This year my birthday present from Michael’s parents was 2 tickets for the Little House on the Prairie musical that is playing in St. Paul right now! We had try to buy tickets when the show debuted in Minneapolis last year but it sold out very quickly. Not only was it exciting, but Melissa Gilbert (the actress who played Laura Ingalls in the tv show) plays “Ma”!
So we made a date out of it! We were both able to leave work early. So we made it to our 5:15 dinner at Pazzaluna, an Italian place a couple of blocks away from the Ordway theater. We had a yummy dinner with calamari appetizer and everything! Then we headed over to get ready for the musical!
There were several little girls wearing bonnets, and yes I was jealous. The local Disney radio station was there doing Little House trivia with all the kids. Of course I participated from the sidelines. I was 4 for 5. But I probably could have guessed the last one had I really tried!
Then it was showtime! Oh wow, it was SOOOO good! I love musicals and I love Little House, so for me it was the best of both worlds!! They really did a fantastic job of adapting it as a musical. It was so fun seeing Melissa Gilbert so close! The singing was really good and of course the props were really neat to see how they created all the sets and stuff. The imitated a lot of wagon rides just using a set of reins and it was so realistic looking!
At the end, as soon as Melissa Gilbert came out, everyone gave her a standing ovation and cheered really loud – so exciting! The actress that played Laura pulled her back out for another encore and then the whole cast broke out into a good ol’ country dance – they hiked up their skirts and everything.
Michael was a good sport. He likes plays but he’s not exactly a big fan of musicals, but he went because he knew how much it meant to me. At intermission, I asked him what he thought and he said “It sure is a bunch of singing!” :) Then on the walk to the car, Michael says “The guy playing Alfonso (Laura’s future husband) did a good job.” I then had to inform him it was ALMonzo not ALFonzo. Haha
Thanks Faith & Jimmy for such a great birthday gift!! OH! And since everyone who reads this is in Texas, you will be happy to know it is coming to Dallas and Houston next April & May!! I HIGHLY recommend it!
Friday, October 16, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Quest for Colors
This past weekend, we made plans to go to Duluth for the weekend on a search to find the most beautiful Fall colors. Duluth is about 3 hours north of here. So we woke up Saturday morning and had a suprise when we looked out our window. That's right people - snow. On October 10.
So we got in the car anyways and after dealing with a shut down freeway and seeing about 5 or 6 cars getting pulled out of ditches, we finally got to safer roads and made our way up north. We ended up driving an hour and a half north of Duluth to a town called Grand Marais. We were literally about 30-40 minutes from the canadian border! Unfortunately, we were very disapointed to see that for some reason the fall foliage was not near as pretty up there as it is here. Not sure why exactly - could be because of the drought this year...or maybe we were too late. Or we just have bad luck - which we got a taste of on this little road trip.
We finally made it to Grand Marais. It was about 30 degrees with a 20-30mph wind. BURR! We found a little place in the cute downtown to eat lunch and we paid rediculous prices for chicken strips and a chef salad that I could have made better myself. So we headed out and saw a big state forest on the map just west of the town. Well, we ended up driving around lost in the forest for about 2 1/2 hours on grated dirt roads because apparently the state of Minnesota hates labeling their streets with signs. To top it off, we didn't see hardly any color in the forest. The biggest contrast of color we saw was the thick layer of mud that covered half of Mr. Zoomy (my car). And yes, I was about to have a panic attack when Michael said "Um, don't freak out when you see the outside of your car." ???!
We finally made it back to Duluth thankful to be alive and back on paved roads. We decided to go for dinner downtown and so did everyone else in Duluth apparently. We ended up in a mexican cantina place where we had to sit in the bar area just to get a table quick. Our waiter was so slow and so horrible, after waiting almost 15 minutes for our bill, the bar tender had to go find him in the restaurant to get our bill from him. He literally got a two cent tip...and that's just because I didn't have the patience to count out the 98 cents that was on our bill. Argh.
Sunday, we found a church near our hotel and were 10 minutes late because even the church parking lot requires parking permits. ???
Luckily the drive home was much better. We remembered quite a few beautiful color patches of trees along the way, so we stopped several times and took pictures. We FINALLY decided to buy a tripod for our camera! So it was really nice to not have to balance the camera on top of the car or a tree to take our pictures. Sorry to be so complainy, it really was fun to have a little weekend getaway trip....we just had some frustrating times though along the way!
View from our window Saturday morning
Some of the prettiest colors on the drive up
At a waterfall along the way
One pretty shot we got while lost in the forest
Poor dirty Mr. Zoomy after getting out of the forest :(
In front to Lake Superior
At a scenic overlook
Pretty yellow tree!
Happy Fall!
So we got in the car anyways and after dealing with a shut down freeway and seeing about 5 or 6 cars getting pulled out of ditches, we finally got to safer roads and made our way up north. We ended up driving an hour and a half north of Duluth to a town called Grand Marais. We were literally about 30-40 minutes from the canadian border! Unfortunately, we were very disapointed to see that for some reason the fall foliage was not near as pretty up there as it is here. Not sure why exactly - could be because of the drought this year...or maybe we were too late. Or we just have bad luck - which we got a taste of on this little road trip.
We finally made it to Grand Marais. It was about 30 degrees with a 20-30mph wind. BURR! We found a little place in the cute downtown to eat lunch and we paid rediculous prices for chicken strips and a chef salad that I could have made better myself. So we headed out and saw a big state forest on the map just west of the town. Well, we ended up driving around lost in the forest for about 2 1/2 hours on grated dirt roads because apparently the state of Minnesota hates labeling their streets with signs. To top it off, we didn't see hardly any color in the forest. The biggest contrast of color we saw was the thick layer of mud that covered half of Mr. Zoomy (my car). And yes, I was about to have a panic attack when Michael said "Um, don't freak out when you see the outside of your car." ???!
We finally made it back to Duluth thankful to be alive and back on paved roads. We decided to go for dinner downtown and so did everyone else in Duluth apparently. We ended up in a mexican cantina place where we had to sit in the bar area just to get a table quick. Our waiter was so slow and so horrible, after waiting almost 15 minutes for our bill, the bar tender had to go find him in the restaurant to get our bill from him. He literally got a two cent tip...and that's just because I didn't have the patience to count out the 98 cents that was on our bill. Argh.
Sunday, we found a church near our hotel and were 10 minutes late because even the church parking lot requires parking permits. ???
Luckily the drive home was much better. We remembered quite a few beautiful color patches of trees along the way, so we stopped several times and took pictures. We FINALLY decided to buy a tripod for our camera! So it was really nice to not have to balance the camera on top of the car or a tree to take our pictures. Sorry to be so complainy, it really was fun to have a little weekend getaway trip....we just had some frustrating times though along the way!
View from our window Saturday morning
Some of the prettiest colors on the drive upAt a waterfall along the way
One pretty shot we got while lost in the forest
Poor dirty Mr. Zoomy after getting out of the forest :(In front to Lake Superior
At a scenic overlook
Pretty yellow tree!
Happy Fall!
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