We are off.....

What are we doing today? Oh that old summer verbiage! I've come to a conclusion...vacation can be really boring when you are the only adult in the mix.

The kids have been having a good time. I've taken them to the beach, to dinner, ice cream, and we did make it over to Adventure Isle where they road go carts and we played mini golf. I paid for the tickets, took a few photos and then sat in the car and read.

Today we hung out at the house, kayaked on the lake (I saw a muskrat up pretty close!) and even took a nap.

This past spring, my sister blogged about going to see "The Wizard of Oz" put on by our High School Alma Mater Drama Club. They'd truly enjoyed the performance. I was thrilled to see that since it was a big success they were running the show this weekend! I reserved tickets and off we went to see the wizard this evening. We were not disappointed! We arrived 40 minutes early and were shocked to see a huge line snaking around the building. We got in the 'reserved tickets' line and waited our turn to finally get in and find some seats. The theatre was packed with people and you could feel the excitement oozing off the little kids in the audience.

Way back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, as my kids like to say.... I went to this high school and participated in this drama club run by John Sullivan. "Sully" as we called him, was an amazingly talented man. I was lucky enough to be cast in "Music Man" and a musical rendition of "The Hobbit" (someday I'll post some photos of me in this). I also participated yearly in the annual "Haunted House" my favorite 'job' being that of a guide. We worked hard, learned our parts, were at practice daily and it all paid off. We were often in awe of the props and back drops that were created by the art dept. Tonight I was transported back into that feeling of awe at just what Sully had once again created.

Yes, those are real chickens in the hen house and Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are counting real chicks....oh and yes, Toto was played by a real dog for the "Kansas" scenes.

Glinda the good witch came floating down on this ring while a bubble machine spewed forth bubbles over the audience...pretty cool. I loved the scenery for munchkin land. The major munchkins were played by high schoolers and one by Sully himself. The young girl who played the Wicked Witch of the West (sorry but after reading "Wicked" I can only think of her as Elphaba) had the voice down very well. She was pretty convincing!

I was truly impressed with the talents of the main cast. The young man who played Scarecrow was incredible. He had all the moves! All of them had wonderful singing voices and the young man who played Lion got a lot of laughs from the audience.

How can there possibly be a BHS performance without an out of the ordinary occurrence on stage?? Yes, that is a real horse and YES the horse is green! That is Mr. Sullivan himself driving the carriage. All I could say was "Wow" when the curtain went up for the Emerald City scenes.

"you've killed her....." Ding Dong the witch is dead...I'm melting, melting! such a great 'melting'! She slips behind the wall and shrinks as she disrobes.

And all ends happily with Dorothy's proclamation 'Oh Auntie Em, there's no place like home."

The kids loved the show, and were happy we went. On the way home Sam piped up..."Hey Mom, what are we doing tomorrow?".... thank goodness its Wed. and we have to head home for the day to send Sam off with his Grandma and Meri has a dr. appt!