6259. See The Lion King

When my friend asked if I wanted to see one of three shows at the PAC this season, The Lion King was the only one I heard of and it wasn't high on my list. However I wasn't going to turn down a chance to see a show at the PAC. Then I found out the price of the ticket and almost said no. I figured out how to budget for the $100 ticket and put it on my calendar.

Part of the reason I had no real desire to go see The Lion King was that I grew up on the Disney animated movie and couldn't fathom how they would turn this into a stage production. The entire move is about a lion and his jungle friends and foes. You very well can't teach a lion and a warthog to sing and dance on a stage in front of hundreds of very tasty looking people.

The costumes were unbelievable. Many of the costumes were puppets.  The show started with a parade of animals down the aisles include two giant elephants. I don't even want to think how many costume changes the ensemble went through the course of the show... animals, plants, you name it they did it all. Simba, Nala, Mufassa, and Scar were really well done. I wish I could have taken pictures just to show everyone all the costumes and puppets. My favorite is Pumbaa.. I just didn't get the green camouflage body suit for Timon. I know he was just the puppeteer but a different color might have been better and less distracting.

There some added humor that wasn't in the original movie like a reference to Frozen with "Let it Go" and a reference to cheese curds.

The hubby asked if it was worth the $100. All I have to say is it was worth the $100.. especially when we were four rows from the stage. Even if we were farther back or even all the way upstairs, it would have been worth the price of admission. It was so good I might even go again if the opportunity ever arose.

Meeting Patricia Polacco

I follow Patricia Polacco and a couple other authors on Facebook. I always see Patricia doing school and library visits and hoped one day she would come to Wisconsin. As I was browsing the area library websites, I saw that she indeed was coming to Wisconsin and to Menasha library. I re-arranged my work schedule so I could see her....

Then we got an ice storm....

Luckily, she is flexible and was able to move her visit to the next day and push the visits she had scheduled in Madison to Monday. Phew.

Since she was signing books before her presentation, I got there super early, expecting a crowd. There was no line when I got there and was able to get a couple books signed for myself. I wanted to get one signed for Heather but I forgot to ask ahead of time and the book already had my last name in it from my teaching days.

For those non-teacher friends, Patricia Polacco writes and illustrates children's books. I discovered her in college and loved her books ever since. The illustrations are amazing.

Patricia Polacco had a really relaxed fireside chat with us. She talked about her background for a bit (Russian Ukrainian/Irish) but really left the direction of the chat to the audience. Since it was really geared towards children, she had all the little kids sit on the floor in front of her.

She talked about how she became a writer and how she went to New York to find a publishing house with her portfolio. All of her stories were sold to one publishing house or another while on that trip. I guess petting those horses paid off.

We learned a bit of her writing and publishing process... from the rocking chair brainstorming to the pounding out the story on an electric typewriter and blowing up the illustrations at Office Max Patricia Polacco is an old school writer. She has it takes about two years for her to publish a book but she is really only involved for the first six months. The rest has to do with editing, printing, and shipping the completed books over here from Hong Kong literally on the slow book from China.

I knew she had a dyslexia which is the basis of Thank You, Mr. Falker but not to what extent or the other "dys-abilities" she encountered. It was fascinating to learn she reads the blank space around words instead of the word itself which why reading, number, and all the stuff is so difficult. If it wasn't for Mr. Falker, she said she probably wouldn't be here today. So I am sure many teachers and students are really thankful for Mr. Falker.

She also told us the story about meteor that landed in her backyard. We even got to see the meteor.

The hour spent listening to Patrica Polacco was amazing. It was a great way to start of my weekend. If you ever get a chance to hear one of your favorite authors, do it. You learn some much about them and their craft. I wonder who else I will meet this year....

975. Play Twiddlywinks

Back when I wrote this list, I thought playing Twiddlywinks would be something fun to add to the list not that I had a clue as to exactly what Twiddlywinks were. Dad would mention playing twiddlywinks in jest but that really didn't tell me much except I wanted to play.

When I was trying to figure my 12 bucket list adventures for the year, Danielle said she'd help me with some of the weird ones. I asked her if she knew how to play Twiddlywinks, Euchre, or Bridge and not surprisingly she knew how to play Twiddlywinks. Unfortunately she doesn't know Euchre or Bridge....

I picked up a set of Twiddlywinks on Amazon for $7 and couldn't wait to learn how to play. Apparently I picked up the English version of the game but that didn't stop us from having some fun.

Basically the object of the game is to get all your (and your partner's) winks (chips) into the pot (cup) before the other team by flipping them into the pot. The English version gives your a flipper coin called a squidger to help flip your winks into the cup.

We didn't really play by the rules (i.e. taking turns, etc). We just tried to flip our winks into the pot. I must have had some beginner luck because I managed to get all my winks into the pot. Gavin wasn't having much fun because he couldn't get his winks into the pot.

Now that I have my own set of Twiddlywinks, I have a feeling I'm going to be practicing flipping my winks into the pot whenever I'm bored. I want to play against the hubby but I have a feeling he will get frustrated if he can't flip his winks into the pot.  If you've never played Twiddlywinks, I've got a set and we can play sometime. It's quite fun and challenging at the same time.

Snowshoeing at Heckrodt

For years, I wanted to snowshoe at Heckrodt but either there was not even snow (needed 6+ inches on the ground) or too cold for me to venture out. I was luck this year. We just got dumped with a foot of snow and the temperatures were going to be in the 30s.

When I got to Heckrodt, I wasn't sure where the trail started or anything. I just knew it wasn't straight ahead since you couldn't snowshoe on the boardwalk. Well, apparently to assist people like me there was a nice sign that said to snowshoe trail head right by the nature center which was a great spot to put on snowshoes. After a few feeble attempts on putting on my snowshoes, I managed to get them nice and snug and headed out on the trail.

The trail is a great beginner trail but I definitely would recommend poles. There are a few tiny hills that the poles would help get down safely. The trail is clearly marked which made it easy (along with the snowshoe prints) to follow. It is a bout .5 miles or so yet it took me over 30 minutes to make one loop mainly because I was having snow shoe problems (which gerry-rigged to work).

It was a beautiful day and many people were out.. just not that many on the snowshoe trail. A group left ahead of me and turned around just a short ways in. I didn't see anyone else.

Next time, I'm going to plan on at least an hour so I can make multiple loops around the trail. Hopefully Mother Nature cooperates and I am able to get out sooner rather than later.