Seriously?!

My family is a bit...different. Trust me, it's in a good way but we can also gain a few raised eyebrows. Seeing as we are all a bit children at heart, I decided to get my brother and brother-in-law nerf guns to shoot each other with. The guns were also useful for shooting unarmed people, walls, the cat, the tv, ornaments, and Smurfs. No, I wasn't drinking too much egg nog; we were using one inch plastic Smurfs as targets. We proped them up on a lego container and shot them down from the handle into the bucket. My cousin really enjoyed picking which figure was the next to be taken out, and due to my sisters childhood love of the eighties staple characters, we had a lot of them to choose from.

The fun part was when Josh got out two pair of safety glasses, one pair being for outdoor use and therefore dark glasses, and they decided to see if they could get the darts to stick to the plastic without the receiving end blinking. It was a great game, let me tell you. The best part was when my 4 year old cousin got a nerf shot gun. This thing actually loaded the darts with cartridges, then spit them out when you cocked the gun. Awesome. Kid will have his NRA membership by 10. Anyway, lots of fun was had, and we were all a bit silly. Here's some proof:

Star Wars. Pretty much the series that has encompassed my life. When I was nine years old my sister got the trilogy as a gift for helping out a kindergarten glass and we spend the entire summer watching the epic films. Seriously, every day we watched all three movies. I had watched the movies so many times that I knew all the lines, including the ones in alien languages. Later, I dropped The Babysitters Club books (so juvenile to a mature 10 year old) and began reading the books that continued the journey of my beloved characters.

It’s years later. I have grown into a sensible adult. My novels are collecting dust and I am on to reading nonfiction in order to heighten my existence. Of course that means that I was absolutely dying to see Star Wars In Concert. You can take the girl out of the galaxy far, far away, but you can’t take the galaxy far, far away out of the girl. My dearest friend is quite aware of this and got me a ticket for my birthday. Best. Gift. Ever. Let me give you a run down. W got there and of course the stage looked amazing. We were only a few rows up and off to the stage left side. Sound effects played before the concert started that included lightsabers humming, wookies roaring and ships zooming by. Once things got on the roll, the show consisted of all the songs from the 6 movies and clips from all. Anthony Daniels, also known as the man inside C3PO and the voice of the android was the host who took us through the journey. It was a bit of a high for a SW lover like me to see the beloved character so close up (I know, I’m a total geek). Since the performance took place in an all-purpose arena, I had doubts of the sound quality. Did I also mention I’m a music snob? Not just on the usual stuff played on the radio, but also when it comes to symphonies and orchestral arrangements. I learned off of sheet music, played to balance my dynamics (volume) to the rest of my fellow musicians. I know the effect a perfectly timed swell of a phrase can have on an appreciative audience. Well, the music was of top quality. Thanks to top notch mixing, the acoustics weren’t an issue and from any place in the arena it was possible to appreciate the wonderful composing skills of John Williams and the performance of the London Royal Symphony.

I could probably go on forever about it, so I’m just going to sum things up by saying I won’t forget my experience. May the Force be with you, always.
(Did I really just write that?)