All the Ellis Island info that was on the front page is now here.

Only 3 days left of tour and I thought I'd post all the pictures I took in New York.  First, the theatre we played in Syracuse (the Landmark) was amazing.  The entire interior of the house was gold filigree and other adornment.  The pictures truly don't do it justice.

The paintings over the proscenium were of Hindi gods, beautifully done again.

We went to Niagara Falls on Monday night and had a fabulous time.  I took tons of pictures so I decided to put quite a few of them here.  As we were leaving we learned that there would be a short fireworks show at 10, so we stuck around for that.  It was amazing though to see them over the falls.  The explosions happened pretty much at face level which was really cool.  Hope you enjoy the pictures!

So we officially have 10 days left in tour... I'm very excited. 

While we were in Denver, I got to hang out with my Aunt Anita which was really fun.  I don't think I had ever really been in downtown Denver before but I really liked the atmosphere.  We then chased/were chased by the horrible tornadoes and extreme weather.  Luckily, we only were affected temporarily in St. Louis when the power went out in part of our hotel on Sunday (we still had power in our room, but no internet).  I was very relieved that we got through tornado country unscathed. 

We were in Chicago two days ago (my first time there) and I had a lot of fun walking around the city (splurging a little on shoes...oops).  The actual venue in Chicago was definitely a taxing day, for many reasons, but when we arrived in Michigan our stage manager, Judy, surprised us with a trip to Coldstone!  Ice cream makes everything better. :P  Also, we had an amazing venue today at the Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor.  The stagehands were great, they did the entire load in and load out for us, and they were incredibly nice.  And to top it all off, the audience was really good.

Below are my pictures from Chicago... Hope you enjoy!

The Sears Tower (tallest building in the US)

The Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park

Lake Michigan

A bunny I found in Grant Park... he stood still for me to take multiple pictures of him!

Hello All,

So we've gone through 4 states in the last 2 days so we've seen some really interesting landscapes.  Its amazing to me how quickly mountains can change into desert or rolling hills into flat farmland.  There are a lot of mountains that still have snow on them in this part of the country which I guess is normal for this time of year but it seems unusual to me.  I've also seen more dust devils (those mini tornadoes made of dust) in the past two days then ever before.

This week we had a very interesting show/venue.  I'm not gonna name names so I won't tell you what day it was. ;)  Basically, the venue was one of our normal ones except for the fact that even though they had techies there to help us, they didn't lift a finger.  Bad omen from the start.  So we start the show and the audience is DEAD.  No applause (which we've had before and is a little offputting no matter the times that it happens) and no laughter (or very little).  Then, during the first blackout (which doesn't happen for a while into the show, for those of you that haven't seen it) there are lights that remain on.  Turns out an entire row of lights was ghosting (basically staying on when there is no rhyme or reason for it).  Then in attempts to fix this, the techies at the venue accidentally turned on the house lights in the middle of the show.  We continue as normally as possible, and finally they seem to have the ghosting fixed.  The show was pretty normal from then on but the audience still didn't make much of a noise, they finally got clapping by the end of the show but it took a while.  Oh well, gotta chalk it up to experience but it was just so crazy I had to write about it.

That's pretty much it for now... Only three weeks remaining and we are BOOKING it across the country.  It will be over before I know it.

Hello all!!  Again, I write almost a month later!  Of course the last month has been incredibly busy with all of the people I've been seeing and the lack of offtime.  First of all, I want to thank all of you who came to see the show in California.  It means a lot to me that you were able to come out and see the show.  I hope you had a good time!

I was able to come back to the San Jose area quite a bit while we were in California which was a nice respite from the tour.  When we finally left California I was able to spend the weekend in Ashland, Oregon with my dad while the rest of the tour went to Coos Bay.  It was really fun being in Ashland and I was able to see a production of Coriolanus at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. 

While in Portland, I was able to go house hunting with my friends Arian and Erin which was fun.  It was interesting to see what the houses were like in another part of the country.  We then went to a sports bar in Portland to watch the Sharks eliminate the Flames :D. 

We've been in Everett, Washington for the past weekend and I was able to hang out with some friends in Seattle and see the city.  I really like the vibe in Seattle, I think it would be somewhere I would want to visit again.

Overall I've really enjoyed the Pacific Northwest, its been pretty rainy here which is annoying, but the scenery is gorgeous.  At the end of the week we will finally be heading back across the country, through Colorado and the Midwest.  I am definitely starting to get antsy for the tour to be over but we only have four weeks left.  Thanks for reading!

It snowed while in Ashland!! (this is outside Joelle and Roger Graves' House where my dad and I were staying)

The snowy treetops on the way to Coos Bay from Ashland.

The original Starbucks in Pike Place Market, Seattle!!

With the Fremont Troll (its a gigantic troll a group of artists made out of concrete under an overpass) in Seattle.  That's me on the right, the woman on the left wouldn't get out of the picture!

Hello all.  Still in Bakersfield, at least we're leaving tomorrow...

So I wanted to quickly talk about the first couple of weeks we've had in California.  I guess this would be considered my professional California debut which is kind of cool.  I was able to see some friends in southern California while I was there and a few people were able to come see the show.  It was so nice to catch up with people I don't get to see very often.

The weekend we were in Long Beach we welcomed a new member into our cast.  Ryan, the original Hjordis, has left the show in order to take a bigger gig.  So Coulby is our new Hjordis.  We rehearsed for the entire weekend in Long Beach which was fine but did take a toll on my voice.  It's back to full strength now but there was a point there where I could feel my voice exhausting itself. 

Last weekend I was able to fly home for Easter which was a very nice (and much needed) vacation.  Last week was a little strange because we only had two shows so it really felt like a very extended vacation.  It's going to be a little difficult getting back into the swing of things.

Next weekend we'll be in San Jose which will be nice to be home again.  A lot of people have tickets for the San Jose show which I'm very excited about.  I hope we can put on a good show for all of you. 

I think that's about it... I'm including a cool picture of all of us in front of the marquee at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, CA.  Its not often we have our name on the marquee so I'm glad we got a picture of it.  Til next time...

So somehow I seem to post once every month... I actually really wanted to update sooner than this but my website was having issues for quite a few weeks and I couldn't get on to change anything, so this might be somewhat long (with LOTS of pictures!)...

While driving to Arizona from Texas we were on Highway 10 through New Mexico and then went down to a very tiny highway to go down to Bisbee, AZ.  We decided to stop on the side of the deserted road to take some pictures.  The first one is leaving Texas in the mirror behind us.

The rest are us stopped on the side of the road, nowhere, in Arizona.  There is one picture of the van, that is the van we've been driving around in (almost 10,000 miles now!) who we have named Big Mamma.  Of course there are some pictures of us in the middle of the road because that's just how deserted it was.  We were able to actually take a full picture of all of us with nobody coming down the road.

When we arrived in Bisbee, AZ we were staying at a really cool Bed&Breakfast.  These are the pictures of the actual place we were staying.  The town is an old mining town and while we were there we went to eat dinner at the Copper Queen Hotel (of Ghost Hunter's fame!!!). We unfortunately didn't get to go on the Ghost Tour or the Mine Tour but I think this is a place I would love to visit again.

When we were in Phoenix I was able to see both the Demings from St. Jude's and Jon and Kristy Jolly.  It was really nice to catch up with people I haven't seen in a while and have them come to see the show.  The theatre in Phoenix was actually in a round which was interesting but definitely posed some challenges since the show was not made for an in-the-round stage.  But the theatre itself was really cool and it was nice to be able to perform at the same location for multiple days.

The next major stop for us was Las Vegas for the weekend.  Our hotel wasn't anywhere near the strip so half of the cast decided to get hotel rooms in the Sahara Casino on the strip.  We went to visit them on the Saturday and did some gambling.  (I actually came out on top!)

Here are some pictures actually taken during a show.  I'm not going to tell you what's happening during them cuz either you've already seen the show, are going to see it, or it would take too long to explain them all.  :D

That's it for tonight, as I am very tired.  But I promise I will update again this weekend and talk all about our first couple of weeks in California.  Talk to you all later!

Sorry it has been almost a month since I last blogged, but the days seems to run into each other quite easily on the road.  I'm already in Texas, where we have been since Friday and will be for the rest of the week.  It was incredibly warm yesterday (95 degrees!) in San Antonio but now it has cooled down to a more seasonable 65. 

The shows have been going really well.  We've been playing to an average of 800 kids daily, generally ranging from 500-1500.  The response from the kids has been really great, they all seem to really enjoy the show and really get something out of it.

We don't do much sight seeing, mostly because after a show we generally just want to get to the next city (some of the drives are mighty long) and relax.  On the weekends I have made it a point to at least see the cities we've been in a bit.

Two weekends ago we were in Miami Beach which was really nice.  The weather was great and I got to go and see the beach.  I was shocked at how warm the water was.  The last time I was in Florida was almost 12 years ago so I don't really remember much about it.  Here is a picture of the water and one of me on the beach in South Beach.  (Like my hair flying up?  Yea it was windy)

Something cool that happened last week was the total lunar eclipse.  We were in Tallahassee and we had a wonderful view of it from our hallway of our motel since we were on the second floor.  We got some pretty good shots of the moon going into the eclipse but we then had to get to bed so we didn't see the end of it.  Still, a really neat experience.

Today we were in San Antonio and so after the show we decided to head on over to the Alamo.  It was really interesting to see the actual structures that are still standing from the famous battle.  They have a lot of the artifacts that used to belong to Davy Crockett.  Here I am in front of the Alamo.

Anyway that's pretty much it for right now.  I've avoided getting sick thus far (knock on wood) and I'm really happy with the performances.  I'm excited to get closer to California where I have most of my people coming.  Thanks for all your well wishes everyone.

Hello all, we're in Norfolk, VA now and I had to share cuz we just took a 2 hour walk on the beach, it was so nice (although pretty freezing by the end).  Today we played the historic Richmond Landmark Theatre (see pictures below).  It was a gorgeous theatre and the Mamma Mia national tour was actually loading in right after our show was done.  That was all... just wanted to share my beach walk.  Ta!

So we have finished our first week of performances and had a very relaxing weekend in Richmond.  The week went really well, and I think I'm getting more and more used to performing every day.  Surprisingly my voice is standing up quite well considering I'm singing high soprano harmonies at 10am.  Road life is definitely interesting. 

Today Sonya and I wanted to go see Richmond, since we were here and we haven't really been able to sight see at all so far.  I can tell you that there isn't much to do in Richmond.  Everything seemed quite deserted... But we did end up walking across the James River on a really unusual footbridge (see attached picture) to an island that used to be a campground, steel mill, and prison over the years...  It was very beautiful to walk across the river and also nice to be able to do some walking since we've been cooped up in a van or a hotel for 2 weeks.

Anyway, its getting late (been going to bed very early with the early shows) and we go right back into performances tomorrow.  Goodnight!