week 7: Dressing up

Hi everyone (or just me, whatever)

This week I wanted to share my dress up session with you guys. It was so much fun! I never really like Halloween having grown up during a time where getting your candy bag snatched and having eggs thrown at you or balloons with Neet in them was popular in New York City, but I did love the dress up part. I always wanted to have one of those big masquerade parties just to dress up and party. One day I fully intend to be in Vegas attending their Halloween party. I hear its awesome!

Anyway, I want to tell you about when John and I played dress up. We took a trip to one of those small towns in Indiana where the city for them is Main Street with all the little shops on them, everyone knows everyone by first name or “you’re Johnny’s boy, aren’t you?” and there’s hardly no crime. On this little street was a shop where you could dress up and take vintage pictures.

When went in and the woman behind the counter gave us a book to look at different people in their photo shoots to see what we’d like to wear for ours. Another woman came from the back and said, “Oh, no. I have the perfect outfit for you.”

John and I look at her, then to each and back to her. She smiled and pointed right him! “You,” she confirmed and offered her hand to him.

He looked a nervous wreck at first, but he went off with her anyway. He returned 5 minutes later with the largest grin I had ever seen on him. The woman had dressed him in a black God Father hat and a black pinstriped suit. I burst into laughter.

“He looks great doesn’t he? I saw his inner godfather,” she said to me.

I couldn’t help but agree. The woman then held her finger up, turned and dug in a large toy chest near the counter. She handed John a big plastic tommy gun. He looked at it and miraculously his smile widened.

“Yes, it’s very you,” the woman added then turned to me. “Well, if he’s a gangster, you must be his maul.”

 Maul?

She had showcased John’s inner gangster so I followed the lady without question. I was about to see my inner maul and so are you.

                                             
                                                                 

Ta Da!

It was so much fun! We played dress up and took several more pics but ended up buying this one because it was our favorite. It was the first time we went but it won’t be the last. I will be doing this again when we return to Brown County to try the zipline. And, yes, I will show you guys that little adventure, too. *wink*

Dana
http://www.danalittlejohn.net/

week 7: My first musical!

Hi Everyone,

Carson back at you again. This week I expanded myself culturally. I went to my first musical. I took the mother figure in my life to see The Music Man.

                                                                  

I had no idea what it was about, but she’s into stuff like that so I said what the hey! It was at one of those dinner and a show type places. The place was set up with stadium seating and wide walk ways. We were at a table for 4, but the other seats were not taken.

The hostess came for us and we went to eat from the buffet. I was not impressed. There was lots of meats to choose from—ya’ll know where am with that—and not enough alternatives. Thus I settled for a loaded salad with way too tangy honey mustard dressing, dry sour cream baked potato wedges and drown my sorrows in 2 of the Margaritas they had on special for Mother’s Day.

                                                           


AND..
                                             
Raspberry White Chocolate cheese cake. O-O best ever! (okay I chomped it before I took the picture)

The Music Man was about this traveling conman from Gary, Indiana. He had been going from one small town to the next swindling people out of their money with the idea of making their town better but never coming through with what he promised. For the purpose of the story he ends up in a tiny town in Iowa pretending to be a music teacher. His con is to get the people to invest in a band for the kids. He would order instruments and uniforms and teach the kids to play, but of course never do it. The librarian was also the music teacher. The idea was to smooze her so she doesn’t call him out to everyone that he doesn’t know anything about music. Of course that never happens. The conman falls in love, the librarian comes out her shell and everyone lives happily ever after.  

Will I do it again?
Well, the food was nasty, the Margaritas and awesome dessert made up for that. I was surprisingly pleased with the show. I had no clue I'd like live shows! They are doing Chicago at the same theater in September. I will definitely be at that show...but now I know to eat before I go.

Carson

http://www.guyslikeromancetoo.blogspot.com/

week 6: Symphony magic

Hello everyone!
Here we are at week 6! My something new this week was a no brainer. I saw a commercial that said, "The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra is celebrating 50 years of James Bond! You won't want to miss this!" and I said, nope! I sure don't!" What better way to enjoy my first symphony.

I love James Bond! My first James Bond flick was The Spy who Loved Me with Roger Moore. That was it for me. I was going to marry James Bond and grow up to be a Bond Girl! LOL Years later, after seeing For Your Eyes Only I declared Roger Moore the best spy ever, my mother promptly informed me that Roger Moore wasn't the first James Bond. She said--with a huff!--that the first James Bond movie was Dr. No back in 1962. So Sean Connery was the real James Bond.

Now how was I supposed to know that? I wasn't even born yet!

Anyway, since then I have seen every single James Bond movie. It broke my heart when Roger stepped down. I was all for Pierce Bronson coming on board to fill his shoes, but the powers that be didn't choose him despite the outcry of the public. They chose Timothy Dalton. He wasn't a bad Bond I guess.. He did two movies: The Living Day Light and License to Kill and they were okay. When "they" finally got it together and picked up Pierce, he did the next 4 Bond installments. They messed all the way up when they chose Daniel Craig as Bond. He doesn't even fit the physical profile of James Bond! I mean, seriously, who the hell thoug— I'm sorry. I'm ranting. Let me get back to the symphony.
So anyway...
                                        

My friend Myles accompanied me to this event. My husband informed me early on in this adventure that he would not be coming to all of my planned or spontaneous events, but he didn’t mind doing drop off and pick ups, so I was cool with that.

We walked passed one of the bars inside the Hilbert Circle Theatre on the way to the doors we would enter to the theater and the bartender greeted us politely. She waved us over and asked if we’d like to try a Symphony Happy Meal. My friend and I looked at each other and smiled. We sure do! was our quick reply. No, we had no idea what it was, but the woman said it was a symphony tradition. So, who are we to break tradition?
                                      
                                                                
                          Champagne and trufflesà a Symphony Happy Meal

So we took our drinks and truffles into the theater. We had balcony seats near the orchestra. The theater is really set up very nice. There really aren’t any bad seats.
The music was awesome! They played the James Bond theme, the music from Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Casino Royale, The World is Never Enough and had a vocalist to sing the themes to Goldfinger, Diamonds are Forever, For Your Eyes Only and Live and Let Die.

After a brief intermission the orchestra played other music from James Bond inspired songs like Secret Agent Man and movies like The Pink Panther and Austin Powers. Soul Bossa Nova is the theme song to Austin Powers. Did you know that Quincy Jones did that? I knew Q had done a CD witht he same title, but i never made the connection until then. The CD version sounds way cooler with Naturally 7 singing it with Ludacris.

Check it out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1dx7C0OHj4  

The show was great! I wish I could have taped some of the music for you, but they frown on that you know. They wrapped it up with the James Bond theme and took their bow.

Would I do it again? Absolutely!

Dana
www.danalittlejohn.net

week 5: Pottery day

Taking a page from Carson's book I decided to try pottery too. This was an event I could get my husband to go to. We showed up at the class and were 2 of 7. Michael, our instructor, was very easy to understand and he walked us through each step. We found the class very easy.
This is how our project started. A blank canvas.

           

Then we panted the inside and outside brown.









Next we had to trace the flower pattern we wanted on our project so we can paint each section. Now I know it all looks brown, but he swore to me that once it was fired the real colors would come out. I was skeptical too, but I did what he said.


See? No color, right?
Well, after a long, nail biting week went by I picked up my creation and voila! This is what I have.



He was right! I was stunned out how good it came out! I'm thinking of taking Micheal's glass works class next! If he can teach me to do this, anything is possible! LOL I will definitely do this again!

Dana
http://www.danalittlejohn.net/

week 5: welcome to the Renaissance Age!

I traveled recently to a nearby city to go to a Renaissance Faire with a few friends. It was so much fun! It was set up like a town and everyone dressed up and played the part...

even the kids!

We caught the ail end of a magic show given by Merlin himself! LOL He was a really good magician. I couldn't get any good pictures of him doing anything because hey didn't allow that, so I took a picture of his poster outside. :)

I think I took her picture because she looked weird.

this dude cracked me up!

I don't have a clue what he was about, but I laughed my ass off when I saw him.

I did realize that if I would have lived back in this day and time I may have staved to death or been as skinny as a rail and thus useless in the eyes of these hardy folk.

There was a lot of this in the way of meals --->        

                                     

   

and if you've been following this blog you  already know that I don't part take in any of that! I didn't even bother to ask what it was. It looked like road kill to me so it didn't matter! For the record, if I did eat meat, I don't think I could eat it after seeing like this.  

How did I enjoy my experience?

Well....I liked it! It was fun and different. Kind of a cross between Halloween and a summer barbeque. I would do it again, but I would eat before I got there so I wouldn't have to eat so many desserts to curb my appetite. LOL

Carson

http://www.guyslikeromancetoo.blogspot.com/

week 4: Sushi anyone?

Tried the New Hibachi Grill here in Raleigh,

We had one already, but this one was new so lets try it! We all know how that is right? Ha ha ha nah, lol it looks great as you can see ";0}... The food looked good too, yet a lil diff from the other place. Had me wondering if it was the same owners.

I think not, the Sushi looked amazing but no "Wasabi Sauce" Ugh that was enough to have me in a funk LMBO.

I hated the atmosphere in this place it read like, eat your lunch and flee. It was very warm and the waitress said so but the AC wasn't working.

So we ate fast and I won't be returning just tells you that "LOOKS" are very deceiving.

Tonya~

 

week 4: I took a step back in time!

Dana Littlejohn back to share how I took a step back in time with my visit to Medieval Times. It is a dinner (or lunch) and show that takes you back into the days of the kings, knights of the realm and chivalry. They have castle in many cities. And when I say castles, I mean castle.

                                           

Since I live in Indianapolis, the closest castle to me was in Schaumberg, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. The place was beautiful. Lots of tapestries on the walls, suits of armor in every corner and the workers were dressed in time period clothing. They encouraged us to call them serfs and wenches.

We were escorted into the arena where the show would take place. John, our serf, brought our dish wear. When he returned with our drinks I mentioned we didn't have forks. He simply smiled and said to my husband,

“I see that your maiden is new to this realm. She is unaware that we do not use such things here.” Then he turned to me and said, “Today we are serving a tradition meal for the kingdom, dragon blood soup with flat bread, roasted baby dragon, dragon fingers and potatoes.”

Soon as he left I was like, huh? So my husband laughed then translated. “We have to eat with our fingers, honey.”

Oh. Then I stared at the dishes wondering how that would happen. LOL

                                             

Luckily it wasn’t as bad as I thought. John returned with the meal It looked and tasted surprisingly like tomato bisque soup, ½ a roasted chicken and barbeque ribs. LOL All very good, by the way.  

 

John also told us that we were sitting in the Blue Knight's section. So he was our hero and we would be cheering for him.

The show started as we ate with the Black Knight coming into town basically telling the King he was going to run over everyone, marry the Princess and rule the kingdom out from under him. The king wasn’t having it so he gathered his knights and told them one of them was going to have to handle the Black Knight.

So the tournament was on. Our Blue Knight fought well.  

                                                             
It was so cool. Anyway, the Black and White Knight went on to kick everyone’s butt and the King sent him to defeat the evil Black Knight. Which he did and all was well in the kingdom once more.

It was a 3 hour event show and meal. It was great! When we exited the arena the picture wench (snicker) asked if we wanted to dress up and take a photo to remember the day. We looked at each other and smiled. YES!

                                                             

What did I think of my experience?
I must admit, of all the new things I have tried so far this was the best. We are only at week 4 and I have so many fun things planned, but a day at Medieval Times is going to be hard to top.

I will definitely do this again. We are already making plans to bring our son when he comes home for the summer. The show will have changed by then but even if it doesn’t we will do it again!


Dana
http://www.danalittlejohn.net/