recent escapades: Santa fe

Willis (Sears) Tower gift shop, April 2010

Guy buying t-shirt: "Primm? Are you by any chance related to Andy Primm?"

Me: "Not that I know of!"

Guy buying t-shirt: "He's the drummer in my band...."

That's pretty much the conversation beginnings with dear friend Alex Maryol. Since we were all intrigued at this unique last name common bond, Andy Primm became my Facebook friend shortly after. In spite of moves and other life happenings, we've all kept up throughout the past almost 2 years, and the subject of visiting Santa fe has come up on many occasions. Three weekends ago I finally took a flight to the Land of Enchantment. 

In preparation for the trip, I listened to "Santa fe" from the Newsies, "Santa fe" from Rent, and every other Santa fe song I could find in Spotify. That's what you get when you mix music nerd with travel freak. Since I really had no clue what existed out west, I decided to google "best things to do in Santa fe"(oh so original), so I had some sort of idea if my amazing tour guide asked me what I felt like doing. I really didn't need anything that I looked up, though. Alex and Andy showed me the perfect weekend in Santa fe. 

As I peered down from my window seat on the plane as we drew nearer to Albuquerque, I was in awe. I had never seen deserts before, and the mountains were completely different than the mountains on the east coast. It was gorgeous. 

Shortly after I had landed, Alex picked me up, and I was ecstatic that I was getting to see him after almost a year since he had last been in Chicago. We were both starving, so he drove me through Nob Hill, which is pretty much ABQ's arts district. We had a delicious lunch at Flying Star Cafe, coffee at Satellite, looked at adobe houses, then began driving to Santa Fe. We listened to his fantastic upcoming album,  I spotted my first tumbleweed, caught up on life, and he pointed out special places along the way. 

After we arrived, we met up with Andy that evening for dinner at Maria's. This was the first time I had actually met Andy in person. Immediately I noticed crazy similarities between us. We HAVE to be long lost cousins. I experienced red and green chile for the first time there and learned that if you want both on your dish, you order "Christmas". Tasty! Afterwards, we got to see Andy play in a gig at the La Fonda Hotel with musicians Don and Pete. Every single time I thought of La Fonda, I never failed to crack up. You know why? Lafawnduh from Napoleon Dynamite. At the La Fonda, I loved seeing Andy play. He's a great artist overall, and I love his stage presence. Alex got to sit in one the songs and drum, which was a treat for everyone. A favorite reoccurring moment was being introduced by my full name and seeing the looks on their friends' faces thinking briefly Andy had eloped (Once again--the unique last name we share). Later that evening, we stopped by another hotel to hear Alex's friend Matthew Andrae perform. He was so much fun to talk to and his set was incredible. While we were watching, Alex told me about a youtube video titled Sweet Celine that boosted his career amazingly. Watch it!

The next morning started off perfectly. We met Andy for Breakfast burritos at Tia Sophia's which is a Maryol restaurant now run by his brother. The burritos surpassed my high expectations! ;) Alex's brother joined us at the table, too, which was lots of fun. While at breakfast, Andy gave me a signed copy of his album "Mercenary"--so sweet!

In Tia Sophia's menu

Afterwards, we strolled around the Plaza, stopped in a photography gallery--there's art galleries everywhere! It's so cool!-- looked at beautiful copper and turquoise jewelry (resisting the urge to buy it all), then walked up the hill to the Cross of the Martyrs where there was a great view of the city. The hill was quite inspirational, because it was there when we 3 decided that we need to form a band and travel the world. Step one: lock ourselves away for a weekend and write music.  We felt the need for a snack at Rio Chama before our next adventure which was driving up into the mountains close to the ski basin. Breathtaking views. 

Post-mountain time, Alex and I met up with his family at El Meson, a wonderful Tapas restaurant. The occasion was celebrating his parents birthdays the week prior. They are all adorable, and it was such a pleasure getting to have dinner with them. 

One of my requests for the weekend was to view the stars, since you never see stars living in the city. Alex took me to his parents' gorgeous home where we climbed up a spiral staircase to the rooftop. I don't ever remember seeing that many stars ever, and I for sure hadn't experienced that much silence in the surroundings in such a long time. There were 3 shooting stars and even a little bit of coyote sounds! On our way to the star-viewing, he showed me his church, and the Priest just happened to be checking the mail after a trip, and he let us inside to view it! It looks like it's straight out of the Greek countryside. So very beautiful. 

The next morning was departure morning, and we had saved experiencing the cinnamon rolls at Frontier for then. Frontier's cinnamon rolls and orange juice were hyped up by everyone, so I was especially happy to try them. Those plus a breakfast burrito=YUM. It was the best departure meal. 

New Mexico was pure delight, and I'm so glad I got to visit Alex and finally meet Andy. One day when it's warmer I hope to be back for hiking in the mountains fun if our band-formation-locking away and writing doesn't happen before then... ;)

                                                                                                   

recent escapades: holidays, auditions, improv

A random recent discovery of mine has been the fact that I enjoy sipping coffee and espresso drinks out of Caribou coffee cups as opposed to Starbucks cups. The reason? The dark brown lids of Caribou cups equals a sense of warmth, whereas the white lids on Starbucks cups are neutral but cooler and don't give you that warmth. Also, when your drink splatters out of a Starbucks lid, it's very visible afterwards and looks sloppy. It all made sense when I thought back to college days. Our university had light pink and light blue trays, and Rebecca and I would always get the color that coordinates with our outfit, until one of her art teachers/friends stated that he picks whatever color suits the food to be served. If the food is hot, he picks pink (warm color). If it's a cold dish, he picks blue (cool color). Makes sense, right?
     I say this every single month, but it's crazy that it's February already. In my last post I spoke of an upcoming show with the G&S Opera Company, but a few weeks ago, I withdrew from the show for a couple of other upcoming performance opportunities. One outcome from auditions since then is a role I just heard back about last night. I got the role Betty Schaefer in Sunset Boulevard at JPAC at Morton College. I'm extremely excited!! It's my very first supporting role in Chicago! JPAC is the theatre that also put on Phantom and Man of la Mancha, and a good number of the Sunset cast members were in both of those shows with me. It'll be a lovely reuinion!
      
    Pre-holiday Chicago highlights: Zoo lights at the Lincoln Park Zoo with my friend Denise. A Saturday filled with Mexican food then ice-skating at Navy Pier's Winter Wonderfest with Denise and Jill. This city is a gorgeous one to be in during the Holidays.

 
   It was a blessing to be able to spend a couple of weeks with my family for the Holidays! I roadtripped to sweet Carolina with a friend from highschool who now lives in Milwaukee. Of course we listened to every single Carolina song I could find on the drive down.  My family was originally not going to exchange presents this year since our gift to eachother was going on a little cruise, but our little brother Jonathan spent all of his birthday money on gifts for each of us. We HAD to get gifts then! As expected, we were getting stressed out of our minds going Christmas Eve eve shopping, but we all were please with the outcome. On Christmas day we hopped in the van and roadtripped to Miami, picking up Matthew along the way in Orlando. It was the first time we didn't feel disgusting in all of our "First day on the cruise" photos since we had a buffer day and weren't driving through the night then hopping aboard like we have done in the past. I highly recommend buffer days. We enjoyed the sights of Miami, then of Nassau, and Great Stirrup Cay which is Norwegian Cruise Line's private Island. I brought back a starfish and 2 beautiful seashells that I bought from "an island man" that "worked me a great deal". 
Our most favorite moment of the cruise was getting to see comedian Rich Purpura. The very first evening on the ship, Mom, Rebecca, Matthew, and I were enjoying hot tea and cookies on the top deck and reminiscing of our favorite comedian ever, Rich Purpura, that we saw perform on a Disney ship. When we got back to our cabin I read the paper which tells us the next day's activities, and I pretty much freaked out. Rich Purpura was on our ship and was doing a show the next evening!!  We made sure to get front row seats, we laughed the hardest out of everyone, he loved us "Carolina girls", and Rebecca even got pulled up on stage for a "magic trick." We met him afterwards and expressed our fan-ship, and he signed two DVD's and gave them to us. Later onAfter the cruise, we stopped back in Orlando to have dinner with my aunt and uncle! It's always fantastic seeing them. After New Years excitement, and a delicious lasagna meal made by my brother, Matthew, I had to say goodbye to my family and return to Chicago. Those moments are always tough.

                                
        The evening of my arrival back in Chicago helped lighten everything back up, because we started Improv level C. It continues to be such great fun. Our teacher was in Level A with Tina Fey back in the day! We all LOVE him. Another one of the many cool things about him is that his son goes to the same school as opera singer Samuel Ramey's child does, and he sees him all of the time.
I had my very first improv performance recently! A few of us Second City female students did a workship with the Sirens, an all female improv group, and then opened for their show that same evening. It was such a different experience than doing a theatrical show. You had no idea when/if the audience was going to react. It's definitely a whole new dynamic to get used to, but it was very exciting. Our first class performance will be February 24, which most of us are highly anticipating. ;)

Next escapade posting? Santa fe!

Joyeux anniversaire

One year ago on Thanksgiving day, my family so kindly helped Rebecca and me cram our things into the van and our car, and endure a long drive from Charlotte to Chicago to move us into Chateau Byron!

2010

2011

Haha--not that much has changed in our living room..but it's still fun to look back at old photos.


It's shocking to think that it's December already. It's also shocking that it's December and we've only gotten a couple days of snow and it didn't even stick. I was bracing myself for blizzards every single day when November hit. That's what happens in Chicago, right? On our first day of the snow that didn't stick, I squealed like a 5 year old and threw on my coat to take a walk through the beautiful flakes, when the Midwesterners around me grumbled.

\A highlight of the past few weeks was my Thanksgiving break back home with my family. Due to the airline prices, I almost took a solo 15 hour road trip to NC, but thankfully I was able to get cheap flight on Priceline the day before I was supposed to leave. Everything worked out perfectly--from my friend Jill covering for me as a nanny for a couple of days, to pickup arrangements. Some things accomplished were lots of turkey and stuffing consumption, viewing the new Muppets movie the day it came out (Thanksgiving), hitting my favorite restaurants of my southern life (such as El Valle, Cracker Barrel, Bojangles...don't laugh...), trying a couple of new places, 1/2 off day at my favorite thrift store, and just all around family time including re-bonding time with the family pets.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, I held an Improv class party, which turned out to be so much fun. It was a potluck, and I made a huge crockpot full of Chili, and a crockpot with hot apple cider. Everyone brought delicious food and games for us all to play, and in one particular game which was basically "20 Questions", we all learned so much info on each other that I never would have imagined we would find out. That definitely makes for some great jokes and scenes in the future, haha.

We only have one week left of level B! Yesterday we did serious scenes during the first half of class, which turned out to all be amazing scenes, but so intense. As I was watching my classmates' scenes as well as improvising in my own scene, I was tapping into a couple of different personal emotional wounds, and it was extremely hard to switch out of that mindset when we began the non-serious funny scenes. That has always been the case when I've acted, but I didn't normally have to instantly switch characters like that. It's definitely something I need to ponder on more and work on.
In January we begin Level C, and from that level on we start class performances! So exciting!

Towards the beginning of November, I auditioned for Disney once again but this time it was a Princess look-a-like audition. This audition was another example of how much taking ballet has helped me in dance calls. I still need to gain a lot of dance experience, but routines are coming much more easily to me now. In this audition I got the farthest along in the process than I've ever been in a Disney audition. I made the cut from about 80 girls down to about 12 after we all learned a dance routine that resembled what you would see in a parade. After that, they went down the line asking each of us a few questions then giving us a good look over. I didn't make the cut past that, and I have a feeling it's due to my height, since most of their female characters average at 5'4"-5'6", but I'm definitely going to keep on trying.

I have a new roommate! Since my sister, Rebecca, hasn't returned to Chicago yet, her room became available after Jacquie moved to NYC. My lovely friend Jill moved in, and it's about time that she did since she has basically already been my roommate! One of the fun things has been our piano playing/singing together times. We keep on joking that we're going to have a Jill and Rachelyn concert at Chateau Byron and invite all of our friends to hear us.

This past weekend I was ecstatic to be able to see the actual Jerry Lee Lewis in concert at the beautiful Congress Theatre here in Chicago. I didn't know much about him until my friend was cast as an understudy for the role of Jerry Lee in the national tour of Million Dollar Quartet. The entire time I could not believe I was watching this man...this legend. His fingers could still fly, and he was adorable. He was also such a divo, but he has every right to be one. After the first band played, we waited over an hour after he was supposed to enter for him to begin his set. One man towards the front got so mad at the wait, he stood up angrily, chucked his chair onto the stage, and stormed off. The most embarrassing part for him in the scene he made was the fact that Jerry Lee's band came out 2 seconds after he turned around to storm off.

Lastly, I'm excited to be working with the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company as a chorus member in The Gondoliers. Rehearsals start in January, just like the past two shows I've done with them. Auditions were way earlier this year than the past years, but it was so good to see dear faces again, as always!

we GRADUATED

This past Tuesday was my last class of Level A Improv at Second City, and most of our class is sticking together and moving on to Level B. We're all so proud of ourselves for graduating on. :)  "Yes, and..." is something that was taught to us in our very first class, and I need constant reminder of it. During our second class of scene work, that principal completely left my brain, and I was over thinking and not just listening and letting it happen. "Yes, and..." means that whatever happens (no matter how awful you think it may be) is correct, and you just keep on going. This past class of scene work was definitely much better! Also, our lovely teacher Kimmie reminded us last week that there is "no room for egos". People are going to learn at different paces, keep them as part of your family and help them out. I'm excited for Level B! 

Our class!

     On Monday, I auditioned for Full-time character positions for Disney World, and I haven't been as proud of my other 3 auditions for Disney as I was with this one. No singing was involved, because it was strictly a character audition, but lots of dancing was. I still need LOTS of improvement in routine memorization, but ballet classes have definitely helped my drastically, since it wasn't an absolute flop like some of my dance auditions have been. Disney auditions are always inspiration for me, since I love them so much and it's one of my dreams to work for them, but this one just felt even more inspirational. Haha, some of the people in the audition room were complaining or being negative at times and I just wanted to turn to them and say, "Umm, have you done research on Disney expecations? They don't hire Mr. Grumpy Pants..."
At the end of the audition, they thanked us all for coming and told us that they will keep our scores on file for 6 months and call us as positions open up for our height range if we are wanted. Of course, there is loads of competition, because they audition weekly in Orlando, and they are also touring the U.S. holding auditions. We'll see! I'm definitely not going to ever give up on them, though! ;)


       Recently my dear friends Jill, Kristin, and I enjoyed a trip to Six Flags Great America. It was an unusually beautiful day (for October) with a high in the 80s, which made it perfect for roller coaster riding. Due to everyone else feeling the same way about the day, we were only able to ride 2 roller coasters, since the lines were so long, but it was fantastic catching up on eachother's lives, getting to ride our 2 favorite rides, splitting a funnel cake, and friend in a show there that was in the cast of Man of La Mancha with us. 
        

          Last weekend was filled with family, Carolina sun, wedding music, Chick-fil-a, and Bojangles Boberry biscuits, after I hopped on a flight down south for my cousin Greg and his lady Keily's wedding. I was happy to be a part by singing "The Prayer" with Greg's best man, and "For Always" while my brother Matthew and our friend Juliana collaborated on viola and piano. It was such a surprise to discover that Juliana was the pianist for the wedding, and it was magnificent to see her again. I know her from college, and she also attended the summer conservatory the same summer that I did. We became friends that summer and also got to collaborate together then!
Seeing family was lovely, especially since it has been at least a year since I've seen most of them.
       
       Denyce Graves gave a  masterclass at the Belk Theatre in North Carolina that weekend, and I got to attend!  I was 10 feet away from her, and soaked in every single piece of wisdom that she gave. She says, "Voila." in the place of "there you go" a lot, and it's adorable. She's gorgeous.

      Something that I wish I would have started a while ago is making it a point to go to open mics consistently. The past couple of weeks, I have attended one particular one with Jill (and this week Kristin!), and have had such a great time. It gives motivation to learn new material, it's great for meeting new people who are fellow music lovers, aside from the fact that it's great experience!

Here's a few smiles: 

Caramel Apples and Baked Pumpkin seeds!

Carved with my nanny kids!

Fall

Ever since I tasted my first pumpkin spice latte pre-autumn, I haven't been able to get apples, pumpkins, and leaves out of my mind. Although rainy, this past weekend seemed to be the perfect start to fall. It was a curl up with your favorite blanket, candles, coffee, and book/laptop/music, weekend. The goodbye to summer dresses and beach time was sad for a moment, but fall has so much charm making it greatly welcomed.

One of my desired activities to accomplish this fall is follow in my family's tradition of going apple picking. A temporary cooling of that desire was the idea of an Apple Fest in Lincoln square which is a neighborhood north of mine. Roommate Jacquie, my friend Jill, and I made an alternate plan of eating mexican food when the rain didn't look like it was going to stop, but the sun ended up popping out and the sky cleared. We were able to enjoy a little walk through of the festival, get inspired to bake apple pie, and I bought these little pumpkins and gourds!

Afterwards Jacquie and I went to mine and Rebecca's favorite thrift store, and I found 2 amazing candles to add to the Rebecca and Rach "candles that moms don't like to burn and burn them" collection. Here is one of them:

              

I was able to skype with my family Sunday evening (so lovely, too), and I was tormented by their enjoyment of my mom's delicious freshly baked Apple Crisp. So what did I do? Asked mom for the recipe, bought the ingredients, invited Jill to help, baked it, and enjoyed it with Jacquie and the neighbor Tom! We made WAY more of the crisp part than the recipe calls for, because it's the best part. Here's the delicious result:

 The next day I told Alexander about my fun evening, and I promised that we'd make apple crisp together sometime this week. I made sure to stick to the recipe so that they wouldn't get as unhealthy of an apple crisp as we made last time. ;) He was such a great helper!

   

For the performance side of life, there's a couple of exciting auditions coming up. One is this Monday and the other one is the Monday after I return from a weekend in the Carolinas (for 2 weddings!) October 14-16. 

I'm still madly in love with my ballet class as well as improv class. It's fun to see our improv class grow closer each week, and I'm glad that's happening. Most of us signed up for the next level which begins at the end of October. The goal is to keep on signing up for classes and become an ensemble together. 

Chateau Byron news: My dear roommate Jacquie, who has been subletting my sister's room since January, recently took an internship with a photographer in NYC, and she left our lovely Chateau Byron Tuesday night. I'm so proud of her in taking that gigantic move and jealous of the fact that she will be there during the BEST season to be in NYC.

Lastly, all week I've been thinking about the beautiful rainbow that appeared for a bit of time Monday morning. Alexander spotted it first on our way to taking him to school, and it instantly brightened up both of our days. Later when I got home, Jacquie mentioned that she saw it, and it was exactly what she needed, too. Here's the rainbow that brought lots of smiles!

                   

twenty-three

In spite of Hurricane Irene's scare of tearing up NYC, my sister and I arrived early this past Friday morning for a birthday celebration/fun weekend. We met up with our friend Will, went to my beloved Shake Shack (waited in line 40 minutes for that delightfulness..), and our brother Matthew arrived at our yummy lunch after taking a train in from CT to spend the day with us! For my birthday evening just before we went to Catch Me if You Can the musical, our friend Will brought out a cheesecake with "Happy Birthday Rach" written on it that he had made himself! The three of us got dressed up, felt fancy by splurging to take a cab to the theatre, and enjoyed the show immensely!

The next day was crazy, because they shut down all mass transit in the city and hardly any stores were open. On our way to enjoy brunch at a cute French restaurant, we laughed as Will wrote off all of the restaurants that weren't open, because "they weren't true New Yorkers". haha. Later, we found an open Walgreens and stocked up on water, snacks, and spongebob floaties, just in case it was a disasterous storm. The next morning we scoped out Irene's damage, which was thankfully not too much in the areas we were at, but there were so many people that were complaining that Irene hardly did anything and that everyone (including the mayor) was making way too big of a deal out of the storm. Becca and I couldn't understand their non-thankfulness. We totally would rather play it safer than sorry!

Sunday evening Becca and I enojoyed bonding time through walking to Union Square, stopping in a bookshop, and chatting over coffee at a diner called the Coffee Shop. We ordered coffee and chocolate layer cake, but the server guy brought back something that wasn't even cold but tasted like ovaltine instead of our much wanted cake, so she and I competed over who would get the guts to tell him that isn't what we ordered. She did it, and we finally got the cake! It was so good to have time to be together and just talk again since it's been pretty much since January since we've REALLY gotten to have bonding time.

She departed Monday morning, but my flight got cancelled til Monday night, so I had an extra day to spend there, and it was such a beautiful day for exploration. I got to hit most of my favorite spots! After I hugged her good-bye, I took a train up to the Met. I was all proud of myself for my decision to go there, then I got there and they said it's always closed on Mondays, but it ended up being a good thing, because I took a lovely stroll through central park over to the American Museum of Natural History (which was my place of employment when I lived there), saw my boyfriend Dum-Dum (the easter island statue featured in Night at the Museum), went to my favorite exhibits, and saw a couple of dear old coworkers. Next, my thoughts of hunger instantly brought me to the location of Shake Shack that I used to visit the most. It's right next to the museum at 77th and Columbus. After my chocolate desire was satisfied, I walked down to the Lincoln Center, felt instant inspiration, went into the Library of the peforming arts and was even more inspired by all of the music and theatre books, and I picked up a book on the Lincoln Center, and an opera score. I read and read, then went over to the Met Opera shop and felt more happiness inside as I walked into the Met Opera House. The moment I laid my eyes on a Met Opera Diva mug, I had to buy it, and as I was checking out I had a nice little chat with the cashier guy who thought I lived in New York. That's always a great feeling :).

After that I decided to walk many more blocks down to Times Square, stopped in the Disney store, and down to the Drama Book Shop at 40th. Soon after I went back and packed my things, had a quick smoothie with a friend I haven't seen in a year, then hopped on a bus to the airport! I even made a new friend from Germany who is visiting the states for 3 weeks while in the airport.

It was such a great trip and definitely wonderful to experience NYC again after not being there since October. One day Becca and I will return to live there. One day. :)

Since Man of La Mancha has closed, I've had time to have a bit more of a social life, since I withdrew from the show with the Savoyaires in Evanston. I was supposed to start rehearsals August 15, but I felt the need to take a break since I felt like I was spreading myself way too thin the past few months. It hit me when I got really sick a month ago. I'm so happy with the decision to withdraw, since I've had time to further myself now--for example--ballet and improv classes!

Ballet classes were on my to-do list for this self furthing time, but it was my friend Tiffany that got me started the very first class. She asked me if I wanted to join her in going to a modern dance class, but once I got to the studio I chickened out when I saw that it was Modern I-II, and the dancers in the class looked way more experienced, so I went to the Beginning Ballet class. I instantly fell in love. It amazed me the different muscles that we were working that I had never felt before. I was doing well until about 3/4 through the class when everything started getting more difficult, because I don't know any of the terminology yet. The teacher was impressed and recommended that I take her other class Fundamentals of Ballet in addition to this class so that I can learn the positions. I think I'm going to switch studios do to the distance, but I'll start back up again this week! I bought my very first leotard and ballet shoes, and I was so excited about them I wore them around my apartment for a while afterwards, haha.
 
Improv classes at Second City started up last week! I was very nervous the whole day about it, but was quickly put at ease when I got into the classroom, was amused highly by our teacher, and realized how fun it was going to be. I had no idea that the improv world was mainly men! There's way more guys than girls in my class, and that's the case for all of the classes. This is definitely going to be a fun industry to try to get into ;). I know I'm most likely going to be addicted to improv after this course. We get discounted and free tickets to shows happening at Second City, and our class is going to go together each Tuesday after class to a show. We're already becoming a family. How cute. :)

Can you believe it's already September?! There's a feeling of Autumn in the air on this labor day..it's a mixture of emotional feelings...more so about my wardrobe than anything else. Haha. I'm going to miss summer dresses, but fall clothes are fun, too! 

"Original" Primm kids togther again in NYC :)

"He's a madman!"

Jill as Aldonza, Lindsay as Fermina, and Me in my prisoner costume:

With Lane and Jill!

A description of last week: Exhausting, yet exciting.
Last week was full of being at work by 8am, leaving work at 5 to carpool to the theatre and arrive by 6, rehearse until 11pm, drive home, try to wind down and sleep, then do it all over again the next day. It was cool to see the show progress throughout the week until we opened on Friday evening. Friday evening was decent, Saturday was apparently not as decent, but Sunday was our best one so far minus the senior citizen man accepting a phone call and speaking for a while during an intense moment...haha.

I didn't fully develop my prisoner character until halfway through the week when we began to spend time working on our pre-show which was to happen for 30 minutes when the house opens. At that moment I had LOTS of time to think about it. I wanted the character to match the hairstyle that I chose to do. I teased, sprayed a ton of hairspray, and made my hair "nappy" for the whole weekend. It took quite a long time getting the tangles out Sunday evening in the shower, but I can't imagine how long someone with naturally curly would have to spend on their hair if it got into the state mine was in! Here's a closer look of one the days:

Mine and Rebecca's dear from Will flew in from New York City on Friday! We were able to really hang out on Saturday since I was so busy on Friday, and we enjoyed one of my favorite restaurants called Crepes a latte, gelato, then chatting and taking in the views of boats on the lake and the Chicago skyline at Montrose Harbor which is one of my favorite places to go. It was so much fun having him here! After the Saturday show (which he and my friend Denise went to), we went to one of my favorite Mexican restaurants here called Garcias which is in Lincoln Square. YUM. Hanging out with him flooded my mind with NYC memories from last Summer and our October visit when we thought that we were going to move back.

Will!

 Speaking of NYC, Rebecca and I are scheming a weekend visit on my birthday coming up...August 26...and I CAN'T wait. It has been almost a year since I've experienced the smells, sights, and Shake Shack (just one of the places that's a must do when we're there).

Cute story:
Last Friday, Alexander was going to have his first Tae Kwon Do belt testing. His parents had to fill out a form that described his home behavior, and a threat in getting a mark on his Tae Kwon Do form so that he couldn't get his yellow belt was what was used all week when he wasn't listening right away. Towards the end of the week, Alexander didn't like something that I said, and he said, "I'm going to tell your rehearsals and give you a mark, so then you can't be in your show and be on stage!"