Horsing Around

All week long, James told me not to make any plans for Halloween night, he had a huge night planned for the two of us in celebration of me getting the new job. He wouldn't tell me what we were doing, he just told me I needed to dress up and we needed to leave the house by 5:00pm. We had dinner reservations at 6:30 and he hinted that there was something else to come...

We made our way up into downtown Atlanta on a cold, windy, rainy night, going to Atlantic Station. We had dinner at Strip, a funky two-story restaurant specializing in both sushi and steak. We both opted for steak, and I have to say this was probably one of the very best filets I have ever had, cooked and seasoned perfectly- it just melted in my mouth. I highly recommend this restaurant! We loved it, and the staff were all dressed up in their Halloween costumes for a party later on that night. Our waitress was dressed like a hooded ninja with swords crossed on her back, but with her ultra-short blond and pink hair, she looked more like a pixie. On to the big surprise....

Next to Atlantic Station was this huge white tent, set up right in the shadows of the downtown skyline. Inside...CAVALIA!!

James bought the Horse Lovers' package, which gave us great up front seats for the show, and a backstage pass after the show to tour the stables and meet the four-legged stars. Cavalia is a magical show created by one of the founders of Cirque du Soleil. This show is filled with tremendous live music, beautiful sets, gorgeous men and women in costume, acrobats, dancing, singing, people flying from the ceiling, and almost 60 magically talented horses representing twelve different breeds. James knows how much I love horses, and I was SO excited to go to this, I can't tell you in words here. Not only that, but my husband secretly planned all of this for me, for us. It was a wonderful evening.

Many of the horses performed without riders or ropes of any kind, they responded to verbal cues from the actors, and of course used their superior equine intelligence to run and prance through their routines. There was no photography allowed during the show, but I managed to snap this shot afterwards, while there were still a few horses on stage.

And here are a just a few of the many photos I took of the horses during the special tour of the stables. We weren't allowed to use the flash, which makes sense because the horses had all just finished performing in this two hour show, and they were resting and eating. But I took as many photos as I could. Some of the horses were camera shy, but many were very friendly, and unfortunately for me we were not allowed to touch any of them, even though many stuck their noses through the bars on the stalls to sniff at me. The photo of the young horse is a small colt the show just rescued and adopted here in Atlanta, and they will train him to one day be part of the group. He and another colt came out on stage at the very beginning, but they were just out there to look oh so cute.

I'm not sure if this show will be coming to a city near you, but if you love horses as much as I do, then I urge you to go and see this spectacular production. Gorgeous, is all I can say. And thank you to my wonderful amazing husband for giving me this incredible evening!! And thank you for the cute little stuffed horse you gave me after the show!