Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you are enjoying this day with people you love. I will be celebrating with exchanging cards with 22 little cuties, not eating chocolate on my ice cream sundae (gave it up for Lent), eating Culver's and watching Glee. Could be worse ;)


The other day I was contemplating two of my favorite quotes about love:

"Our love is all we need to make it through," from Not Alone written by the talented Darren Criss

and

"All we need to survive is one person who truly loves us. You have her," in a letter from Penny to Desmond on Lost.

And I realized how similar they are and how true. That we we really need is one person who loves us and knowing we have their love is enough to get us through anything. I am blessed enough to have countless people who love me and I am so grateful for all of them!!!

Oscar Double Feature 2013, Part Deux

I was soooooooooo excited to see a commercial this week advertising that Argo was being released on iTunes and Amazon Video on Friday. I have been wanting to see it so badly, especially after it won the Golden Globe and SAG Awards, but it wasn't showing in any theaters anymore. I knew that I definitely needed to watch it before the Oscars in two weeks.

While perusing the local theater's showtimes, hoping that Argo would somehow make a comeback, I saw that they were showing The Impossible, another Oscar contender I was really wanting to see. I decided to check it out this weekend, pretty last minute. (Spoilers Ahead!)

Several hours later, I'm not sure that I will be able to accurately describe my feelings for this movie; there were a lot of them. I thought it was amazingly well done. The acting was superb, from Naomi Watts to Ewan McGregor to the adorable little guys playing their sons. I am a complete Jennifer Lawrence fan and have been rooting for her all awards season, but Naomi Watts did such a superb job in this movie that I am inclined to root for her as well. My heart is divided.

The movie was at times devastating, excruciating, terrifying and joyful. I cried equal amounts of tears of joy and sadness. The scenes of the tsunami  hitting were insane. It was unthinkable to imagine what that experience was like. I was amazed with the mom and oldest son, Lucas' strength to not only save themselves, but to rescue another little boy, Daniel as well. When Maria was being pulled across the wreckage by their rescuer, I felt like I could physically feel her pain. I couldn't imagine the choice the dad made to leave his sons to search for his wife and Lucas, but it was an impossible (pun totally intended) decision. Then when those two little boys saw Lucas across the way and they all started screaming each other's names, I couldn't take it. Tears were streaming down my already tear-streaked face. Then, when they saw their dad and they were all hugging, I pretty much lost it, as did most everyone in the theater by the sounds of it. I'm pretty sure that will be my go to scene if I ever need a good cry.

It was an amazing film, but if you have any sort of fear of water or drowning, as Momma does, you should not see it. I texted Momma afterwards that it was a great movie, but she should not see it. The scenes of the water hitting were pretty intense and not for the faint of heart.

I left struck by all of the tiny details that had to fall into place for them to meet up again. Simon having to get off the transport truck to use the bathroom. Lucas spotting his dad, but losing him in the chase, leading him to meet up with the brothers. That the dad was at the hospital on the exact same day that the boys transport was passing through. I was left wondering if that was true to life or a little bit of movie magic. Either way, clearly they had someone watching over them for them all to be reunited.

When I got back, I decided that it was as good a night as any to watch Argo. I hoped it was also On Demand, but it wasn't, so I settled in with my laptop :)

It was also a great movie! I didn't know much about the story or even the hostage crisis as I was not born when it happened. Just simply learning the story was fascinating and the movie was excellent as well. As is started and protesters were just jumping the fences, I couldn't believe there wasn't more security, but I guess it was a different time. 

Ben Affleck was awesome. I thought John Goodman and Alan Arkin were also excellent. John Goodman is one of those actors, that I always think, "I love him for some reason, but I can't really remember what it is." Then, I remember it is that he was Fred in the Flintstones movie. :) 

It was another example of a movie that maintained the intensity and suspense, despite the fact that I already knew the ending. I experienced that during many of the nominated movies I've seen this year, Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty and both of today's movies. My heart was racing so fast during the scenes in the airport and when they were rushing to board the plane as the Iranians were discovering their identities. I kept telling myself, "you know that they get out fine, you know they're OK," but it was still intense. I guess that is a sign of a great movie, if you already know the ending, but it still brings about such strong emotions. During the scenes at the hospital in The Impossible, as they kept passing each other and not seeing each other, I was yelling in my head, "Turn around, He's right there, No go down the stairs! Why did he pull that curtain around her bed????" Even though I knew it would all turn out all right in the end.

I was again wondering how much of Argo was 100% accurate and what was the truth being stretched. Were there really police cars chasing their plane down the runway? There was a little documentary at the end of the movie on Amazon Video. They were interviewing the real-life houseguests and they didn't really mention that part of the story. But even if the truth was stretched a bit, it was still an amazing escape. 

Both movies were fantastic and I hope they both do well at the Oscars!!!

I'm Grateful For... Momma

This week's I'm Grateful For post is a little delayed, because its subject was visiting for a couple of days :)

Momma came out to see me Thursday night, just barely beating the snow and avoiding the stressful drive Lil Sis endured last week :) We went out to dinner and watched Glee and Grey's Anatomy.

 We were supposed to get a lot of snow and we were worried/hoping? we'd get a snow day, which would have been a little sad because Momma was supposed to come to school with me on Friday.

We ended up not getting much snow at all, so school was on. It was lots of fun to have Momma help out in my classroom all day. My kiddos loved meeting my mom. It was wonderful to have an extra set of hands all day and for Momma to finally have faces to put to the names of my little sweeties.

After school, we had a quick dinner at Pizza Hut and then headed to my school's annual talent show. I was in the staff act, set to the YMCA :) We had a blast performing for all of our awesome students and their families.

This morning we went out to breakfast and Momma was on her way. It was a quick trip, but a really nice one. I'm so grateful that Momma came out to visit and a million other things that would fill up a much longer blog! She is the best and I am so blessed to have her as my mom!!!!

Airport for Birds

Lil Sis and I had a lovely Airport for Birds weekend, once she braved the snowy, yucky roads to make it to my apartment :)

On Friday, we had a snow day, so instead of coming to school to meet my kiddos, we lounged around, went shopping and enjoyed our snow day!

Saturday we left pretty early to go see Big Sis, Bro-in-Law, Lil E and Lil C. We had so much fun playing with them. Lil E was so excited to see us and we were so excited to see her!!!

Sunday we left for Chicago several hours early. After Lil Sis's difficult trek to see me, we wanted to leave lots of extra time. 

We got to the parking garage about two hours before the door opened for the show. So we found a Starbucks to hang out in for a couple of hours. We sipped our hot chocolate and kept our eyes peeled for any Starkids who may have needed a shot of caffeine before the show started. Just as we had decided that they should probably be at the theater by now, Lil Sis says, "Uh, Jeff Blim..." I quickly turned to see him walk past the window we were sitting next to. Jeff is a newer addition to Team Starkid. He played the villain, Sweet Tooth, in Holy Musical B@man and was in AVPSY, as well. We were pretty excited.

We had purchased VIP tickets, so that we got early priority seating (and a signed program). As we walked in we saw Denise Donovan and Jaime Lyn Beatty walking around and again were super excited! We got in the theater (?) and were seated in the front row. 

We were literally three feet max from the stage. We each bought a "And Other Ideas" journal from the merch table. We shared some chicken fingers and mozzarella sticks. 

Lil Sis had heard that one of the Starkid's friends, Eric Kahn Gale, author of The Bully Book, was supposed to be at the show. So we were looking all over for him, so that he could sign her book. We couldn't find him, so Lil Sis tweeted him and asked if he was there. During intermission, she checked her tweets and he had replied to her! Sadly, he said he wasn't there, but it was still awesome that he responded :)

The show was fantastic!!! There was one particular skit that literally made me laugh til I cried. It was so awesome to see all of the Starkids up close and personal. Most of the skits were hilarious, a few were not so much, but it was so much fun!!! Lil Sis and I remarked how happy we were to be back with "our people." We experienced the same thing at Leaky Con, being surrounded by people who loved and understood this phenomenon that no one else we know in real life cares about is something we're not used to. Being around people who understand why Red Vines are totally awesome and that Hermione can't draw was really nice.

After the show, they held a Q & A session. Lil Sis and I could not think of an intelligent question, but it was still fun. It was cool to see the Starkids as themselves. Of couse someone asked when AVPSY would be out and of course they didn't know, but it was lots of fun.

 When it was over, we headed to the lobby and after a trip to the bathroom, Jeff Blim had come out into the lobby! Lil Sis and I rushed over and got our pictures taken with him. 

Lil Sis's looks great!

Not sure what happened here...

He was so nice and sweet signing autographs and taking pictures with everybody! Then we went back off to the side. An older couple with a younger (our ageish) daughter and their parents were standing near us. The mom said, "Look at everyone wanting his picture and autographs." It was Jeff's family! They were so cute and proud and couldn't believe that so many people wanted pictures with him. It was adorable!

We decided to wait two more minutes and if no one else good came out, we'd leave. Well, we ended up staying longer and we're so glad we did! We ended up meeting six of the Starkids and could have met more.

Two very excited sisters with the insanely sweet and insanely talented Jaime Lyn Beatty. She asked us where we were from and was excited when we told her Michigan.

Me with Lauren Lopez, who is much shorter than I expected. I knew she was short, but she makes me look tall and I was hunched over a little...

When Lil Sis went to get her picture taken, Lauren noticed her engagement ring and got so excited, asking if she was engaged and when she got engaged. It was so sweet and nice!!!

Here's a really nice picture of Lil Sis with Joe Walker (aka Voldemort)

And again, mine is sorta weird... It must be me.

Meeting Denise Donovan for the second time.

The first picture Lil Sis tried to take ended up with some guy's head in front of my face, so Denise insisted that we take another one.

The last Starkid we met was Brian Holden. We were right next to him, ready to jump in and ask for a picture, when he went to get someone's coat from the coat check room. The big crowd was standing in front of the coat check and she couldn't make it, so he went to get her coat for her. It was soooooo nice! I don't think he even knew her :) 

I think our overall impression was how amazingly nice and genuine everyone seemed. They all came out and were taking pictures and giving autographs, even when I'm sure they had other places to be. Some of them even had their family there, but were taking time to hang out with us. And people were having real conversations with them (see our convo with Lauren Lopez) about their interests. They were all just incredibly sweet and all thanked us for coming. When we left we were on cloud nine! I think we could have floated home, but alas we had to drive... It's still hard to adequately describe how we felt and how excited we were!!! Especially, as I'm going on about 5 hours of sleep and a full day of work, coupled with a slight post-Starkid funk, which always occurs after being surrounded by "our people," experiencing an amazing Starkid show and then being thrust back into the real world. :)

Oh Bonnie, Where Art Thou?

In the first two Potter musicals, Hermione was played by Bonnie Grueson.

She was great. She rocked The Coolest Girl and made this cool behind the scenes video of AVPM,

And then she just vanished. OK not really, she has a twitter, so we know she's still alive, but she has never again been in a Starkid production. Not even AVPSY, when literally almost every other actor who'd been in one of their shows came back for. It's kind of a mystery what happened to her and why she left the group. If you start to google her name, "What happened to Bonnie Gruesen?" is like the third search suggestion.  The Starkids tends to make jokes or just not reply when asked... It's a mystery. Except somewhere on twitter I read that she was making a movie about Jesus vs. Zombies, so there's that.

Anywho, Meredith took over the role in AVPSY, with a joke about how a spell made her look pretty different.

Meredith and Denise

I've always considered Meredith and Denise as sort of Starkid joiners, because they weren't in the first two Potter musicals, but have been in pretty much everything else. I realize that Meredith actually was in Little White Lie, but still, for me AVPM is the real start of Starkid...

Both ladies made their Starkid debuts in Starship with pretty big roles. Meredith played MegaGirl

And Denise was Starship Ranger Februar

In Holy Musical B@man! they both played random villians...

In A Very Potter Senior Year, Meredith took over for the absent Bonnie Grueson as Hermione,

Honestly, I had to look up who Denise played, Wikipedia lists her as Mrs. Cole. Is that Tom Riddle's Grandma? Maybe. Otherwise I have no idea...

But the best part of Denise at LeakyCon/AVPSY, was when we met her!! Lil Sis and I had just spent a bajillion years hanging around the Starkid Merchandise booth trying to decide what the heck we wanted/needed to buy. We finally decided and got in line. As I was waiting at the cash register, I look over in my peripheral vision, I see Denise standing next to me chatting with one of the guys working at the booth. Lil Sis nudged me and was like, "do you know who's next to you??" and I was like, "yes." Denise asked the worker if it was OK if she hung out for awhile. 

We finished paying and she was still hanging around talking to a few people. We had to wait while they made our shirts, so we went over and joined them. Amy got her autograph on her LeakyCon pass lanyard thing. It was cool though, because she was just standing around talking to people and just hung out for like 15 minutes. Plus, this was our first day there and our first Starkid encounter, so that just made it even more awesome! 

P.S. I am listening to the Tyler Brunsman interview I linked to yesterday as I write this post :)

Tyler Brunsman

Tyler Brunsman

Tyler Brunsman has basically just found time to be in the Potter Musicals. Like Brian Rosenthal, he also had a small cameo in the video at the beginning of Starship. 

In AVPM, Tyler played someone I think you'd find very interesting, Cedric Diggory:

During AVPS, he found himself filling the role of one Mr. Lucius Malfoy, the adopted?, step?, believed? father of Draco, who is a talented dancer/choreographer.

In portraying Malfoy, he found himself in a situation to show off more of his amazing voice in It's Not Over Yet and Guys Like Potter.

You may find it strange that in AVPSY he played the role of Professor Minerva McGonagall.

He also reprised his role of Cedric in a scene I found very surprising...

I find this interview pretty entertaining. Before I watched it I had no particular attachment to Mr. Brunsman, but it sorta made me love him.

e's so adorable! Also he sang with in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular!!!

And I find his teeth to be amazing!

This has absolutely nothing to do with this blog post, but after I found it, I couldn't realize I'd never noticed the similarity before.

Here's the reason I used the words find and found repeatedly in this post...

The Other Brian

Brian Rosenthal, aka Brosenthal, is today's Starkid of the Day.

Brian played one half of the Professor Quirrel/Voldemort combo in A Very Potter Musical. The part that is not a fragment of a soul, but the part that just wants to plant flowers when he takes over the world and misses the crazy serial killer when he is no longer attached to the back of his head and wonders if OK is good.

In the sequel, Brosenthal didn't get as big of a role. He was Seamus Finnigan and James Potter, both smallish parts.

During Starship, Brosenthal was still in school and so he wasn't able to be in the show. He was however able to be a part of the "Starship Ranger" video that played at the beginning of the show. You can watch the video here.

In AVPSY, he reprised his roles as Seamus Jillian Crockett and James Potter, including singing as James in the song Everything Ends.

Brosenthal was also a part of the Apovalyptour

Oh goodness. I was looking through google images pics of Brian and I found this hilarious one of he and Joey at a U of M football game. Joey looks like such a baby!

That's Brosenthal!

Mr. Brian Holden (aka Brolden)

Brian Holden was nicknamed Brolden to distinguish him from the other Brian in Starkid Brian Rosenthal.

In Starkid's first production, Little White Lies, Brolden played Zach.

He, along with the Langs, wrote AVPM. He didn't act in that musical, but helped write the musical that started it all :) He has also helped write all of Starkid's shows and has helped direct a couple as well.


In A Very Potter Sequel, he played a hilarious Remus Lupin.

In Starship, he portrayed both Junior and Veeto Mosquito. 

For Holy Musical B@man! he was Superman opposite Joe Walker's Batman.

In A Very Potter Senior Year, he played Hagrid contributing to one of the funniest moments during the show, when Darren as Harry sits on Hagrid's lap. Darren could not keep himself together and it was hilarious!

Brian is also suspected to be the one who operates @TeamStarkid's twitter and facebook pages. He is often the one who speaks (narrates?) during Starkid's announcement videos. He'll be a part of their sketch comedy show Airport For Birds, which starts this weekend in Chicago. Can't wait to go see it!!

Jaime Lyn Awesome!

Jaime Lyn Beatty is another one of the awesome ladies of Starkid. She has simply one of the most fantastic voices ever! So I've decided to just link to a bunch of videos of her wonderful singing voices. She's going to make an album soon, which I'm sure will be awesome.

Sami/Harry from LWL/AVPM


Not Alone from AVPM (Ginny)


Harry Freakin' Potter from AVPS (Rita Skeeter)


The Way I Do which she did not sing in Starship, but did sing on the Apocalyptour


Rogues Are We from Holy Musical B@man (Poison Ivy)


Senior Year from AVPSY (Ginny) (Sadly, when they intro Harry it is in fact not D-Criss singing, he only sang on one song for the soundtrack they put out :(   )


The girl can sing! I can't wait to hear her album.