Crazy Weekend

Well, it's been a while since I last blogged. I have been really busy at work and the last thing I want to do when I get home is spend more time on the computer. Things seem to be looking up, so maybe I will be more relaxed and feel like writing.

I have to share with you what happened last weekend. It was a great weekend overall (it was my birthday) it was just a little chaotic.

Let me backtrack to a couple of weeks before Christmas. My husband Dan, a Toledo native, found out that a tour of Phantom of the Opera was going to be coming through Toledo. Phantom is one of Dan's favorite musicals, and he has seen it I think about 5 times. Several of his friends are fans of it as well, as am I. So Dan had this excellent idea to buy all of his friends and their spouses tickets to go see Phantom as their Christmas presents. This took a lot of arranging to make sure that everyone had the evening he selected off from their jobs, had babysitters, etc. And by some miracle it all worked out that everyone could go.

We went to see Phantom this past Saturday night, January 27th. There were 9 of us that went, and we met before the show at a great new restaurant in Toledo, called Carson Steakhouse. Our meals were fabulous! We started out our meal with some cocktails - - Dan and I had Vanilla Stolis with Pepsi (should have been Coke, but oh well!) And some appetizers - - Onion Rings and Calimari. I ordered a New York Strip that just melted in my mouth. It was fabulous and I ate every last bite - leaving no room for dessert, unfortunatly. They had a Coconut Cheesecake on the menu that sounded great, but I'll have to wait to try it on our next visit.

Then it was on to the show. This was my third time seeing Phantom - - and my first time since touring the actual Paris Opera House where the "real" Phantom lived. Although I was unimpressed with some of the vocals and some of the acting, it was really interesting to watch the show after seeing the real place. When we took the tour of the opera house on our honeymoon last spring, we had an excellent guide who told us all of the different legends about the phantom.

*Side note: Around intermission, Dan realized that his cell phone was missing. We figured it was in the car, or at worst, he left it at the restaurant. We would worry more about that later.

Anyway, it was a great show and all of us who had seen it before did enjoy it, even if we were a touch critical of the performances. Those that had not seen it before were people who generally do not enjoy musicals and, while I don't think they hated the show, I also don't think they loved it!

After the show, we went to a bar around the corner called Trotter's Tavern. It was a decent place with a lot of people our age. I hate going to bars that the younger set frequent. It makes me feel old!!!

After midnight, everyone toasted my birthday with some shots. Being 31 now, it was way past my bedtime and it was soon time to go.

We stayed at Dan's friend Matthew's parents house. (got that?) When we got there, we searched the car for Dan's cell phone, to no avail. We played a few rounds of Guillotine (a really fun card game) and then went to bed.

Stay tuned for the continuing saga of our crazy weekend....