Sleepless in Cleveland

It's 2:30am and I have to report to the bus in 5 hours, so why am I still up you ask? I'm not sure. This is beginning to be a bad trend in my sleeping pattern. I think it's a combination of things keeping me up. It could be that I sleep the day away on our early morning daily bus travels, or that my brain won't shut off with show and regular life things, or maybe it's because I truly have restless leg syndrome!!! Whatever the reason is it's not good. We are in Cleveland right now- and leaving for Grand Rapids tomorrow morning. I did a meet and greet tonight with Hilton Garden execs and their families (HGI is one of our major sponsors) and one of the very enthused guests asked what city we just came from, and all i had was a blank stare as I searched my brain for the answer! STATE COLLEGE! ahhh! I can't even remember where I woke up this morning! This tour is about to become a real brain twister. We are on city #1 of a 4 day one-nighter stretch. I'm remaining calm, but confused and exhausted as well! Unfortunately these one nighters don't allow for much exploration in the 15-20 hours we are here for. The big event of the night for me was getting a slammin grilled cheese and fries from the hotel restaurant. Yep, as Drew Carey were to say, "Cleveland Rocks!" Well, at least it does in the hotel grilled cheese department, the rest of the city is still in question.

A little bit on State College, PA, aka Penn State....

There were really good things and really bad things about city #6. Let's start with the positive first- the ice creamery turned out to be amazing and we got to walk around the campus in between shows Saturday! I got the Bittersweet Mint, delicious! I was hoping for Peppermint but they didn't have that one ready for scooping. The creamery is definitely smack dab in the middle of the agricultural department so I'm wondering if I could go to Penn State and graduate with a master ice cream maker degree?? Seems possible. The campus was really pretty and clean, but empty because all the students were already gone on Thanksgiving break. Okay, for the bad- the hotel was a dark cave with no window to the outside world and my Internet didn't work and it was just dusty and grouse. OH! I almost forgot the best thing about our two day visit to State College! I saw Twilight New Moon with Hillmer and Sam!! The movie was actually really great- so much better then the first one- but I can't believe how hard we laughed every time there was a shirtless Jacob! haha!

Here we are at the creamery, doing a lady lion pose with our ice cream. Penn State are lions so there were signs all over saying "Lady Lions." We seemed it only fitting to adopt the lady name.

This is the Bruce Jordan Center where we preformed in State College with us on the sign!!!

Back in the U-S-of- A!

We are already on our 5th city in this wild adventure! After our 19 day stint in Canada, we barely inched over the border arriving in Buffalo, NY today for one show! (I'll get back to Canada another day.....again, haven't been the best blogger this year!) It was dreary, cold and wet today- making my first impression of Buffalo less then perfect. Our hotel isn't as fancy as our Canadian hotels have been, and it's not near anything cool- making it a double bummer. We arrived about 2pm, dropped our bags off and had a few hours rest before we had to head over the arena. I spent those few hours picking up a postcard and peanut M&M's and finally using my phone again!! It felt great to text and talk like normal! The show was good. Huge arena with a packed house and a wonderful audience. Couldn't ask for a better show set up. My right foot is bothering me a tad, and it's annoying me because I don't know how I may have injured it. My first bet is on me being clumsy.

We are leaving bright and early to hit the road to State College, PA where we will sit for 2 days. I'm exited about State College because of an ice creamery that's connected to Penn State!! The flavors are incredibly amazing!! Check it out!! Apparently at Penn State you can take ice cream courses! So cool! http://www.creamery.psu.edu/flavors.htm

I'll let you all know which one I try....or 3 or 4! :)

The tour has officially begun!

Last night was opening night! (finally!) I started to think we'd never stop rehearsing, but we made it! 1 city down, 30 to go! Of course it wouldn't be opening night without a little excitement, and I've felt like something was bound to happen because everything up until now has gone too smoothly. So our bus in NYAC and the Shine staircase got a case of stage fright.....neither one worked! The bus started to malfunction mid number and luckily the manual controls kicked in, but the cues for the bus rotation were behind so it didn't really sync up with the LED screen. The first 2 girls off the bus actually stepped off while the bus was still moving.....which is totally unsafe! But they made it work! If that wasn't enough, the Shine stairs didn't make the usual move forward, so the LED wall opened up and we just stayed back in the shadows. Wah wah! Totally killing our best moment in the show! We had to take super long walks to make it to our correct depths for the top of dance. We were all joking backstage after that we channeled our inner supermodel on the long walks, ha! Technical difficulties....but we used our PCS (professional common sense) and handled it well, everyone in charge seemed to be happy with us!

Here are some show pics taken from a dress rehearsal, and also some cute ones from our opening night party!

lots of things have happened....

So i confess, I've been a terrible blogger as you can tell. But I'm back on track. Things got a little crazy the last week in Myrtle Beach and then once we arrived to Hershey we were working super hard so I got super tired. Wrapping up the last fews weeks......

I can't believe how quickly time seems to be moving. I'm still a little shocked it's November! When we left Myrtle Beach I was a little sad because I finally felt like I was getting settled in and comfortable. Plus there was a long- and dorky- list of things I never did! Like mini golf, lazer tag, eat crab legs, and seeing the Dixie Stampede....yes, i know these are dorky! The last few days of rehearsal there were pretty intense and exhausting and I injured my neck- it's still slowly healing. Other noteworthy things that happened in Myrtle- 1) I had a celebratory weekend of fun for my 25th birthday! We saw 'Where the Wild Things Are' on Friday night....cute movie, a little strange though. Saturday my friends surprised me with a barbie themed cake at lunch time, delicious!! And on the big day Beth, Hillmer, Nita and I all spent the morning getting massages and afterward met a bunch more girls for gospel brunch at the House of Blues. After I blew out my candles on my birthday pumpkin pie that night, I had a weird moment that I felt really old. A quarter of a century old! 2) Coffee house radio on satalite radio. Love it! Our cars in Myrtle had satalite radio and this station totally kept our sanity and provided many funny ride home sing-a-longs. Good times in our car group! 3) I got a flu shot. Not hugely noteworthy, but it seemed like a big deal after many late night, lunch time, and car ride discussions on if the flu shot was a good or a bad idea. 4) Myrtle never let you down for a photo shoot. Between the crazy touristy stuff, huge crabs, and beautiful beaches- I will always look back at my Myrtle photo album and smile.

Here is Beth and I's beach condo! Gotta love that stylish couch! hehe!

This pic is from the last day of rehearsal at the Waccamaw! This was our main rehearsal hall. That gold thing in the right corner is a practice banner for Nativity.

My feet! I had to tape these bad boys everyday!

Blowing out my candles on my barbie cake! I love that I turn 25 and get a barbie birthday cake, and that it made me just as excited as when I was 8! My cake said "happy birthday howie!" :)

Wig fitting! That is Tony our wig man- he was so honored that he was going on the blog!

Busy weekend!

The biggest news of the week was not that we finished learning the show, or that our big cheese director was there are seemed very happy with us- nope, it was that I got my FIRST speeding ticket ever!!! Driving to rehearsal on Saturday morning with the girls I got pulled over for going 67 (okay so that was really fast) on the highway in Myrtle Beach. I'm so glad my friends were with me otherwise it would have been way more traumatic! The even more disappointing fact was that I had always hoped that I could charm my way out of a ticket- but this police man was in a super grumpy mood and was SO not having it. He did reduce my ticket though after we said that we were on our way to rehearsal for Rockettes. Since my ticket I have learned my lesson, however I refuse to drive 30 miles an hour like everyone else here!!

Here is take 2 of our rehearsal studio- I don't think the pictures showed up on the last post.

This is where we kick...

Dont be fooled- this may look like a shoe store, but it's not! This is the "store" we rehearse in......more strange Waccamaw pics to come!

Serenity now!

Hi! So I may be being a bit lame, but this week has been so rough! I'm super exhausted- a few times I've just come home and taken a nap after rehearsal.....boring, I know! We learned the 'Santa' number on Tuesday, basically for 6 hours we did a cardio class in a humid room with lots of people. It was a great workout, but it killed my calves!! Apparently it was tough on everyone because the athletic training room was packed full of people with all sorts of injuries that day and the next morning. The funny news of the day came from finding out that I get the coveted title (sarcastic tone injected) of being center stage Santa! HA! Toward the end of the number we form a triangle shape with me as the point in the front- at least i know how to tell people to spot me in full Santa gear!

No other big news to report. My roomie, Beth, and I have been trying to enjoy the beach when we can muster the energy go. I feel like most nights we just stay in, cook dinner and watch TV. Our favorite activity is to go the the grocery store- I swear we go like 4 times a week! Whooo- we are crazy! :) A few girls and I went to see Love Happens on Saturday night and I left feeling a tiny bit bummed out. It wasn't the cute romantic comedy I'd hoped for, it was a little bit darker and depressing. On my day off, Beth and I went shopping at a really cute plaza called the marketplace commons. It took us 2 1/2 hours just to get through Anthropologie!!!

I'm really looking forward to this weekend. It will be a challenging rehearsal on Saturday because our head director, Linda, is flying down to check on our progress as a cast, but after that I'm off to Charleston for my day off!! Only 2 more days!!