Concert Time - Lots of pictures

Last weekend, we attended the Star Wars in Concert. It was amazing. Ryan and I heard about it on the news a couple months ago and thought it looked really cool. I have been so anxious waiting for it to come. I love the music in all the Star Wars movies. John Williams has been one of my favorite composers since I was a young child. He creates the most amazing movie scores. Included in the two hour concert was Star Wars memorabilia around the arena. We arrived an hour and half early so that we would have time to see all the movie props and costumes. I'm glad we went early, it took us a little over an hour just to walk around and look at everything.

As soon as we walked in the arena, we turned the first corner from the door and were greeted by Chewbacca. He was huge. That costume looks extremely hot to film in:

Next, we came across Darth Vader. This actor was extremely tall. I kept waiting to hear deep breathing:

An Imperial Officer:

Blasters from the various movies. They look so real in the movie. Some of them didn't look very heavy in real life. I would've loved to pick some of them up:

The helmet on the far side (with it's back to us) is one of my favorites and the storm trooper one here.

Ryan with a Tusken Raider.

One of C-3P0's costumes. The actor that played him was the narrator for the evening.

Okay, so here was my moment to show my true Star Wars craziness. I think I was more excited about this than Doug or Ryan. We came around a corner and lined up against the wall were several people dressed up as various Storm Troopers, Imperial officers and, one of my favorites, Boba Fett. Ryan and I snuck in to get out picture taken with some of them.

I think they are afraid the force is strong in this young one:

Boba Fett

This R2D2 was so cool. It was sturdier than I thought it would be. Later on, we saw it being led down the hallway by all the storm troopers and Boba Fett - as if he had been captured. It was actually rolling down the hall, like you'd see in the movie, making all it's beeping noises.

Royal Guards. I don't remember the ones in blue. I'm gonna have to watch the first two movies and look for them.

Han Solo frozen:

The real Boba Fett costume:

A piece of the original musical score:
The arena before the show began. So, basically it was a tour performance of excerpts from the musical score. There was a huge screen behind the orchestra. Anthony Daniels (C-3P0) told the story of Anakin through Luke and Leia. He would talk about different pieces of the story and then the orchestra would play while showing clips of all six movies on the giant screen. It was wonderful to listen to that music played live. They had cameras on the orchestra as well. The Star Wars soundtracks depend on the French Horn quite a bit. It was neat to see the cameras showing the French Horns so much. Ryan loved the whole experience and got a chance to listen to a professional play his new instrument. It was an amazing experience.

Happy October to All!

It's official - October 1st. Let all the fun Halloween Happenings begin! I love this time of year!!!

Building a Warthog

Ryan saved up his allowance to get the Warthog from Mega Bloks. It is from the Halo series of games - which he is totally crazy about. If you don't know what it is, just ask him and he will be more than happy to talk your ear off about it!

He very quickly put the turret together and then informed me that I needed to build the Warthog because it was difficult to build and keep together at the same time. He has gotten really good at building Lego type creations, but if it will not stay together as you are building, he gets pretty frustrated. Here he is with the turret (I like it for obvious reasons - it's purple!):

The pieces for the Warthog:

Here I am building away, with Cherry Coke within reach for that quick energy. It takes a lot to build these creations!

I even had a casualty - my fingernail. Or more correctly, my thumbnail. While trying to snap on one of the tiniest pieces I've seen, my fingers slipped and off came a section of my thumbnail. I was tough and made it through the rest of the build:
About halfway through:
The finished Warthog complete with gun on the back and driver:
Ready for some action:
The purple, and blue, turret:

School Fundraising The Yummy Way

I love how Ryan's school handles their fundraiser. There is no selling or buying of things. Instead, we eat out at specific restaurants on specific days and they will give 20% of their school sales to the school. A couple days ago, we ate out at Johnny Rockets and 20% of our bill benefits the school. How much more fun could that be?

The ketchup faces, too bad none of us eat ketchup. So, they stayed nice and pretty during our whole meal:

Ryan and his ketchup face - love the hair on his face:

Love the coke glasses, even though we have the same ones at home, it always seems so fun to use them when out to eat. My vanilla coke tasted so much better there:
I have always loved the Jukebox idea! There's something about jukeboxes and coke glasses - I love them!

Fireball - 4 months later

It was four months ago when Fireball came home with us. We brought him home from school at the end of the science section. I felt pretty confident that this fish would be not survive the week, and here we are four months later and he is so big now! I cannot believe how big he has gotten.