Christmas came early!

My wife surprised me with my early Christmas present this past weekend! She's literally the worst secret keeper (other than myself) that I've ever met, so I'm proud of her for keeping this from me for so long! Some time ago, a friend of our was talking about a new musical written by the writers of Next To Normal, which is one of my FAVORITE musicals. She told us that the show, called If/Then, was also to be starring Idina Menzel and Anthony Rapp, both of whom were in the original production of Rent (which I love) and Idina originated the part of Elphaba in Wicked (which I also love). I remember saying something like "WOW! That sounds so cool!" but then I forgot about it, because I really didn't think that going to see it was an option.

Cori had other plans.

She bought tickets on line AGES ago, and even contacted our friend Sarah who lives in Washington D.C., where the show is currently playing before it heads to Broadway, to ask if she could put us up for the weekend.

Fast forward many weeks. I have NO idea where we're going. Cori says "Hey! Stop and get a couple bottles of wine on your way home, before we leave... Also, don't forget to pack a pillow and a towel." Insert confusion. A pillow and a towel? Obviously we weren't staying at a hotel. And that's probably why we needed a couple bottles of wine. Gifts. I'm starting to think about friends of ours who live in every major city within driving distance of our house, and with every turn we made out of our neighborhood, I started to eliminate a few. As soon as we hit the turnpike and headed West, I said "We're staying with Sarah, aren't we!" Still had no clue about the show. Cori had to tell me. I almost peed a little.

That's our friend Sarah on the left, ME, and my wife, Cori. I was SO surprised at how small the white house is!!

Sarah forced us to try raw oysters for the first time at Old Ebbitt's, right around the corner from the white house.

#groupies #noshame

Anthony Rapp... We met him once before in Pittsburgh when we saw Rent. We're old pals. We go way back. No big deal.

LaChanze? I'd never heard of her, but she's really good. She won a Tony for The Color Purple.

OH MY GOSH. We got Idina's autograph. She was SO fantastic.

The show was absolutely wonderful. Essentially, it starts out with Elizabeth (Idina Menzel) meeting up with some friends. Her new friend refers to her as Liz, while her old college buddy refers to her as Beth. The whole show is about how much your life can change depending upon the choices you make. The whole show she keeps going back and forth between Liz and Beth, which was confusing at first, but then was so beautiful. I can't even describe it. It's just good, haha! The turntable in the stage was supposed to stop during one of Idina's big songs, oddly enough titled "What the f**k?" but it kept spinning, and she started laughing, and the whole show stopped for a minute or two. She made light of the situation, and it was so nice to be reminded that they were real people for a minute!

Moral of the story, my wife loves me and knows me SO well :-)