Les Miserables
Another Broadway hit I'd never seen. When I saw it was at the Segerstrom Center I was excited and really wanted to see it. My mom say it in NY years ago so I asked my friend Candy to join me. She was a Les Mis virgin as well so we were ready. We decided to get dinner at Mortons which is literally a 2 min drive to the theater. Perfect. As it turns out, between Father's Day and our anniversary dinners I'd eaten my annual allotment of steak so I went with a surf and turf spare rib and scallop combo and we shared a side of creamed spinach... OMG! It was delish. Of course I think I could have easily made a meal out of their bread only. It was this amazing giant onion loaf. I think it might be the best bread I've eaten in my entire life. Dessert (yes, don't judge me, Candy likes dessert ;-) was a chocolate souffle. Fantastic!!!

After we stuffed ourselves silly with rich food we headed off to the play. I've never been to the Segerstrom for a show. Its a beautiful theater. I was a bit nervous about our seats which were in the front row. I've never sat in the front row before but when I bought them the choice was front row or very, very back of orchestra. As it turned out, our seats were awesome! It was so neat to be so close to the stage and really be able to see the detail of the costumes and the facial expressions. The only drawback was that we were so close we could actually see the microphone headsets they were wearing which was a bit distracting but, overall, I think a fair trade off.

The show itself was great! Probably most people are familiar with the story of Jean Valjean who, after serving 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving nephew, searches for peace and redemption. Its an amazing musical and the production was wonderful. The sets, the performances, everything was so good. Its now on my short list of fav shows. It's not as good as Phantom, but it was close :-)

That thing on the plate in front of us is the souffle... yikes!

Little girl blue

A thoroughly modern princess

The Joys of Georgiana: Georgiana is kind
I wrote already that I attended a mother's day tea with G at her school last friday. It was a lovely day. I was surprised when the "young 3 yr old" class teacher, Mrs Hood, came up to me as I was leaving and handed me a picture in a little hand crafted frame. It was a photo of G holding hands with a little tiny girl who joined the school just a month or so ago. Mrs Hood went on to explain that the reason she took the picture was because Georgie is always so kind to the younger kids in her class. She said she's very gentle and kind to them and so the little ones really like her and she was happy to have been able to capture that in a photo. Ahh, so sweet.

She went on to explain that there is a little boy in the 3 yr old class, T, who although he's been in the school since September has had a hard time getting along socially. Because of that many of the children didn't want to play with him and he often ended up playing by himself. This did not surprise me. G had mentioned a few times throughout the year that T had a hard time, would sometimes hit the other kids and was kind of "mean". And I'd noticed a couple of times his general unruliness at school activities but honestly I never thought too much about it.  Growing socially is one of the things kids are supposed to do in preschool.

Mrs Hood said that she wasn't really sure what had led up to it if anything but, that about a month before, G seemed to take an interest in T. She started going over and talking to him a bit as he played by himself and eventually, in true Georgie style, grabbed his little hand. Mrs Hood said that at first T seemed a bit confused by G's actions but he warmed up to it really quickly and actually responded to G kindly in turn. I guess that after G started playing with him, some of the other kids joined in and T is now getting along much, much better. She then took my hand and said "you know, your daughter is a very special gir. She has a very kind heart and a gentle spirit."

I almost cried. Ok, I admit it, I actually did cry a little. Best. Mother's Day Gift. Ever.

They can't all be winners
I see a lot of live performance. A lot. I enjoy it. Most of what I see I really like. I generally find the performances are good with good sets, stories, acting, and costumes. But when you see a lot you're bound to come across a few that aren't really your thing. That's to be expected.

The last two have been in that category. Not horrible but just not great.

The first was last weekend when Bobby and I took G to see A Wrinkle in Time at the local theater. This was the last in this year's children's series and the only one so far that wasn't really, really good. It was the story written by Madeline L'Engle that most are familiar with. I read it years ago, I think when I was in high school, and I remember liking the book. But, the play, ehh. What can I say? The acting was ok but the sets and the script just weren't doing it for me. G seemed ok with it and said she liked it at the end but I don't think she did. Overall, I found it boring and was bummed that I made G leave a birthday party where she was having tons of fun early to get there.

The second was just this past weekend at the California Theater's showing of The Chronicles of Narnia. There were some good things: the set and costumes (except Aslan) were very good and the acting decent. This was especially true considering that the little girl who played Lucy was only 7. But, I think it was hard for them to tell the story, admittedly a quite complicated one, in only 90-100 mins of stage time. Again, I read the CS Lewis books years ago and enjoyed them very much. I've also seen the movies that have been done in the last 5 yrs or so and found them beautifully done. But, it just didn't translate well to the stage. While reading I was able to picture the beautiful Aslan. When creating the movie they were able to bring that imagery to life with a regal computer animated lion. But, on stage, it just wasn't working.

I wouldn't say the show was awful it just wasn't that good which is always a bit disapppointing. The evening wasn't a complete bust as it's always nice to do my mother/daughter theater nights with my mom. And we did enjoy a fantastic --and very economical thanks to Groupon --pre-show dinner at Le Rendez Vous. Yummy filet mignon with bernaise in what turned out to be a private dining room. Fun!

Hopefully our upcoming shows will be better.

Bathing beauty!
Finally, summer is here and the weather is warm enough to swim! Of course we still have to heat the pool for Bobby to get in cuz he's a big wuss and won't unless the water is at least 85 degrees. G is at the perfect age for the pool. She still can't swim :-(  but hopefully by the end of this summer she will. But, she loves being in the water. She just loves it!! I'm still trying to work decent swim lessons into our schedule but am having trouble. In the meantime, Bobby and I have been working with her and she's actually doing really well. She can float on her back now. She doesn't feel comfortable doing it in the deeper water of the shallow end but she does fine over the swim step. Now I just need to convince her that there is absolutely no difference in floating there where its only 18" deep and just a few feet over where its 3' deep. She can swim across the pool using the kick board but only with her face in the water. For some reason she doesn't like doing it with her face above the water which confuses me. And, she's been working on swimming across the swim step (6-8 feet) with her own made up froggy stroke using her feet and arms. We're making progress.

Backyard pool days are very nice. We swim, eat bbq'd hot dogs, and listen to classic rock on the radio. Its a great way to while away a weekend day.

Here's G showing off some of her pre-swim poses:

 I'm not sure if she named this one but its funny

This is her classic ballet pose. She does this one often.

 Making a grouchy face just for fun

I think she called this one "princess pose"

No pictures of swimming. I thought I'd taken a few but they don't seem to be on my card. Hmmm. Oh well. I'm sure there will be many opportunities for swim pix this summer.

Dance, shop, eat, walk, fish
G had dance class Saturday morning like she does each weekend. After that we had to run an errand in Costa Mesa (for those not familiar with the so cal area, that's not close :-) at the South Coast Plaza. After some time in the mall and a quick lunch we started driving home and got pretty close when we saw G had crashed out in her seat. To kill time while she slept Bobby suggested driving up to Mt Baldy as we haven't been up there in awhile. It was a cold day (its usually really hot by Memorial Day so this is quite unusual) and when we got to the top of the hill it was FREEZING. The temp gauge was reading 39 degrees and in true California style Bobby was wearing shorts and G had a tutu skirt on :-) so after a minute or two it was time to move on down the mountain a bit. After watching the temp rise to a level we thought we could live with we found a turnout and headed down a path. G was so cute hunting for flowers, leaves and pine cone treasures. After a bit the cold started getting to us again so it was time to move on.

Next stop Trout Pond! Confession: I've never caught a fish. Never, not even one, in my whole life. Bobby has, tons. Brett and Casey have but not me. I don't really mind. I kind of feel bad for the fish. I don't mind eating fish and meat but I'd prefer not to kill it myself. Anyway, when I saw the little trout pond I knew G would think it was fun. I was right, she was excited but I explained to her "just one fish". Trout pond fish are super expensive plus, I'm not much of a fan of trout. G was a good little fisherman and, not surprisingly, caught a fish really fast. Yay! G tends to be a pretty sensitive soul and I thought she might be bothered by the flailing fish but she wasn't. Yay!! again.

It was a big day that we capped off with a sushi dinner (no, not the fish G just caught, all together different fish :-) to celebrate my birthday. yay. Exhausting.

Fairy pix
I love fairies. Not surprisingly Georgie also likes fairies!!! Therefore, in the mind of G, what could be better than having your picture taken while dressed up like a fairy??? Nothing, that's what! 

The Joys of Georgiana
When I was choosing G's name (I had about 3 yrs) I tried to find the most perfect and beautiful name I could. My reasoning is outlined in this old post. Once her first name was chosen I moved on to her middle name. I seriously considered naming her Georgiana Joy but was dissuaded from doing so and eventually chose Rose instead. Rose is a beautiful name but sometimes I wish that I would have gone with Joy. She really is the most joyful person I've ever known and she brings our family such incredible happiness its sometimes hard to express without sounding like a goof, lol! I love watching her grow and become the person she will be. She has a beautiful heart, a kind soul, and a loving spirit.

I've been thinking a lot about these aspects of her personality and the things that make G who she is. I've decided that over the next few days, weeks or months (not sure yet!) I'm going to try to memorialize the things that make G so, so special. Be prepared, these might be more braggy than normal and I apologize in advance for what will probably be some very mushy posts ;-)

Berry pickin'
G loves to pick stuff, usually flowers, but last year we went to a blueberry farm that was really fun. Then I thought about the cute strawberry dress she had, did a google search and well that did it!

My mom decided to come along for the ride down to Rainbow. I wasn't really sure what to expect. They grow lots of strawberries around here. There are huge fields of them in long rows. I was wondering if it would be difficult to pick them especially for my mom who walks with a cane. As it turned out, the strawberries on this "you pick" farm were grown in vertical baskets up off the ground which made them super easy to "pick". We didn't actually pick them, they gave us small scissors and you could snip each one which prevented people from squeezing the fruit as well as damaging the plants I'm sure.

It was an absolutely gorgeous morning to be in the Temecula winery area and we took our time walking around finding the perfect berries. Georgie was in heaven and wanted to pretty much snip every single berry she could find. At $4 per pound I tried to slow her down a bit.

While at the strawberry place I mentioned to my mom that I'd seen a facebook posting that the blueberry place had recently opened for the season and that as I recalled it was pretty close to where we were. You know what goes great with fresh strawberries?? Fresh blueberries. After a bit of lunch we were off to do some more pickin'.

It seems that the blueberry season has just begun as the bushes were not loaded down with ripe berries like they were when we went last year. There were still plenty of berries but we had to be a bit more selective this time. I was really proud of Georgie. She was quite patient with her search for the ripest berries. It took a long time (30-40 mins) for her choose enough to fill her 2 pint bucket but eventually, with a little bit of help from me and Grandma, it was full!

By the time we began to make our way home, it had been a very long day for little G. She was so, so tired from her busy day of harvesting.

The best part of the harvest is definitely getting to eat the fruits of your efforts. G gave it a big thumbs up!!!

 Three generations of fruit loving ladies :-)

Next stop, blueberries!

 I think these are some of the prettiest strawberries I've ever seen!

 Georgie's own personal creation. A blueberry in a strawberry cone!

Somebody told me you can pick apples around here too. Sounds great!

Mother's Day Weekend Part 4:
After a lovely morning with Bobby and the kids, I still had planned a lovely evening with my mom! It was actually our normal part of our series at the Candlelight but we were lucky that it fell on Mother's Day. The show was Aida. It was an interesting show. I can't say it was my favorite show ever but it was certainly enjoyable. The female lead had an amazing voice! But the most important part was that I got to spend a really nice evening with my mom :-)

It was a wonderful end to a perfect Mother's Day weekend!

Mother's Day Weekend Part 3:
Finally!! The official big day had arrived. I started hearing G's little voice about 6:45... "daddy, can I show it to mommy yet?" Then I'd doze off. Finally about 7:30 she could no longer take it. I was smothered by hugs and kisses, dozens of I love you's and greetings of "happy mother's day, mama". After we all got up and got ready, G gave me her beautiful project that she'd created with bobby. Bobby got me something slightly more official in a pretty little yellow Brighton bag--yeah for me!

I love the Mission Inn. Its so pretty. I was majorly bummed that I blew it and didn't get us a reservation for Easter. I was so not letting that happen again. I took matters into my own hands and booked it at least a month before mom's day. We had to wait for a patio table but it was totally worth it. It was just so pretty and peaceful out there with the five of us. I so very rarely get to spend time with just me, bobby and all three of the kids. The perfect mom's day morning.