February? REALLY?!?!?

Where oh where has January gone????

Friday night was a blast!!! Who would ever have thought that chaperoning a Sweet 16 birthday party would be so much fun?
First of all, I ended up knowing one of the two guys that were hired to ‘DJ’ the party….crazy, small world.

Second of all, the kids were SO well behaved and had a great time. They danced the entire time (even the boys!!) they were all super polite, and everyone had a great time. Third, and last of all, the food was SO good. The ‘birthday girl’ picked the menu and as a result, we had was Caesar salad, chicken fingers, waffle fries, pasta, meatballs, and sliders (mini-burgers). To quote one of the kids in line ahead of Jim “I was afraid it was going to be all fancy food, but this is awesome!”

This was how the room looked:

I have to agree. It was such a ‘fun’ menu….and it was all really good.

To finish it all off, they had birthday cake and a make your own sundae bar.

I was absolutely shameless when it came to making my own sundae......and it was amazing.

This was the cake:

This was my sundae :-)

After the party, Jim and I went out for a few drinks at the local ‘watering holes’ of Manchester, New Hampshire.

Yikes.

There were three different gay bars in Manchester and none of them were anything to write home about. We visited all three, but the third one wouldn’t even let us in.

:-)

No, not because we were tanked...we arrived at 12:30 and since they close at 1:00, no one is allowed in from 12:30 on. After being refused entry (which apparently was a blessing in disguise) we returned to our ‘favorite’ of the other two we visited and finished the night there.

In the morning, we met up with our friends for breakfast, which was REALLY good.

We arrived back in MA in the last morning, picked up Scooter from his sleepover and headed home.

After unpacking and getting ‘settled’, I headed into Boston to go see [title of show] again at SpeakEasy. It was SOOOO much fun. As I mentioned before, Hunter (book) and Jeff (music/lyrics) as well as Susan (one of the original stars) were attending the show that afternoon and hosting a ‘talk back’ after the performance. I was seated with all of them during the show, which was very exciting for this musical theatre nerd. In essence - I was watching them, watching people playing them, in a musical that they wrote about themselves writing a musical.

Craziness.

The show was great. The three of them seemed to really enjoy it and the talk back was very fun. I got to hang out with them and the Boston cast for a bit afterwards, which was super-cool-insidery stuff…..loved it.

After the show, I met up with Jim and our friend Charles for a couple of drinks at a closer-to-home gay bar called ‘Bobby’s Place’……lovely.

On Sunday, we had a fairly relaxing day……church, rehearsal, and then an AMAZING dinner made my Jim – followed by our regular Sunday night TV (no Grammy’s for us, thank you) and an early bed time.

SUCH a busy weekend, but totally worth it. :-)

Now I’m back to work and looking forward to rehearsal tonight…..the show is going well. So far it looks and sounds AMAZING.
Cant wait….

Here are some pictures from the post-show photo shoot 

Boston 'Hunter' (Joe Lanza, seated) with Broadway 'Hunter', Hunter Bell (book) 

Boston 'Jeff' (Jordan Ahnquist, left) with Broadway 'Jeff', Jeff Bowen (music/lyrics)

Boston 'Susan' (Valerie Sullivan, on lap) with Broadway 'Susan', Susan Blackwell

Boston 'Heidi' (Amy Barker, seated) with Broadway's 'Hunter' (Hunter Bell, left) and 'Jeff' (Jeff Bowen, right) with Boston 'Jeff' (Jordan Ahnquist) in the background, keeping an eye on things. [Broadway 'Heidi' couldn't make the trip to Boston....sad face.]

The Boston Cast with the Broadway fancy-pants creators/stars that came to see the show.  

Boston's Musical Director/Larry (Will McGarrahan) is in the 2nd row, center...Boston [title of show] Director (Paul Daigneault) is in the 2nd row, far right)