What hasn't happened?

So here are a few updates to try to catch up since my last oh-so-long-ago post. Keep an eye out...you may find the kitchen sink in here somewhere...

My birthday -
It was great! I turned *gasp* 23 and felt quite old...especially considering I was doing a show with kids ranging in age from 20 down to 11 (ugh). To celebrate my joint birthday with Johnny Red, we went to see Cowboy Mouth in Nashville and partied up the weekend before. Ironically, one of the highlights of the trip was the food - they actually have White Castles & Dunkin Donuts in Nashville!


The show -
Also great! I did Guys & Dolls with a community theatre here and met some wonderful people. Even with the stress of whether or not we were going to be able to open (any filthy-rich theatre lover reading who wants to sponsor our group...please?!) the show came off amazingly. Our leads were brilliant and the rest of the cast worked really hard. Only problem - we need to work on being quieter back stage. There's really only a curtain and a little drywall between us and the audience...and that doesn't muffle ANY sound. I'm pretty sure some of our guests got a little free cast gossip with their show. It also took a little getting used to to get back in the mode of 'community theatre' versus 'professional theatre.' It's a whole different attitude (moreso with kids) that is fun in it's own way...but very much different. I can't wait for auditions for our summer shows: Godspell & Chicago...sooooooooooo excited!!!!


And here was the cake I made for our cast party - I'm very proud of it!


We got our first snow...here's what was left of it an hour or so later:


I went to my first Huntsville Havoc hockey game. While I was quite disappointed in the actual hockey that was played...say, compared to the level of the St. Louis Blues...there was much more fighting. What you see here is about what the whole game was like:



Spring Break -
Too much fun! Went home to ole St. Louis with some friends from my department...which my cousin was shocked and amazed to find out were BOYS (heavens to betsy). I got to show off my town - which I love. We had great food including Crown Candy, Caleco's, Gus' Pretzels, Bevo Mill, Hodak's Chicken, Mom's Deli, Zia's, and the less fancy but still yummy local take-out including White Castles & Cecil Whittaker's Pizza...we were all very disappointed to come back to our very limited choices of mediocre local cuisine :(


We visited the sites - the Arch, the old Cathedral and Courthouse, Forest Park, the new Cathedral, the Anheuser-Busch Brewery, and oo-la-la the National Weather Service (hahaha...the highlight of the trip, no?).




We hung out with my family - I was amazed to find the boys enjoying my parent's storytime (we like to re-live family history and laugh hysterically) and they also were great when my nephew stayed with us for a couple of days (but I got to do the 4am feeding...really, I did enjoy the bonding). Oh and what else did we do? Only the most important reason for the trip - St. Patrick's Day in Dogtown!!!! The rain held off just enough for us to enjoy the drinking and the out-of-the-air bead snagging of the parade.


It is quite the experience to celebrate this most wonderful of holidays in the Irish neighborhood of town...especially now that I can fully join in the festivities. When I used to do Irish dance, I was under 21...and that kinda made it more weird, seeing all those crazy drunks, than fun. Oh, and the boys got to enjoy a ride home from one of St. Louis' Finest. Oops!

Alright, well now I'm caught up. It only took a monster of a post and about an hour of your reading time to do it! With only a month left of classes for the semester, I'm trying to keep up...but have pity on me...