Christmas Present Weekend

What an incredible weekend!  All thanks to my thoughtful and amazing husband.  Chris really out did himself for my Christmas present.  In November we saw the trailer for Les Miserables.  I just casually mentioned that I didn't want to see the movie just yet because I wanted to see the play first.  I guess that was a part of me that I hadn't shared with him because he was appalled that I hadn't ever seen it.  Minutes later we were online trying to figure out when it was going to be in Salt Lake.  Lucky for us, Pioneer Theater Company had it in their rotation this season.  We decided at that very moment that we were going to go, and that we were going to buy tickets when it got a little bit closer.  1 month later as we were opening Christmas presents from each other I found out that Chris got the Les Miserables tickets for me for Christmas.  And our seats were on the 3rd row!  I told him that I would have been fine with tickets further back, but he insisted that if I was going to see it for the first time, I had to see it the right way.  And that way was to be as close to the stage as possible.

The months had come and gone, and before I knew it it was May 24th.  The day before our show.  We stayed in Salt Lake Friday night because our show was the matinee on Saturday.  We didn't want to spend a lot of money for a 1 night stay, so we went a little cheaper than we normally do hotel-wise.  We checked in and the lobby was pretty nice so we thought that we had made a good decision on not spending as much.  That thought disappeared when we stepped into our room.  We opened the door, and it was pretty scary.  There were stains on the chairs, we were convinced that they were probably urine stains.  There were also some dark spots on the floor.  We were sure that those were blood stains.  I tried to make the most of it, thinking that it wasn't so bad.  And then I saw the tub.  There was no way that we were going to shower in there.  We didn't even feel comfortable enough to walk around without shoes on.  So we kept our shoes close by the bed.  What a scary place.  In order to not spend a lot of time there we walked to Denny's for dinner.  And we went to The Gateway to go shopping.  Chris was really sweet and told me that since it was my Christmas weekend I could do whatever I wanted.  So naturally shopping was on my list.

The next day we woke up bright and early. . .  Well, Chris never really fell asleep.  His body was on high alert all night.  Since we were up at 8 we decided that we would go check out breakfast.  The spread was actually not too bad.  We had a good breakfast and then just sat around until about 11 when it was time for us to check out.  We then made our way to City Creek so we could waste a couple of hours and that way I could do a little more shopping.  We went to H&M and Restoration Hardware.  Chris was a really good sport and helped me pick things out to try on at H&M.  He is pretty tapped into style.  After we wasted some time we left and headed up to Pioneer Theater.  Once we pulled into the parking lot,  I was shocked to see what people were wearing.  Call me old fashioned, but I always thought if you were going to some kind of cultural event it was proper etiquette to dress a little nicer.  Not necessarily black tie, but not t-shirt and jeans either.  Boy did we see a lot of t-shirts and jeans and shorts and tennis shoes and flip flops.  Why do people feel the need to not look nice or dress up for an event that clearly you need to.  I just don't understand it. 

We got to our seats and I couldn't wait for Les Mis to start.  I was so anxious and excited for everything to start.  And then it did.  The music stared.  The moment was finally here.  The moment I had waited 5 long months to experience.  To sum up, I was blown away by the entire thing.  Chris had warned me before that if I didn't cry from the story, I would cry from the music.  The music was so powerful and I was very emotional.   I was crying through out the whole play.  I couldn't control myself.  I finally regained my composure enough to make it to the car, and then I lost it again.  The play had an emotional hold on me and I couldn't shake it.  It was the greatest thing I have ever seen!  I already want to go again.