We decided to wake up early this morning and go to the new house. On the way we wanted to make a stop. I had researched yesterday if there might be anything interesting happening in the area near the new house that we could take the kids to. There were a few options- there was the chance to make Valentine’s cards at Michaels, there was a cooking class at Wegmans, but then I ran across something happening at a local park. About ten minutes from our house there is an arts center, and this morning they were featuring a marionette show. It started at 10am, and we pulled into the parking lot as it was about to begin.

Now I can’t remember if I have ever actually seen a real marionette show in person. I’ve seem them on tv, but never on the stage. The kids have never seen them. When we entered the theatre the room was incredibly dark, but the show hadn’t started yet. We found some seats and in a couple of minutes it began.

The moment the first puppet entered the stage, the kids were entranced. Even Baby E stayed engaged for the entire show! The story was a sweet little tale of a grandmother going on a journey to help bring the rains back to her country. She traversed desert and ocean to fulfill her mission. The highlight of the show was then the ‘Dragon King’ came out into the audience, ran around the theatre, and squirted water on all the kids. Baby E was especially excited about the dragon puppet.

The entire show ran about an hour, and the kids never got antsy or bored, they couldn’t keep their eyes off the magic. When the show was done, the puppeteers came out and answered questions, and then they invited the audience to come behind stage to look at the marionettes and props. We learned several awesome tidbits. Each human marionette had 13 strings. One of the puppets was a rod puppet, it used rods instead of strings to move. The dragon’s squirting powers came from a disassembled squirt gun. It takes 2 weeks to 2 months to make a marionette. And it took 2 years to produce the two-person show.

I loved that we were able to give the kids this awesome experience and I hope that they remember it for a long time!