Tap dancing, French Horns, and ice cream

Kia Ora from New Zealand where we are anxiously awaiting news of the 29 miners trapped down on the South Island. They are currently testing the air to see if it's safe to send in rescuers after an explosion yesterday. Hoping and praying that they're OK in there. 

Still doing some catching up after the big hard drive failure a couple weeks ago and lots of travel recently. I did want to show you these photos of a gorgeous old theatre in downtown Auckland called The Civic, built in 1929. The website says it was "specifically designed as a 'movie palace' for talking pictures ('talkies'), which had just been introduced to New Zealand." What a beautiful old place! We saw 42nd Street and I had no idea that it was about a girl from Allentown, PA, where I lived as a little gawky four-eyed kid in the 70s. Kinda funny. 


In yet another lax security situation, I smuggled my ginormous camera in under my trench coat so I could take a few photos since I'd read about this place about 10 times. In true Kiwi fashion, no one seemed to notice my Quasimodo hump or cared when I laid on the floor shooting photos. Brilliant! I do love it here if I haven't said it already.

Besides the brilliant tap dancing, the coolest thing about this evening was that Laurel got to watch her French Horn teacher, Jillian, play in the orchestra pit! Laurel adores Jillian. And she should -- she's wonderful. She signed Laurel's program a few days later :o)


Also, at intermission, pretty much every man, woman, and child got up and went to the lobby for ice cream. That's a tradition I can sign up for with no problem! We had the enormous mint and chocolate on a popsicle stick. 

Anybody up for another little quiz? What level do you think we parked on? It's a tough one, but see if you can guess.

And this concludes our tour of The Civic. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening from all of us over here! Xoxo...