Easter and stuff...

Hello all!!

It's Wednesday, and time for me to blog. We had a very fun weekend in spite of the fact that Saturday was a grey and rainy day, and I had to attend a wake. Boo.

Even though it was a sad occasion, it was great to see a few old friends who I haven't seen in a VERY long time. We had the typical "It's so great to see you, but sorry it's under such awful circumstances!!" conversation, which feels kind of cliche at this point, but it IS true! It's been so long since I've seen them in person (facebook does help a bit) and had the chance to talk to them. We shared lots of great memories about Marian and all the great times we had together.

She will certainly be missed by many.

On a happier note - Friday night was very fun! We got together with K, B, and {b} for dinner and Zachary's three month photo shoot. Dinner and dessert were ridiculously delicious and we had a blast hanging out with them and catching up, as we always do.

Sorry, we still can't post any pictures publicly of the little guy, but let me say that B did an AMAZING job with the pictures...and (hopefully!) you'll be seeing some 'real' pictures of him soon. Fingers crossed!!

Easter was quite fun...we all got spoiled by the Easter Bunny and had a nice day - beginning with a very nice Easter service at church, followed by dinner at my sister's house, and then we ended the day at Jim's sister's with all of his family.

It was lots of fun - and a GORGEOUS day.

Work is well......work.

I'm still actively searching for something else to do, which has been kind of interesting, but I still haven't found anything, so keep your fingers crossed for me!!

Here are some pictures to keep you all happy. :-)

These are the 'cupcakes' (they were GIANT - and SO good) that K made for our dessert on Friday night.





Scooter - 'patiently' waiting to attack his Easter basket





Posing with his new chick...





Enjoying the lovely Spring weather. :-)

In Memory of Marian

I just found out this morning that one of my good friends, Marian passed away yesterday morning.

I knew that she was dealing with some health issues, but I had no idea (nor did anyone else) know that they were so serious.

Marian and I first met when I was doing the show 'FAME' in Dover, NH back in the Spring of 1992. I was a student at UNH and she was a living in the area and was always doing theater wherever she could. She and another friend of ours had an apartment close to the theatre, so their place was where we spent a lot of time both before and after shows, or just hanging around doing what 'kids' our age did. (I was 20, she was 25 or so)

We remained close througout my years at UNH, but once I graduated we lost contact for a bit. I knew where she was, and I knew that she was doing well - but we didn't talk regularly.

In the summer of 1999, I went to see her in a production of 'Bye, Bye Birdie' (she STOLE the show as Mae Peterson). She has no idea I was in the audience, and as she went to make her first entrance (the show was performed was outside, in a park) she walked right past me, saw me, stopped in her tracks, and mouthed 'OH MY GOD!!!!' then proceeded to make her entrance.

I hadn't seen her in MANY years at that point - so we spent decent amount of time playing 'catch up' over drinks after the show.

Since then, we've been in touch on again and off again - but thanks to Facebook, we reconnected and kept in touch quite often. We got together in the fall of 2009 for dinner and a show up in Portsmouth, and that's the last time I saw her.

We'd been in regular contact via FB messages, comments, etc...and it was on Tuesday night that I last heard from her. Funny enough, I posted the picture of the 'belly cast kit' (from yesterday's blog entry) on Facebook Tuesday night, and she was the first to comment on it.
 :-)

She was such a talented and funny woman, and every time we got together or talked, it was always so much fun.

I'll certainly think of her every time I go to Portsmouth, and the NH theatre 'scene' won't be the same without her.

xoxo Marian....we'll miss you!!!

Here are a couple of shots from the last show she did in March.....

This is one of my favorites....

It was taken in the 'cabin' we stayed in on a trip that we took to the Poconos back in the summer of 1992. In case you can't see it clearly, on the wall it says 'Picture is Missing'....hysterical.

I'm on a roll!!!

Two days in a row of blogging!!!!

OK - I'm not going to get too excited, but hey - it's the little things, right?

So, Jim and I went out shopping last night in search of something for us to wear for Easter.
A coupe of weeks ago, we took several trips trying to find something appropriate for Zachary to wear for his very first Easter, and (as I believe I mentioned previously) THAT was a pain in the ass. Thankfully, our search was a bit easier.

We went to the Burlington Coat Factory down the street from us, knowing that it would be a great place to find something inexpensive and halfway decent. For those of you who aren't familiar with them (probably most of my readers) it's similar to a TJ Maxx, Marshall's, etc..etc..
They get a lot of name brand stuff and sell it cheaper than the original price.
Anyway - we were successful in our search, so we should look pretty dashing come Easter Sunday. I'll be sure and post pictures for your enjoyment. :-)

Even better, we were able to find Zachary a little white suit for his Christening!!! We were out shopping a couple of Sundays ago and came upon this fancy-pants kids clothing store and they had Christening suits, but they were around $100.
Really? Not f-ing way am I paying that much money for something he's GUARANTEED to wear once. After seeing that ridiculousness, we decided that we'd keep looking and possibly just get him a nice outfit for him to wear that day and not restrict ourselves to getting the typical Christening suit.

Well, we were looking at the baby clothes at the store last night and lo and behold, they had a totally adorable, white Christening suit in Zachary's size - for only $35!!!! Yes, it's still a little bit of a high priced item - but it was SUCH a deal, and they rarely have Christening suits there, so we HAD to get it. Along with a pair of little white, satin shoes to match. ;-)

They also had these - but we decided against buying one - besides, who has the time?!?!?

Thirteen Days?!?!?

I should be taken out back and beaten.

I've become one of those bloggers that make me crazy. You know, the type that never blog. :-)

I SWEAR, I'll try to be better....I really do miss it and want to get back to writing regularly.
I think it puts me in a better mood each day.

That being said - things are going great with me!!!

Note: My job stil sucks and I despise it, but enough of that negativity. :-)

Since I last wrote Jim and I saw the national tour of 'HAIR' (it was a fun night out, but we didn't love it), softball practices started, my softball team threw us a baby 'shower', we met up with another gay couple that are in the process of adopting, we celebrated our four year anniversary of having Scooter, and Zachary is still battling his ear infections.

Even though he's having some trouble shaking the latest round of ear infections, he's still a great baby and as happy as ever. We're taking him to see his ear, nose, and throat specialist on Friday just to make sure there isn't anything that we should be worried about, but according to his pediatrician, it's more of a preventative thing than anything to be concerned about.
I'm hoping that once the warm weather arrives (assuming it ever does!) he will stop getting them....but we'll see!!

This week is school vacation week around these parts, so it's a pretty quiet week here at work. I was off yesterday, and I'm off Friday, so this week is sure to be a good one.
(consider myself jinxed)

Hopefully this will be the return of me blogging regularly....I KNOW you all miss me so.
xoxo

The sun is shining....

Isn't it nice when the sun comes out?!!?

Well, the concert at Symphony Hall was a BLAST! In spite of the fact that it was a LONG night, the concert went very well. We sounded pretty darn good (especially for having only one rehearsal) and a good time was had by all. All of the songs we did were recorded by someone and are up on YouTube, if you're curious. I would post one or two on here, but I'm writing this at work (shhh!!!) and YouTube is BLOCKED here (rude).

However, if you go to YouTube and search for Video Game Orchestra at Symphony Hall, I'm pretty sure you'll find them. FYI - we sang the following pieces: March Madness, Myst, Baba Yetu, Snake Eater, and Final Fantasy VII....all very exciting.

Jim was in the audience (with 2 of our nieces and 1 of our nephews) and he said we sounded really good, so I know it's true. If we didn't sound good - he'd definitely let me know. :-)

On Saturday we spent the morning at home, went grocery shopping, (love) and then went out in search of an Easter outfit for Zachary. I can't believe how difficult it is to find a decent outfit for a 3 month old boy! Everything we saw was either navy blue or beige. Hello?!?!? It's Easter!!! How about something a little brighter? Pastels? Something?!?!? And don't even get me started on the fact that there are racks and racks of cute, little, COLORFUL baby girl outfits - yet one measly washed out looking rack of outfits for the boys. Not fair.

Anyway...after looking for an outfit, and not finding anything at all that we liked, we met up with some friends for dinner. It was great to see them all and catch up. I love our friends. :-)

On Sunday morning, we went to church, and then headed out for a second attempt at finding an Easter outfit. I'm happy to say that this time we were more successful. We still weren't able to find something with a lot of color, but at least what we ended up with isn't beige!!! I can't wait to see how he looks in it!!

After shopping, we dropped him off at my sister's house and Jim and I had a 'date night'. We went to see Patti LuPone ("Who do you think you are?!?!?") performing her 'Gypsy in my Soul' concert at Symphony Hall. I know...twice in one weekend?!?!

I'm happy to say that the concert was VERY good, and she certainly got a great reception. The crowd was LOVING every minute and it was well deserved. I've been a long time fan, but have never seen her in concert, so this was a nice treat. I'd definitely recommend seeing her if she's coming to your area. Well worth the price.

Monday was my day off, so Zachary and I spent some quality time together. We had an appointment in the morning (that's a post for another day) and then stopped by to visit Jim's parents who had just returned on Sunday night from their vacation. They were so excited to see him after not seeing him for an entire week, so I earned some points for stopping in and paying them a visit. ;-)

Well, my friends...I should probably get to work.......boo.

OH! As many of you know, my dad works for the Red Sox in Ft. Myers. At the end of every Spring Training season, the Red Sox throw the staff a 'wrap party'. At this year's party, they held a bunch of raffles, and my dad was the lucky winner of a bat, signed by #33 himself - Jason Varitek!!!! He told me that he put all of his tickets in that raffle because he knew how much I like Tek...and he wanted to win it for Zach...and me.

So, I'm now the proud owner of Jason Varitek bat. I can't wait to add it to the Tek shrine I have at home. :-)

It's gonna be good...

Two things....this is all I will say about the snow 'storm' we're having right now and the fact that it's April Fool's Day. Both things annoy me to no end.

Anyway...on to bigger and better things!

I had my first (and only) rehearsal last night for tonight's concert and it was AMAZING.

The Video Game Orchestra are a crazily talented group of musicians!!! It's been a long time since I've performed with, or in the presence of an orchestra of any kind and it was a huge treat.

It was especially cool because Alan Silvestri (who composed the music for both Forrest Gump and Back To The Future) is one of the guest conductors and they are playing both of those pieces...which sounded ridiculously good.

And not for nothing....I have to say there are some VERY attractive orchestra members. Apparently the age of the 'band geek' has passed. Some of these people (both men and women) were quite easy on the eyes. Back in my day, the bank geeks weren't always the best looking group. Sure, many of us have 'grown into' our looks and turned out totally hot (side note: all the former band geeks who read my blog certainly are anyway - you know who you are) but these kids are already there. Yowza.

That being said, I'm very excited for tonight. The orchestra is so good, and our group is sounding better and better each time we sing together (we've had ZERO rehearsal beyond last night) so I'm betting that tonight will be a blast.

I'll certainly post an update as soon as I can.

Have a GREAT weekend!!!

xoxo