not visit!


For the grand finale -- they shot confetti into the crowd. We'd seen their live show on Disney the previous week and Mike had said, "Oh, they won't do that when we are there. That's just for TV." Nope, not true. I feel bad for the poor Iowa State students who clean up the auditorium after these kinds of shows!


Oh, and of course I had to steal a picture with my boys (and one of ALL my boys together, too).