I saw a message early this morning from a fellow Facebook/Mommy-friend, Holly, about how Raa Raa the Noisy Lion was going to be appearing at Westfield - Merry Hill today and she was offering to pick up tickets for one of the showings. I think at one point they must have told her there was a limit which meant I would have to get them on my own. Immediately I rang Matt and told him about my obvious impromptu plans of getting Ryan and myself dressed and racing down to the bus stop to get to Merry Hill as fast as we could to see if we could score some tickets. He then rang his parents and they graciously agreed to come and get us so we wouldn't have to risk waiting forever or missing the bus.
We arrived at Merry Hill right as the first showing was happening (I believe this would have been the 10:30 showing). Josie went to the concierge to pick up the tickets but they weren't until later that afternoon which meant Ryan and I would have to occupy ourselves until then. As we were standing behind the queue for the next showing and watching the current one, Josie introduced us to her former boss, who she had just seen passing by, and she said she'd be more than happy to allow Ryan and me into the next showing as VIPs and all we would have to do was come see her at the entrance just before the show!
David and Josie left us to it and sure enough we were able to get in to the 11:30 showing and sit right up front by the stage. Ryan was in absolute awe and squeeled with delight as Raa Raa came on set!
During this showing I received a text from Holly to say that she had the extra tickets for the 12:30 show, so I decided to stick around since I knew Ryan would love to see it again.
We weren't as close during the earlier showing, but it was nice to be able to allow Ryan to stand up and dance along without worrying he was blocking too many people behind him (since there were plenty of children standing in the back).
He had an absolute ball of a time and the look of joy that overcame his face every time Raa Raa and Ooo Ooo (the monkey) spoke or made a big 'rawr' was the biggest reward for me -- just priceless!
The photo above was actually from the first showing that we watched. We stayed on set after everyone left to get a photo of Ryan on the stage. He waved his little flag like mad and even did a few 'rawrs' for me. While he was doing this, their photographer asked if she could take some video footage of him to put on the Westfield site, so I agreed. When they posted the video on their Facebook page, there are two very brief times you can see Ryan (neither are the bits the photographer/videographer filmed from him on the stage, sadly)...the first at 0:06 seconds in on the lower right he is on my lap waving his flag just before Raa Raa and Ooo Ooo came on stage, so his expression doesn't really show his excitement right then. The second bit is barely worth mentioning because it's a shot from the back, again down in the lower right and you only see the backs of our heads at 0:20 seconds...but here is the link from You Tube:
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