Hello Dolly!

Another fun summer adventure for Amber and I was being in "Hello Dolly." It was one of the biggest roles I have ever had and I loved being on stage each night as "Irene Malloy". Since they always need extra dancers, each of us was also given a waiter/dancer part to do on the nights we weren't Irene. Here are 4 of the 5 ladies who played Irene- you can see some of us were waiters that night! Honestly, part of the fun was being with these ladies all the time- Jen Migliacio, Teri Griffin and Laura Bowman- and my Irene costumes were so pretty!

Amber was also a dancing waiter some nights. Other times she got to play "Ermengard"- a very obnoxious, whiny creature! She also got her first stage kiss. I tried to take pics of it in warm up, but snapped the picture too soon and got the moment before the lip lock. She was so nervous about it, but it wasn't even really a kiss- more of a press our lips together and freeze til the blackout. It was fun to tease her about it though! Here she is with Mitchell ready to kiss!

Nana and Granddad were great to come see us one night with the rest of the family (minus Grace). We didn't have as many people come as we had hoped, but we had great fun each night anyway. I did have some nice surprises with friends in the audience I didn't know were coming, people who came to see someone else but knew me from 20 years ago, and other great friends who supported and cheered for us. Marin was by far our best fan- she came 3 times and sat through warm-ups twice. She and Amber even came my closing night, wrote me sweet messages in telegrams and gave me a standing ovation during my curtain call- what awesome daughters!

Here I am in warm-ups - so only half costumed. We danced so much in the beginning of the show for warm-ups that we would be sweaty and yucky before the show even started, so I would wear my own shirt and change at the last minute. Here I am with Anders Plett as Cornelius- he was adorable- doing "Before the Parade Passes By" and singing "Ribbons Down My Back"- a song people seem to be really afraid of, but I loved doing each night. 5 weekends probably seemed like a lot for my husband, but I loved every minute and miss the show already! It was especially fun to be there with Amber and share it all with her!