Wicked in SF

Last night we went to San Francisco to have dinner at the Daily Grill (MacNCheese to DIE for!!!) and see WICKED. Wow. I knew it was the story of the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda (Ga-linda) the good witch but I didn't know how detailed the story was. I loved it!!! Really strong performances from Teal Wick and Deedee Magno Hall. The Glinda character was hilarious. I just busted a gut during the "Popular" song. The set was gorgeous and really made you feel like you were in OZ. This picture is me and Teal Wick (Elphaba). I just loved her voice and they way she played the character. I almost didn't recognize her when she came out of the stage door. This is Deedee (Nessarose) and me. Funny, when she came out the stage door, I kept thinking she looked familiar. I didn't have my glasses so I couldn't read the Playbill very well so I didn't know her bio. It kept bugging me why she looked so familiar so I googled her when I got home. Duh. She was on the Mickey Mouse Club back in the 90's. I used to watch it with Ian when he was a toddler. How funny was that?
It also starred Carole Kane - Miss Morrible (Guilty pleasure: I LOVED her in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen!) and David Garrison - the Wizard (he played the neighbor on Married with Children). Jeff got a picture with him. We had a wonderful time, a chilly walk to the theater and great memories of a great musical. I hope to see it again SOON!!!!

AMGEN Tour of California

It rolled through our home town last week and we decided to go watch. I can't ever do anything like everyone else so I secured a spot on top of our Main Office building downtown. Perfect view, no crowd. It was great! EXCEPT: it was pouring rain, freezing cold and the wind was blowing.....brrrr.

We were the only ones on the roof waiving at the helicopters flying over head (I can't believe they would fly in that weather!!!). That part was fun! By the time the race was over we were soaking wet, freezing cold and happy that we had such a good time.

The second video is a bit slow to start but then you see the leaders come in. Lance Armstrong is in the yellow vest over the blue racing outfit.

Vegas baby....

I just got back from a week in Vegas for the PPAI show. It's a Promotional Products trade show that I attend every year with my husband. I play the "Sherpa" and carry around the samples while offering up my "opinion" of the latest and greatest his customers may want. He's been in the business for over 20 years and tends to have blinders on when it comes to new products or ideas. I tend to be the "think-outside-the-box" girl and help with that. Well, I guess I was successful because today was his first day back at work, he brought an idea I had to one of his clients and they loved it. Makes for a successful trip! :)

We went to see the Jersey Boys at the Palazzo Hotel/Casino. What a GREAT show!! We went because we'd seen the show in San Francisco and met Erich Bergen (Bob Gaudio - the "genius" behind the Four Seasons success). Erich recently got hired to be in the Las Vegas tour of the show. Erich's Dad works with my husband in the promotional products industry. Anyway, we had 3rd row seats and the show was terrific!!! Even better, Deven May (also in the SF cast as Tommy) is now in the Las Vegas cast as well. Highly recommend the show!

Turtles too!

The day we went kayaking and saw the seal, we also saw some beautiful Hawaiian sea turtles. They're so peaceful in their environment. We spent about 45 minutes with them after kayaking out to their "cleaning station". These pictures were taken with a disposable underwater camera. Not too bad!

We just got our underwater pictures developed so I thought I'd add the couple that JT took of our seal friend as well. The first picture he was 'head on'. Incredible huh?
This second picture shows him and his fascination with the anchor used to keep the kayaks in place. Our guide Deja could only think it was because she had used a bit of coconut oil on herself earlier and may have had a bit on her hands when she threw the anchor overboard. Either way, it was such fun watching him play with the anchor for as long as he did!

More of Hawaii....

Hawaiian sunset on our last day...why am I smiling??

A little recap of our trip: Christmas Day we took a brunch cruise around Lahaina bay with Pacific Whale Foundation. As the name suggests, we were expecting to see whales. We didn't. What we DID see were hundreds of spinner dolphins! They were so cool to watch jumping in the air and spinning around. Here's a link to my photostream on Flickr. There's our Maui pics and some pics from a HDI outting to Colorado Springs.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24473755@N07/

For JT's birthday (Dec 26th) we went snorkeling from Big Beach south of Makena on Maui. We saw several Humpback whales from shore (the pics are too small to publish here) and he tried his hand at bodysurfing. Pretty funny. At least he can now say he went to the beach on his birthday.

One of the other things we did was take the drive to Hana. The road was very windy (600+ turns) and beautiful old single file bridges (55+) and overall a beautiful wet drive. This first pic is one of the beautiful pools we saw along the way. Note: ALL of the pools along the way were noted "no trespassing" and/or were blocked from access.
This next picture is of black sand beach at Wai'anapanapa park. Beautiful beach and the next picture is of the really cool cave you can climb through.

This last picture is of the 7 sacred pools (aka O'heo Gulch). We weren't allowed to swim here either! (UGH). There were park rangers (it's in Haleakala National Park) and barbed wire keeping you away.
Mahalo for reading!

Mele Kalikimaka! What a day!

What a crazy incredible day! We got up at 5:30am and headed to the beach for snorkeling with turtles. At least we hoped we'd see turtles....no guarantees. We ocean kayaked to the snorkel spot and found at least a dozen turtles at a spot the locals call "turtle cleaning grounds". It was great! The turtles would swim right by us and pop their heads up for a breath. The water started getting choppy after a bit so we headed inland to a calmer spot. The guides knew it as a place where some beautiful coral was. What they didn't know is that we had a visitor waiting for us. Just as we dropped from our kayaks into the water, a Hawaiian Monk Seal appeared!
When we tried to leave, the seal kept trying to get on one of the kayaks. Because he's an endangered species, we couldn't touch him! Poor Greg (this is his kayak) he had to wait until the seal was distracted by something else before he could move his kayak! We were told to stay away from it (pretty tough to hide from a 600lb seal!!) and that they weren't very friendly. Great. Wrong! This guy was so cute and so funny! He kept playing with the anchor and watching us. We actually snorkeled in the water with him. I can't wait to develop my underwater camera. It was amazing! Our Maui Eco Tour guides Deja and Chris said this was the first encounter they've had in the 8 years they've been guides. This picture is me and Deja. We headed back to the condo after the snorkeling to clean up because we wanted to shop a bit in Lahaina. We headed up there around noon and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. We try to go to one at each city we visit and have been to about 20 so far. As we bought t-shirts in the souvenier shop, we talked to the cashier and found that she graduated from Santa Rosa High School....in the Art Quest program (where my son Ian is right now!). Small world.....

We continued shopping down main street in Lahaina and I saw someone familiar in one of the shops. When I was growing up, my parents ALWAYS spent money on ONE thing: shoes. My sister and I were born with deformed legs and we had braces and bars on our legs when we were very little. Needless to say, parents wanted to spend money on "good shoes", nothing cheap. We ALWAYS went to Smith's Shoes in Montgomery Village in Santa Rosa. Larry Colombo was the owner/manager and we knew him well growing up. Well, Larry now lives on Maui and we ran into him in Lahaina! REALLY SMALL WORLD!!!

A Hawaiian holiday

Wow...it's HOT. Yes, it's three days before Christmas and I'm in HAWAII! It's been a long time since I've been here and its as beautiful as I remember. I can't believe I'm here!
I got up this morning and headed to the beach at sunrise. Okay, so sunrise is behind the place we're staying, but it was beautiful none the less.
See?

I also heard that Santa was coming to town! We headed down the beach a couple of miles and caught Santa as he came in on his catamaran.
And of course we had to take a picture with the man himself!

While we were there we saw a Hawaiian Snowman....or is it SnowWoman?? Someone was being a little creative on the beach. Aloha!