Beauty and the Beast

Last night the girls and I had a special treat. Temple City High School put on a production of Beauty and the Beast and performed it at the San Gabriel Civic Auditorium. The Combes, of our stake, had been encouraging us to buy tickets for weeks because their son - Cameron - was Gaston. Analiese McKendrick from the Temple City ward was Belle, and along with the possibility of the girls being involved in the Centre Stage Production of that same show this summer sealed the deal on our attendance. It was a pretty amazing production - there was a great audience - sold out crowd, full student orchestra, fabulous rented costumes, amazing sets, great singing, dancing and wonderful acting. I bought tickets weeks ago and when we went to sit down we just happened to have gotten tickets right next to Tom and Shirley Payne. We had a lovely visit. They have continued to do dramatic productions in their new stake in Temecula. We talked about "The Music Man" and I asked them if they had any pictures of it. Tom said that he did have a video of it but he lent it years ago and hasn't seen one since. I would love to see that. At intermission we visited with all the Combes and McKendricks - they took up rows 1 and 2 at the theater. There is a boy from Centre Stage in the show and we loved when he came on stage. I wanted to take pictures of the girls with Analiese, Alex and Cameron, but the actors had to change their costumes before coming out - didn't want to get them dirty I guess. We took off. As we came outside we were met with torrential rain. (I wanted to take the above picture right under the sign but there was no way - I was happy to be able to at least snap that one with the marquee in the background.) We had no umbrella, Sarah didn't even have a jacket, Rachel had her velvet Jacket which she quickly took off and stuffed up her shirt and because it was so packed we had parked about 4 blocks away. We ran to the car. I haven't seen people that wet from rain since Grandpa Hodgkinson and dad changed a tire in Fiji. When we got in the car I was a little worried about Sarah. She had hurt her leg at school that day and running in the rain was not good with a limp. When we finally all got in the car there was silence - Then Sarah started to belly-ache laugh with that beautiful laugh. We all laughed and shivered all the way home. We drove home with the heater on high and had hot chocolate when we got home. A really fun night!!!!