Enchanted Hollows

This year the Zoo has a new nighttime event for Halloween. Marina and I were interested in checking it out. She wore her Sayori costume, We arrived early and found that it wasn’t crowded at all.

The zoo was decorated with pumpkins, sculptures and some of the scary animals from zoo lights. We saw a few lions in their enclosure. We moved on to look at the hyenas when we heard an animal roaring. We went back to the lions and saw one standing on a log roaring. It was fun to see.
As we moved through the zoo, we stopped to speak with a volunteer who told us that many of the zoo animals are “crepuscular” meaning they are most active at dawn and twilight. We walked by the flamingos and saw them all sleeping very close to the fence. We’d never seen them that close before.


In Asian exhibit we went inside and saw three otters playing. After we finished watching them, Marina turned around and we saw one of the elusive fisher cats looking at us. It quickly turned around and hid again. One of the tigers was also very active and roaring, so we watched it for a while.

Marina wanted to go into the tropical exhibit. She was particularly interested in the snakes tonight. Once we made the walk through the entire zoo we were ready to go home.

Glowing Gardens

Marina and I have attended Glow at the Gardens every year since it started. She wanted to wear her costume Sayori from Doki Doki Literature Club today, so this afternoon we put a temporary maroon dye in her hair. She was very excited about that!

This year we were fortunate to have great weather. We had to wait in line to get into the botanic gardens, but it moved fairly quickly.

Once inside, we bought chai lattes to drink as we walked around. I was surprised at how much light there was at the start. We could see all the pumpkin carvings, but they weren’t glowing. It wasn’t until we were about halfway through that it was dark enough to really see the jack o’lanterns. So we decided to go through again to see everything in the dark.

As we were leaving, we saw performers wearing light up costumes which we watched for a while. After that we were ready to go home.

Mindbender Mansion

Marina is on Fall Break this week. We made plans to go to the nature and science museum today. However, she asked if she could hang out with her boyfriend instead. I suggested that he join us at the museum. Marina loved that idea!

We picked her boyfriend up at his house shortly after lunch. Then we headed to the museum. We found a parking space up front right away. Once inside, we went to the third floor to see the temporary exhibit Mindbender Mansion. It was a series of puzzles arranged in “rooms.” They were pretty tough and the three of us worked together to solve as many as we could.

Once we went through most of the rooms, we moved on to the dinosaur exhibit. He hasn’t been to the museum for a long time, so he took his time looking at everything. Marina was very patient with him as he read the signs.

Next, Marina wanted to go through the space exhibit. There weren’t many people there, so they were able do whatever they wanted to. They played a game about the birth and death of stars, docked Space Shuttle models, looked through telescopes and experimented with the heat sensing equipment.

Before we left, we looked at the mineral hall. He seemed to enjoy looking at all the displays. Of course, Marina liked all the jewels and gold. After we looked at the minerals the Museum was getting ready to close. It was time to go home.

The Sleeping Beauty

Marina and I have seen The Sleeping Beauty ballet several times before. But since we love it so much, we wanted to go to the performance this season. Since Angie loves the ballet, we invited her to join us.

We all met downtown in front of the theater. We bought drinks and went to our seats. Marina and Angie had fun talking before the show.

The show was beautiful as we expected. The people sitting next to Marina were bothering her in Act One so she sat on the other side of Angie for the rest of the show. That helped her enjoy the show more. Act Three was her favorite since it contained Puss in Boots.

After the show the performing arts complex was packed again. Marina was impatient waiting for the elevator for the parking garage so she was actually willing to take the stairs. She was tired and wanted to get home to play with the cats.

Rodgers and Hammerstein Celebration

Given our love of musical theatre, the Rodgers and Hammerstein Celebration concert at the symphony sounded like one we would enjoy. It was a busy evening downtown so we took the light rail to the performing arts complex.

When we arrived I picked up a drink for Marina and we found our seats. Marian was a bit self-conscious when she saw that most of the audience were much older adults. I saw that the song list included quite a few from South Pacific and The Sound of Music. Since those are two shows she likes I knew she’d enjoy the concert.

The concert began with our favorite conductor leading the symphony in the overture from The Sound of Music. Then the three soloists came out to perform. They were all very talented and we enjoyed their performances. Marina especially enjoyed the female singer’s costume changes – she wore four different evening gowns over the course of the night.

After the show was over, Marina said she enjoyed the concert more than she expected to. We were pretty tired by the end of this fun day.

Super Hero Saturday

Last year, Marina and I attended Fairytale Day at a corn maze. This year, she was more interested in going to their Superhero Day. So we decided to go after a late breakfast. Marina wanted to go with a Harley Quinn Look. She wore her new “Daddy’s Little Monster” shirt with jeans and her Puddin choker. Then I sprayed her hair pink and blue. She was happy with the look.

We arrived a few minutes before the event started. Marina mingled with the younger kids and made a pumpkin super hero craft. A short while later, Spiderman, Super Girl and Bat Girl arrived for the event. Marina graciously allowed the younger kids to speak first and helped the super heroes with their activities.

After the event, we decided to go through the corn maze. We used the trick we used last year with worked. We kept running into a couple of groups of people. It was funny. We completed the maze fairly quickly, collected our mini pumpkins as prizes and then decided it was time to go home.

One Singular Sensation

We saw A Chorus Line last fall. Despite that, Marina still wanted to see it again when another theatre announced they would be presenting the show this fall. Aunt Ann wanted to see the show, so she decided to join us.

We all met about half an hour before the show started. Marina ordered a Shirley Temple to drink and got a snack since it seems like she is always hungry! She even spent some time looking over her program before the show started.

A Chorus Line has many mature themes. I think Marina was able to understand many of them better this time. She still enjoyed the performance, especially the song “Dance Ten, Looks Three” which is still her favorite

After the show Marina said she didn’t want to wait to meet the cast. We didn’t know any of the actors and Marina said she was tired, so we headed home.