BIRTHDAY SHOUT OUT!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM R.!

I hope you had a great day! We'll celebrate in person when we get into town this week. Can't wait to see you!

One Show Moooooooore!!

Still in Detroit... but we are currently at intermission of the last show before a WHOLE WEEK OFF!

This past week was pretty busy, but lots of fun things happening. Last Sunday night after the show, Brian and I hopped in the car and drove to Cleveland to visit my family. We stayed at my Aunt Lex's house.

Monday, we drove downtown to order our wedding bands! Then we headed over to surprise my Nana and Papa with a visit. We visited for a while, checked out Pop's new tomato plants, heard all the gossip at the assisted living home and then headed home for a nap. That night we went over to my cousin Jon & Arlene's house to eat pizza and hang out with them, my cousins Bobby & Mallory, Aunt Lex, Uncle Bob, and the latest, most adorable addition to the family, Brandon! Tuesday, we visited some more and then headed back to Detroit for that night's show.

We also taught everyone how to play BANANAGRAMS! (Officially our new favorite game.)

Here's a picture of Brandon that Brian took...

On Friday, Denny and I planned a “Grease 2” Hawaiian Luau pool party at the hotel for the company. There is a great patio and pool area outside that has a grill and tables. We decorated the patio area, bought leis for everyone, and overall had a great afternoon!

Brian was in charge of the grilling...

In continuing the rubber ducky theme we started back with our Cinco de Mayo party, we bought mini hawaiian themed rubber ducks for everyone. Denny also had coozie drink holders made that say “Grease Luau 2009”.

The weekend has flown by, but we are almost done! Looking forward to a busy, but exciting week off!

Bowling Night!

Last night we had a company bowling night at Thunderbowl in Allen Park, Michigan.

Here's our team:

Brian "Fastballs" Renoni

Kelly "Gutterball" Felthous

Jack "The Knife" McDowell

Kelly "3 Beers" Levy

Jason "Blue Ball" Harper

Beth "9-Pin" Cochran

Mike "Big Ball" Eickmeyer

B&B in NYC!

This past Sunday we had a matinee and then were free until the show Tuesday evening - however, we took off Tuesday night so we didn't have to be back until Wednesday. Brian and I hopped on a plane to New York City to visit friends and go looking at condos in Hoboken, NJ.

Bright and early Monday morning we left my old apartment in Astoria (I still own the couch so we have visiting rights whenever we want), stopped at Brooklyn bagel for a long-awaited bacon, egg and cheese on a mini sesame bagel, and hopped on the N train. We took that to 34th street and then attempted to tackle the PATH train to New Jersey.

The PATH train is surprisingly easy - you can even use your Metrocard from the subway. And Hoboken is much closer than I even realized! In 15 minutes we had gone from Midtown Manhattan to Jersey. And aside from the PATH train, there is a bus that gets you to 42nd street is 10 minutes or you can even take a water taxi if you're feeling adventurous!

As soon as we got off the PATH train in Hoboken and had walked around for about 5 minutes we were in love! Hoboken is a charming little town that feels sort of like Astoria, but more like it's own community than part of a big city. It's full of young 20 - 30 somethings who mostly work in New York City, and young families.

We met up with Stuart, our real estate agent we had been chatting with over the past few weeks, and went on a whirlwind tour of 7 different properties in Hoboken. It was a highly successful day and we saw 2 places we really liked. We planned to meet at the same time the next day to see some new places and go back to the 2 we liked for a second look.

When we got back to the city we met up with a few friends for dinner at Blockheads, a popular mexican restaurant with $3 frozen margaritas. (What is with us and the margaritas lately?!) It was so great to see some of our friends, since we hadn't been back in the city in 9 months!

On Tuesday, we got up early again, made the obligatory stop at Brooklyn bagel, and headed to Hoboken to meet Mom and Dad C. who were going to join us for our 2nd day of condo hunting.

We went and saw 7 new properties and then went back to the 2 we had liked the day before. We managed to rule out the 2 from Monday that we had liked, and found 2 more that were on our minds.

After a lunch at a local restaurant called The 4 L's, which incidentally serves the BEST sweet potato fries I have ever had in my LIFE, we chatted about everything we had seen and said good-bye to Mom and Dad C. who were headed back to Baltimore for a Diana Krall concert.

We headed back to Astoria for a quick power nap, and then walked down to the Bohemian Beer Garden where we planned to spend the evening hanging out with friends. It was much more fun than we could have even guessed, as a huge number of our friends came out to see us! It was so great to finally see everyone again and it made us really excited about the upcoming wedding!

This morning we headed back to Detroit to finish out the run of Grease. There is still one condo property that we really liked and is stuck in our minds, so we will see what happens!

We're Back!

Well, it's June. It's been 6 months since our last blog post. In fact, the chances that anyone is actually reading this anymore is probably pretty slim to none.

BUT - that aside - we are currently in Detroit. For 3 weeks. This is my first time in Detroit, and while I wasn't really looking forward to it to begin with, these days it's definitely not the happiest place on earth. (Although tonight IS the Stanley Cup final game starring the Detroit Redwings, so there's hope for some peppiness around here.)

On top of that, the beginning of this tour has had so many long sit-downs (i.e. 2, 3, or 4 weeks in a city) that I am so caught up on work and bored silly. In fact, stage management and company management have started doing puzzles to entertain ourselves. During Seattle and Appleton we finished one of a Van Gogh painting, last night we finished the Elvis montage (see below) and now we are working on the cows drinking out of a fountain.

Basically what I am trying to say is, the blog has been revived!

And onto cincinnati

Hello from the Nnati. All settled in here, and heading to load in a little later. Beth is on a bus right now. The crew rolled in last night via sleeper coach. But there was no sleeping. We left around 9:30 and got in sometime in the morning, not sure when. Glad to be moving onto another city. Not because Chicago was a bad city, but because i t was full of stuff and looking forward to the relaxation that is social time in cincinnati.

Happy 2009!

Hello all you blog readers!

I can't believe it has been 2 months since we last posted anything! Our apologies. I know the holiday season has been busy for everyone and it's even busier when you're opening a show! 

You may have noticed that the blog is no longer by invitation only. We decided that it was too frustrating and annoying for people to figure out. However, we adjusted some of our securities so that the blog can no longer be discovered through search engines, etc. You have to know the actual web address to get to it.

Very soon we will start posting catch-up posts about the cities we have travelled to so far. Probably once we get to Cincinnati and we don't have as much going on.

As most of you probably know this tour has been amazing so far. We have already made so many close friends and are constantly making plans and doing fun things, which takes away from our blogging time.

Anyways, I hope everyone had a wonderful new year! Here's to 2009!

Love,

Beth & Brian