A Night We Will Always Remember!

A few months ago, my brother, Chris, surprised Dustin & I with an early Christmas present. He sent us 2 tickets to see "Wicked." Wicked is the untold story of the witches of Oz. This musical began on Broadway in 2003 & is currently on tour in Seattle. He also sent the Wicked soundtrack & money for dinner at a fancy restaurant.

As you can imagine, we were thrilled to receive this amazing present. Chris really has the gift of gift-giving. He is so thoughtful & knows just what you need, when you need it.

Dustin & I have been desperately needing a date. A time to just get away from the life of parenting, church planting, paying bills, etc. & just spend one-on-one time with each other. After all, we were married 7 years before Josiah was born & sometimes we crave that alone time with each other.

So, we dressed up tonight, dropped Josiah off at the Fox House (thanks by the way) & headed out for a wonderful date.

As we were driving through Seattle, we passed this billboard. That made my excitement & anticipation soar. It was also neat to read the sign & remember that Seattle is called "The Emerald City" & we were going to a show about "The Emerald City." Dustin had already made that connection...I guess it just takes me a little longer sometimes.

When we pulled up to the Paramount Theatre in downtown Seattle, we were pumped! If only you could jar the kind of excitement I had oozing out of me.

If you look closely, you can see me standing underneath the sign.

When you go to a Broadway show, you have the take a picture standing next to the sign.

Ok...I needed to take 2 pictures! :)

This was my first time visiting the Paramount Theatre.

It is an absolutely gorgeous theatre. I was so impressed by the artistic architecture.

This is the Wicked sign stating who the actors in tonight's performance were.

The above picture was taken right outside the doors before we walked into the theatre. We were both smiling from ear to ear.

Ok...not only did my brother buy us tickets to the show, but he bought amazing seats as well. People in front of us were being pointed to their seats way in the highest level. Well, we were ushered to our seats like royalty & told that we had nice seats. Our seats were "Loge Left." Whoa!

The above picture is taken from my seat WHILE I WAS SITTING DOWN. That's an awesome view. We could see everything on stage clearly & we could even see down into the orchestra pit.

The show did not permit photographs to be taken during the performance. So, I copied these pictures from the Internet. I did a search of the specific actors we had in our performance & posted their pictures.

The above picture is when Elphaba (later known as the Wicked Witch of the West) & Galinda (later known as Glinda the Good) are introduced by Madame Morrible.

This is a picture of The Wizard of Oz.

This is when Elphaba becomes the Wicked Witch of the West & defies gravity. This song & scene was my absolute favorite. I had chills all the way through the song & cried I was so overwhelmed with emotion when the song ended. AMAZING!

This is a picture of Glinda in Oz.

This song is another one of my favorites. It's when Elphaba & Fiyero sing, "As Long As You're Mine."

What an amazing show! I have never seen anything like this before & hope to one day see it again. Yes, I liked it that much!!! I will also never look at "The Wizard of Oz" movie the same again.

After the show, we headed down to the OzDust Boutique to buy a T-shirt for me.

Here is the shirt I bought. Above the "I" there is a little green witch flying on her broom.

After the show, Chris paid for us to have a fancy dinner for 2. We have always wanted to go to Ruth's Chris Steak House. It is a fancy restaurant with an amazing steak. It also just so happened to be 1 block away. That's convenience.

This is a picture inside the restaurant. The atmosphere was very romantic. Chris told us to stop thinking about how much he paid for this dinner & just get whatever we wanted & enjoy! So, we did. Dustin & I both had our own Filet Mignon. Then, you order sides that can be shared. So, we each had a salad, then we shared mashed potatoes & creamed spinach. For dessert, Dustin had Fresh Seasonal Berries with Sweet Cream Sauce & Raspberry Sorbet. I went another direction...I had Chocolate Explosion. If you know me, you know that is what I chose.

This picture was taken sitting at our table in Ruth's Chris. We sat by candlelight & were treated like royalty.

Chris, thank you so much for blessing us with the most amazing date of our lives. It will be a night we will always remember!

Sneak Peek at Preschool!

Today was a big day in the life of our family. Today was Sneak Peek day at Josiah's very first school. That's right...Josiah begins preschool next week. We can't believe it. Everyone said that it would go by so fast & it really has.

The Sneak Peek is all about getting to meet the teacher & see the classroom before school starts. We were all very excited to go, but especially Josiah. He screamed all the way there with excitement.

In this picture, Dustin is talking to Josiah's teacher. Her name is Nicky & she is British. We absolutely love her accent & can't wait to see what kind of new information Josiah will learn from her.

I took several other pictures of the classroom.

In this picture, you will see the assistant teacher, Julea, in the background in the plaid shirt. You will also see Josiah on the floor with some little friends playing with a train set.

More pictures of the classroom.

We are very pleased with the size of the room. It is much larger than we expected for a preschool.

Josiah made a few new friends today, but was mainly interested in the trains.

When we first came into the room, he explored every inch. Once he was settled, he played with the trains & never left them until we said it was time to go.

After visiting the preschool, we felt it was time to celebrate with some ice cream. So, we headed to Baskin Robbins.

Josiah has grown into such a sweet, responsible, independent boy that we love so much. We wanted him to understand that this is a right of passage. For the next ___ # of years, he will be in school. This is a major turning point in his life & we wanted to celebrate it.

We had a great time getting a sneak peek at preschool!

Captain Jo's Pirate Ship!

Josiah no longer has a playground. It has now become a pirate ship. While we were in North Carolina, Granddaddy & Grandma saw how much Josiah was into pirates lately. So, they bought him a new telescope for his playground. Then, while we were at Marbles (read earlier post), we found a pirate flag, hat & sword. So, of course, his playground had to become a pirate ship.

Here is Captain Jo claiming his ship. If you click on this picture, you can see a closeup of his serious face. He is ready for when the enemy (Daddy) approaches.

Captain Jo is on the lookout.

Another pirate (Daddy) tried to take the ship. Captain Jo stopped him immediately with his mighty sword.

Then he made him walk the plank. Josiah says, "No, I will not have mercy." (True quote...too funny!)

I think Daddy learned not to mess with Captain Jo's Pirate Ship!

Thank You!

We're back! Yes, we arrived back safely from our trip.

We had such a wonderful time visiting North Carolina & Tennessee. Thanks to everyone who made this trip possible: our anonymous donors who paid for our trip, my parents, Amanda (for dropping us off & picking us up at the airport), the Beans (for letting us stay at their house in TN), to everyone else who gave us gifts & wonderful hospitality while we were there. We also want to thank Holy Seed Community Church for sacrificing their pastors for two weeks. We hope you enjoyed your audio recorded @Home Bible study.

Thank You!

Our Flight Back!

Today we flew back to Seattle. Our flights lately have been a lot more fun. Josiah has enjoyed watching movies on the airplane & getting snacks from the stewardess. We had such a busy time the past 2 weeks that Josiah just passed out on the airplane. When I went to take his headphones off, he told me he wanted to keep them on. So, he slept with his new neck pillow & headphones, with no sound coming through them. It was too precious not to take a picture of our flight back!

It Was So Nice We Did It Twice!

While Dustin & I were in TN over the weekend, Josiah stayed with Granddaddy & Grandma in NC. When we returned, they told us that all Josiah could talk about over the weekend was Marbles Kids Museum.

So, we piled in the car & headed back to Marbles.

Marbles Kids Museum is one of the coolest places for children that I've ever been to.

Our first game was a large game of chess. Here are my guys placing the chess pieces in their correct places to begin the game.

Then, Josiah decided he wanted to play a life-size game of Connect Four.

It's time to go fishing in the "Around Town" area. This is a real boat sitting in the floor. The fishing poles have magnets on the end & so do the fish. The fish were all over the floor so the kids could actually catch one.

Here is Josiah catching a fish all by himself. Check out that excited face!

Then it was time to head back to the grocery store. This time he was a pro. He wore a "Lowe's Food" apron & got his cart.

Then, this little boy offered to check out his groceries for him. It was so cute. The little boy entered every item into the cash register & Josiah just patiently waited. I thought it was so sweet!

Then, it was off to the Post Office. Josiah put on this real postman uniform & began placing real pieces of mail in the corresponding boxes.

Then, he went over to ship some boxes. He sorted the boxes by size.

Then, he sent the boxes down the conveyor belt & into the delivery truck. Daddy helped Josiah pack as many boxes as he could into the back of the truck.

Josiah is now off to deliver the packages.

Then, Josiah & Grandma headed over to the train tables to have some fun.

Dustin entertained everyone by dressing up in his Moroccan costume at the tea chugging party. Yes, Josiah wanted everyone to have a huge pot of tea instead of a cup.

We ended the day by playing in the "Splash" section of Marbles. Josiah enjoyed this outdoor water feature. He could take the boats to one end of the feature & they would glide down to the bottom & fall down the waterfall.

While we were at Marbles, we stopped in at the gift shop & stumbled upon some great toys. Josiah has really been into pirates lately. Granddaddy spotted a pirate hat, pirate sword & pirate flag. Granddaddy & Grandma insisted on buying them for him.

Josiah put them on when we got back into the van & wore them all the way home. Look at this funny face. He is saying, "Arrrgh!"

What another wonderful day at Marbles. It was so nice, we did it twice! :)