Back at home, we had a quiet Sunday.  Church meetings in the morning, then Jack took a long nap while we knit or did homework.  I'm re-watching Firefly on Blu-Ray. 

We had sandwiches and soup for dinner because it's so easy.  Jack is a BIG fan of tomato soup.

I put my photos from Beauty and the Beast on a flickr set after trimming and cropping them. Below are some of my very favorites. (PS Ben's camera rocks! These were all taken from the last row with no flash. Color me impressed.)

Jack was a trooper.  The show went until 9 pm, we didn't leave until 9:30.  He stayed in his grandparents' arms happily, and I'm told was quite enthralled by the show.  I saw him tell them whenever a character was wearing a hat.

(It's a Spaced reference)

Beauty and the Beast is officially over!  My parents came to town just to see the show and I'm so proud they saw it.  I'm also tremendously proud of these kids.  I heard over and over that this was the best show the school had done, and I can at least agree that it's the best of our three.

I took over 350 photos.  I edited and cropped many tonight, but alas it is quite late.  Here's a favorite from the Gaston number (I love our Beast/Prince joining in, incognito in his beard, on the left):

The obligatory directors getting accolades on stage (but we're always touched that they do this):
 The whole cast after the audience petered out:

And the reason I do these shows:
v

With another blurry mobile photo from the back row!

These kids are killing me with their adorableness.

I got off work an hour early and went straight to the school. It took 1 hr 20 min, but I'm really glad I was able to see tonight instead of tomorrow. Ill go saturday too. There's a buzz about opening and closing night. The kids are improving their performance each night. The audience was wonderfully receptive with hearty laughs in (mostly) right places. (why do they when dead gaston is carried away? They do every time and we don't know why.)

I'm having to fight hard not to tweak and fix and write notes for the cast. I want to redo the whole first half of Be Our Guest. Why does my brain wait until show time to create fantastic solutions for the sloppy parts?

It was funny I came straight to the show in my scrubs. I attended to a re-fractured toe and a minor head injury. There was a sprained ankle earlier this week. I worry something truly bad will happen. I hope amanda has a school first aid kit somewhere. Makes me want an old-fashioned doctor's bag to keep in my car.

I'm looking forward to my day off tomorrow. I didn't see Jack at all today :-( When this is done I have a list of fun things for us: picnic at the park, swim at the rec center, create a recipe for soft lemon cookies, blow bubbles on the porch, generally give Ben more personal time. . .

Good night!

Today I went up to Bailey to watch the first official performance of Beauty and the Beast.  They did an in-school show for the middle schoolers.  It's amazing the leap in performance these kids take from dress rehearsal to actual show.  Something about doing it for an audience brings them to life.

The assistant director made this trailer for the show.  It's footage from the Friday all day rehearsal, before sets and costumes were finished.  But I hope you'll enjoy seeing a little of it.  Maybe I'll have actual performance footage I can share later.

Stayed up too late finishing this because it felt too early to go to bed.