Fairy Tale Weekend

The four weddings had come and gone, and now the musical has passed as well. After a month of hard work and preparation, the alums (and some current students) of Jon's high school put their fund-raising production of "Into the Woods" on stage for an appreciative, albeit small, audience (we blame the lack of publicity). There are two things to be said. First things first... Sondheim was one crazy dude. While it is great fun to see our favorite "Disney" characters meet up on stage, this show is a stark reminder that the original fairy tales, mostly Perrault's from the 17th century, were very dark and even gruesome. If you are unfamiliar with either the script or the stories you might be caught unawares by the excessive pecking out of eyes (this is not bedtime material for your five year old the way that Disney has presented them). Fortunately, Sondheim's musical has fused the gruesome aspects of these dark stories with a solid sense of humor, and even sexuality. Unfortunately, all that humorous sexuality was omitted in this weekend's production because Jon went to a private Catholic school (of course, that doesn't mean that innuendoes weren't made backstage, ha ha).
Now for that second thing that should be said... sex or no sex, it was a wonderful show and a wonderful weekend. This is a VERY hard show to put on, and the majority of the people involved are amateurs, not to mention that all the rehearsal and set production took place in the course of one month. Yes, one month. Whoever said that it takes at least six weeks to put on a Sondheim production was right, but the kids involved did an amazing job. Their dedication is astounding. The whole reason for putting on the show was to raise money for the construction of a theater for the school (we did Les Miserables last year and plan to continue the summer dramalum production tradition next year... we'll keep you posted). Alumni (and current students) came out of the woodwork for this! Not only were they in the show, but those who could not dedicate a month to rehearsal time did still fly, drive, and take trains back into town to show their support this weekend. And it's not just the alumni, but parents and friends and significant others, too (Cortney ran the box office while Jon ran the music). It's a really good feeling. And the production went over really well, and was a lot of fun. Regardless of falling trees and forgotten birds, we want to say how proud we are of this whole group, and how great it feels to be a part of a group so dedicated. Thank you everyone, and here's to looking forward to next year!

A marriage in numbers

We have been married for 17,544 wonderful hours, driven 7,011.24 miles on trips, shared 1,773 meals.
We have been married for 731 days, rented 110 movies, visited 38 National Parks and 26 of the states.
We have been married for 24 months, been to 11 major cities, 8 football games, 7 zoos, 5 stage shows, 4 theme parks.
We have been married for 2 years, adopted 2 cats (we already had 3 dogs), flown 1 flight, bought 1 house.
We have been married once, but it has provided thousands of joys and will provide an uncountable number in the future.

Happy anniversary to us.

 
 

Wedding #3 (or #4, depending...)

I told everyone this summer that in July we had 4 weddings and a musical (nevermind that one of those weddings was in June and we didn’t even go, it still sounded funny).  This weekend was the fourth and final wedding, and it was a great way to close the season.  Our friends James and Jessa were the lucky couple and they got married in the park right on the Huron River, with the sun glinting off ripples in the water and light breeze keeping the attendants as cool as possible.  We may have gone a little crazy at the party.  We (along with Curtis, Patty, Sara and an unnamed little girl) were the last to leave the dance floor at midnight.  The really amazing thing is that with all of those weddings, at least one of them should have suffered a rain storm or something, but it didn’t happen.  This wedding was just as sunny and bright as the others.  Fantastic.  And now on to the musical, Sondheim’s Into the Woods, musical direction by Jon.  Actually, they have already been rehearsing for the entire month of July, but the opening night is Thursday.  It’s going to be a busy week.

Art Fair in Ann Arbor

Every year, on the third Wednesday of July, Ann Arborites everywhere (in Ann Arbor) run for the hills (up north, on a lake, anywhere but here) as visitors from all over the country swarm onto our streets and our restaurants.  Yep, it’s Art Fair week.  Maybe we’re masochistic, or maybe just plain crazy, but we never leave town during Art Fair.  In fact, we met at a swing dance the night of the first day of Art Fair, so we kind of see it is a floating anniversary.    Every year we join the Ophoff family for lunch and then peruse the fair throughout the afternoon and into the evening on opening day.  And every year we buy ourselves an anniversary gift there.  The first year, a cutting board, the second year the letters of our name in photographs, and this year?  A giant stuffed turtle.  Yes you guessed it, we are regressing in age.  But we also got a beautiful safari photograph for the large blank space above our bed.  This picture is fantastic and has been treated to make it appear a little like an oil painting.  It will be like waking up on an African safari every day of the week (without the bugs)!  Suddenly we have an urge to fly overseas and actually go on a safari, but that will be some ways off in the future.  Ah, well, it never hurts to dream.

Making it up to our zoo

It wouldn’t have felt right to go to visit the animals in Toledo this weekend but not go say hello and “hey, we’re back in town” to our favorite critters at the Detroit Zoo.  Besides, the capybara, prairie dogs and polar bear would miss us!  And the distance is about the same, so we plan to visit Toledo again, but the animals in Detroit are really our favorites (yes, we are aware that playing favorites is a big no-no, but what are you going to do?).  Besides, we keep figuring that the more times we visit, the more likely we are to actually see the Aardvark do something! (still waiting…)
But there is always something new going on there.  This time we got to see the anteaters attacking a log with their huge claws.  And we finally got to see one of the new white rhinos!  They arrived a few weeks ago and have been taking some time to get used to their surroundings before coming out to say hello.  We can’t wait to go back next weekend in hopes that the other one will be out, too! (and maybe the Aardvark.  Still waiting…)