April 22-28, 2019

So we were headed to Kalamazoo, Michigan on Thursday to pick up Scott and all his belongings. He was spending the week wrapping up his final exams. He was so ready to return home and be done with school!  Turns out he spent Easter weekend packing up his room besides studying.  The students were allowed to do some packing on Good Friday, but then the quiet hours starred. Scott was able to put quite a few things in his Jeep at the beginning of the week.

Before heading out, Allison and I had a Girl Scout camping meeting to start wrapping up the last minute items before our May Jamboree. Allison is also trying to squeeze in a few frisbee games in between rain. And since it was getting warmer and raining a bit more, everything really started to grow!  Scott was missing all the spring colors up in Michigan. They are a bit behind our schedule. As a matter of fact, Tom was able to put down some weed and feed before heading out on a few of his work trips. So now the grass was really growing, and we had to squeeze in our first grass cutting before leaving for Michigan.

So on Thursday we drove up to Kalamazoo. We arrived around 7pm, and one of the nice things about Michigan is that the sun stays out later. So we had some daylight left and decided to pack up the rest of Scott's belongings that evening. They only allow you about a 1/2 hour parking outside the dorms, so Tom stayed with the van while Scott and I started bringing things down from his room. Scott had everything packed up already, so we only had a few trips. Meanwhile, Allison was watching our Papa Murphy pizzas cook in the student kitchen. Scott had picked up a few Papa Murphy pizzas for our dinner and we were able to use the student kitchen to cook them to take back to the hotel. We had an early morning planned to check Scott out of his dorm room with the RA the next day.

On Friday morning, Tom and Scott headed over to the dorm early to clean and check out with the RA. Afterwards we all met up for breakfast at his dining hall. Then I noticed that my flat tire warning alarm went off in the van, so we had to drop into Costco to have it looked over. Fortunately, we were the first ones in the door and were waited on right away. Turns out my tires were fine, but the sensor was worn. They were able to replace it in under an hour while we did some shopping. The weather was a bit windy and chilly, so after having the car repaired,  we decided to spend part of the day visiting a local zoo near Battle Creek, Binder Park Zoo. I like using my Baltimore zoo card for discounts including 1/2 off on admission at zoos around America. Binder Park zoo was a very interesting place, with a small lake and boardwalk through a swamp. They had just opened for the season, and did not have all their animals out including the giraffes. We had to take a tram over to the hilly field where they displayed their giraffes, ostrich, antelopes and zebras. It was getting rather cold and very windy, so we did not spend a lot of time walking around the large enclosure. We spent more time peaking in the smaller cages of animals and reptiles and looking at the birds. Including quite a few peacocks that roamed the grounds. After lunch we headed back to campus with a stop into the local movie theater. We all were looking forward to seeing the new Avengers: Endgame movie. We figured if we tried to see it back home, it would be sold out. So we were very excited to get great seats in Scott's local theater before all the kids got out of school that day. And lots of popcorn!  The movie runs 3 hours, but it did not seem like a long running film. We enjoyed the whole experience. We then took a quick walk around Meijers(stocking up on Vernors ginger ale) and took back some sandwiches for dinner.

On Saturday we were headed down the road back home. We decided to stop into the Toledo Zoo on our way to Pittsburgh. We figured we could take 2 days to head back home, and Tom had made hotel reservations for us near Pittsburgh. We had taken the kids to the Toledo zoo when they were little, but neither one of them remembered the place. Neither did we!  It was on the way home, so we spent a few hours walking around the grounds looking at all the animals and their aquarium. It was a nice break on the way home. Afterwards, Tom and Scott even ran into the Libby Outlet glass shop to pick up a few drinking glasses when the guys get together.

We then all met up at the hotel north of Pittsburgh. Turns out it was right near my brother Dan's apartment and $12 Billion dollar Polyethylene plant  project. We were quite impressed with the facility located near our hotel. Unfortunately, we missed visiting with my brother Dan who was back in Texas at the time picking up Sheila from their house in Houston to spend the summer months in Pittsburgh. We will have to plan another trip back to the area to catch up with the both of them.

On Sunday, we drove back to Baltimore and got busy unpacking all of Scott's belongings. Before you know it, we will be repacking the van and heading back to Michigan! We were glad we left when we did since Kalamazoo had 3 inches of snow on Saturday night. But for now, Scott has a nice, long break until the end of August.

April 15-April 21

Happy Easter Week!  I ended up working on Easter Sunday. I was looking to take off the following Thursday to travel to Michigan to pick up Scott. He was busy wrapping up his last projects, papers and exams of his winter term. He would be busy taking his finals the week after Easter, and then would be done that Thursday. He had to be out of the dorm on Friday.

So my usual Easter plans with a big dinner and Easter mass were a bit off. Instead, we decided to have friends over for a big dinner on Saturday. I had bought a huge prime rib roast for Tom the week before, so we decided to pull it out of the freezer and put it on the grill for a wonderful dinner Saturday night. I was glad I put the roast in the freezer the week before because I discovered that Tom had plugged the freezer into the furnace, but he turned the furnace off that week. And it cut the power to the freezer! I had to run an extension cord to plug it in. I was a bit concerned that it had blown a fuse during a severe thunderstorm in which Allison and I had hunkered down in the basement for the night. Cookie gets too upset during tstorms and whines all night, so we pulled open the couch so we could all get some sleep. Tom was out of town that week so Cookie had noone to keep her company during the night(Tom is usually up late/early and playing video games or working on school work on his computer in the basement office). Anyway, I was glad to hear that the brand new freezer was just fine and only needed to be plugged into another outlet!

So we made a big dinner and had our friends Beth and Barry over with their sweet dog, Ripley. We also had our friend John come over for dinner.  We have been trying to get everyone over for months, but something always seems to come out(or someone gets sick!). We also would have had our neighbors, Dan and Gloria over for dinner, but Gloria is still working in Naples Florida, and Dan had traveled to Ohio to visit family. He had stopped by to wish Tom a Happy Birthday, but Tom was off to Rhode Island during the week for a quick work trip.    And sadly he informed me that their son dropped out of Grad school in Delaware. He decided the type of work in Environmental Legislation was just not for him. Although he currently does not have a back up plan. And Gloria went back to work primarily to help him out with the cost of Grad school. We are very happy that Allison is enjoying her work at Northrop, and Scott is very excited about the engineering program at Western. Except he is also looking forward to coming home.

So Easter Sunday Allison and I both went to the sunrise service at church(a first for us!). It was a nice, uncrowded mass. We both went to church early so we could both work that day and take off Sunday. We stopped for a quick breakfast at Einstein bagel and then changed clothes at home. I went off to work at the Rehab center and Allison was able to work from home.  But first we all dug into our Easter baskets! I did not make Tom and Allison search for their baskets this year. No time. They were both very pleased with their goodies. Tom gets a low carb basket, and Allison enjoys some dark chocolate treats along with a few healthy snacks to take to Frisbee practice. Scott would have to wait for his Easter basket when he returned home. I managed to get off work early enough to pick up Mom B Sunday afternoon and bring her back to our house for a late Easter dinner. Tom had put in a ham, and we had plenty of side dishes left over from our big meal on Saturday. So we enjoyed our dinner Sunday night before I took Mom B back to her apartment after giving her an Easter basket.

I had picked her up Friday evening as well to get her hair done, as well as mine. I wanted to get highlights and a hair cut, so we both went in since the hairdresser was closed on Easter Sunday. Afterwards I made our last Friday night fish dinner-I tried a new recipe out for salmon. Mom had cheese pizza since she is not a big fan of salmon. I was glad that I was able to get my shopping done on Thursday night after work. It gave me more time to spend with Mom since I will be gone the next two weekends.

Allison also had a special event during the week. She was invited to the Girl Scout Distinguished Women's reception as a former participant. The reception recognizes 5 women in management positions in the Baltimore area and they each host a specially chosen Girl Scout for a day at work. Allison spent the day with the owner of the Baltimore Chemical Company, Jeannette Partlow when she was in high school. She even did her college internship at the Chemical Company and has been good friends with Jeannette ever since. She was happy that Jeannette was also able to attend the event. Usually they hold the reception at a local Country Club, but this year it was moved to one of the hotels in the harbor. Allison said they invited too many people and did not even have enough chairs or tables for all the guests. But she said the food was wonderful and so was the view. And Jeannette gifted her a signed book on Leadership written by one of the national GS leaders who is currently in her 90s and still very active in scouts in New York. Allison is hoping to travel to New York with Jeannette for a luncheon to meet her, although we did get to hear her speak at the National Convention in Houston about 6 years ago when Allison and I attended as delegates. Allison really enjoyed the evening and was amazed at how many people she actually knows on the Girl Scout Board and that know her!

April 1-April 7

This is a busy time for Birthdays on both sides of the family. Dad Seitz celebrated his 80th Birthday on March 29!  Sandra Bozyk celebrated her Birthday on April 6th, Saturday. Tom's 56th Birthday landed on Thursday, April 4th. Unfortunately, he was not at home for all of us to celebrate that day, since he was in Northern California. Turns out though, he was able to catch an earlier flight and managed to come home Thursday night in time for dinner. We decided to celebrate his special day at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. I let the waiter know it was Tom's Birthday and they brought him a huge, deep fried ice cream chocolate ball with a candle(for free!). We all enjoyed digging in, although it was so frozen it kept slipping off the plate! And Tom split up his gifts starting on Saturday before he left Sunday. He needed a new GPS and wanted to take it on his California trip. So I had ordered one through Amazon and gave it to him so he could download new maps and such. He was very happy. Then when he came home we continued with gift giving on Friday. I ordered a few more items from Amazon that he had on his wish list-mostly electronics and chargers. But the other big gift included a compact, deep chest freezer for our basement. We have always wanted one since the fridge freezer does not work well for storing the large, Costco meat products which Tom enjoys grilling. We decided this would solve the problem. Fortunately, Sam's Club had the perfect sized freezer on sale and they delivered for free! So I save money and did not have to try and load it myself in the van(which would not work). And it was delivered on Friday when Tom was home to receive it. He was very excited about the gift and was able to slide it down the basement steps, unpack it and plug it in. Then he quickly started to fill it with tasty meat and his low carb bread! It's big enough that it has plenty of room to store lots of steaks and roasts, but small enough to fit perfectly in our furnace storage room.

So Tom was very excited with his Birthday gifts. In the meantime, I headed off to work again at the new facility on Friday, and was actually scheduled to work on Saturday at my full time job. I had two very long days at the end of the week. I was ready for a break on Sunday!

We had planned on taking Tom to a movie on Sunday morning. Allison and I were looking forward to seeing the movie "Shazam".  Tom was not as interested, and as it turns out, he decided to stay home and wrap up his last paper for a current class. Allison and I really enjoyed the movie, and afterwards I picked up my mom for a hair appointment and to join us for dinner at our house. Quite a busy week!

Allison has also been busy with her new season of Ultimate Frisbee. She even signed up for Saturday tournaments in DC. And when she is not playing frisbee, she is working out at the YMCA with her previous college roommate. Or playing Dungeons and Dragons with a counselor friend from Girl Scouts.  And she keeps up with volunteer work. She ran a paper airplane class for a middle school group of girls with the Northrop staff, and she continues to attend the Gold Award council meeting. Never a dull moment for Allison!

April 8-April 14

Monday, April 8th would have been Dad Bozyk's 84th Birthday. As I said, a very busy month for Birthdays. Sarah Bozyk Hudson enjoyed her special day on Saturday, April 13th! Happy Birthday Sarah! And Spring has arrived in Baltimore! Our blooming trees are quite beautiful-my mom loves driving around looking at all the flowers.

I was happy it warmed up a bit since Allison and I signed up for a Howard County Parks and Rec. paddling class on Saturday morning. We are signed up for one of their kayak trips on the Potomac river in June, but we needed to attend the class before the trip. I have actually taken the class in the past and also attended one of the kayak trips many years ago. This time Allison agreed to join me, and since it has been so many years since attending the class, we needed to do a repeat. Allison actually has not taken the class before, but she has taken several training classes with Girl Scouts. So on Saturday morning we headed over to the park. The instructor expected all participants to trial both canoes and kayaks. So Allison and I started with the canoe. Allison was not crazy about getting into the canoe, but actually enjoyed it. She has been in a canoe before, but most of the time she was either too little to paddle, or supervising Girl Scouts while they paddled. She was surprised how much she enjoyed the experience. I was just not too excited about the size of the canoe. It was not as big as my Dad's old aluminum canoe and the seats were a bit low. I have a hard time sitting down on the floor or low surfaces(bad hip). As it was, we had to load into the canoes and kayaks off a dock and I needed some help getting down on my hands and knees and crawling into the boats. I usually can step in the water and then step into the canoe or kayak, but this lake was a bit too deep for that. After an hour of paddling around in the canoe, along with a lesson, we switched to the kayaks. Allison and I had fun paddling our own kayaks and checking out the geese and ducks(not too close since they were busy nesting and rather grumpy). We also enjoyed searching out the turtles, and I was able to pick one up in the water with my paddle! We had a wonderful morning paddling around the lake in the morning.

Allison and I are also counting down to our upcoming Girl Scout Jamboree camping weekend in May. We had a planning meeting-only a few more to go. Allison will be running a slingshot station, shooting paintballs at targets. I am helping with the fire building station. Our theme this year is Survivor Weekend. Looking forward to spending time at GS camp.


That afternoon we headed up to Hershey, PA to catch a Hockey game. One of Tom's Birthday gifts. Our friend John joined us. Allison too since her Saturday frisbee game was cancelled due to muddy fields from the rain the week before. We had a great time visiting Hershey Candyland(a wonderful visit before Easter!). Lots of interesting new candy. And a very large Easter bunny. And the game was very exciting since the Hershey Bears won and are in the Caldor Cup Tournament!

Unfortunately the MSU basketball team lost in the last of the Final Four tournament. So we now turn our interest to Hockey and the Stanley Cup playoffs with our returning, winning cup local team, the Washington Capitols.

On Tuesday night, Tom and I enjoyed a date night and watched the "Shazam" movie since Tom missed the outing on Sunday. He thought it was better than he imagined it would be, and we had some tasty Shake Shack burgers afterwards. I was just a bit disappointed in our Tuesday night AMC movie specials as they raised the price from $5 to $6, and they now sell the large popcorn/soda combo with only 1 soda, not 2. I knew it was too good to last!

March 25-March 31st!

The end of March. It has been coming in like a lion. Hopefully it will go out like a lamb! Getting a bit warmer, especially in Washington, DC. On Saturday, the yearly kite festival was scheduled along with the peak bloom and official start of the Cherry Blossom festival. Unfortunately I was scheduled to work on Saturday, so I was not able to attend.

Actually I have been working quite a bit. I was scheduled to work Saturday, and on Friday I got called in to work at another facility for another company that I applied to last Fall. It is a very small rehab/nursing home near my old workplace. I signed up to work on call since I knew some of the rehab staff members and figured it would be a nice way to stay in touch. Some of my previous coworkers headed to this facility for full time work. Turns out their OT assistant was leaving for another job so they needed some help. I spent Friday morning at my water aerobics class, and then drove over to work after lunch. I was surprised to see the OT assistant that was leaving was a fellow co worker from my St Agnes days about 22 years ago.  She was actually leaving to work at St Elizabeth's-an Assisted Living Facility next to St Agnes hospital where she used to work. I also worked at St Elizabeth's when our St Agnes rehab department was hired to run their rehab department. I really liked working in the facility, and I also assisted with their Adult Day Care program, St Anne's, for our fundraiser when I paddled for the Erickson Dragon Boat team. So once again they hired another contract company to come in and provide therapy services, and Brenda was asked to come back to work. Which meant they needed more help at the facility she was leaving and hence I got the call.

I really don't need to work extra hours, but as I said, I thought it would be fun to spend more time with previous coworkers. And it turns out the staff at the facility are all really nice and I like the small, homey feel of the place. On Friday I spent some time getting oriented to the facility and their computers and paperwork. I treated one patient and enjoyed some banana bread that Brenda made for her going away luncheon and then headed home.

I was also scheduled to work on Saturday at my full time job as I mentioned, but when I showed up in the morning I was surprised to see another therapist there and no schedule for me. I figured my boss had made a mistake and missed my name on the calendar. Since I had already dressed for work, I split the patients with the other therapist. I was also expecting Allison to drop by at lunch to help me set up an Alexa in my workplace. I thought it would be nice to have some music during our exercise groups. Allison was able to set up a few options on my phone through the internet to play on the Alexa Dot.

Imagine my surprise on Sunday morning when my boss emailed me to complain that I was not supposed to come into work on Saturday!  She worries about staff working overtime. I wanted to know how I was supposed to find out if no one told me the day before. Apparently they let people know at work on Friday if they have to come in or not. Since another on call therapist was scheduled, I did not need to come in. But since I did not work there Friday, I had no way of knowing. If I had known, I would have called in on Friday to see if I needed to work. Also, I have only worked one other Saturday and I was the only one scheduled. The rehab director and staff are not used to my Mon to Thursday work schedule.

Although I did mention to the tech that I was scheduled to work Saturday when our team got together for dinner on Thursday night at a local restaurant. Our supervisor decided to resign to go off and do something else after 1 year of working there. So we decided to all go out to dinner together and gave her a going away relaxation gift with a massage gift card.

So I was a little annoyed at the situation since Allison and I would have enjoyed attending the DC kite festival instead on Saturday morning. Oh well. Turns out I mentioned to my boss that if anyone was going to work extra hours, it should be me since I rarely work overtime (over 40 hours).  And I usually don't go looking for extra hours(I have plenty of work hours!). Plus I am cheaper than the on call staff, so in the long run I save them money. She agreed! But from now on she is going to make sure she calls me on Friday. However, she is leaving next week so I guess I will have to call the office from now on!

So I did not have to work, but I did. And since I worked, we decided to visit the Cherry Blossom Festival on Sunday. Allison thought it was a bad decision since it was a bit chilly and supposed to rain all day. I thought it would be nice to park at the National Zoo, spend some time walking through the zoo and then take the train down to the tidal basin by the National monument to walk around the cherry trees. Turns out we did not have any rain, and it got rather sunny, although incredibly windy. Actually a very good day for a kite festival! Tom was not able to join us as he headed off for work in San Jose, California.  Instead, Allison's college roommate Jen and her boyfriend Tyler joined us. We had a wonderful day walking around the National zoo and then caught the train down to see the Cherry blossoms. There were a ton of people there, but probably not as crowded as Saturday. And the train was not as crowded since we came in from the zoo. I also learned that you need a permanent card now to ride the train and you add on funds rather than buying individual paper tickets like before. We enjoyed a quick walk through the trees and listening to a Japanese Drum show. We still had a little time to tour part of the zoo on the way back since they closed at 7pm. It was a wonderful outing but an exhausting walk, including up and down hills.

Allison also enjoyed an outing to DC the week before when she and Jen enjoyed their first Washington Capitals hockey game. The interns at Northrop organized an outing to a Caps game and Allison could not wait to go. And invite Jen. The two girls took the train in to DC and met the group at a local bar. Allison was more interested in the hockey game, but she was also interested in checking out the Northrop interns. Especially the guys that like hockey. It was not easy to socialize during the game since the tickets were all spread out in two large areas, but the girls had a chance for a drink and a snack before heading into the stadium.

March 18-24, 2019

Happy Spring! Looks like it is warming up a bit. The daffodils have started poking their heads up out of the ground. It is so nice to have more sunshine at the end of the day, especially to take Cookie for a walk after work. Its also nice not to have soda bottles exploding in the garage anymore because the temperatures were so frigid!

Allison and I had the house to ourselves at the end of the week as Tom went off to Rhode Island for work for a few days.  We both had a Girl Scout meeting during the week to start wrapping up the last minute planning for our upcoming jamboree scheduled the first weekend in May. Then Allison had a GS Gold Award committee meeting the following evening-approving possible Gold Award projects. She also spent an evening playing Ultimate Frisbee.

While Allison was playing Frisbee Tuesday night, Tom took me to see the Captain Marvel movie for our $5.00 AMC Stubs night. Tom had seen it with Allison when Scott was home on Spring Break, but he did not mind sitting through it again. I really enjoyed it too. Afterwards we stopped in to dinner at the Shake Shack for burgers.

Scott has been very busy with lots of projects and tests as school starts to wind down. But he had to take a small break to look at the Fall 2019 classes! He was not able to get an appointment with his counselor, so we looked over the program and Scott was able to piece together a schedule on his own. He will be finishing Physics(it is split into two terms) with a lab, two engineering classes with labs and two electives. I think he will be busy! If he can squeeze in an appointment with the counselor, he'd like to review his choices. Registration for classes is all done online. He is scheduled to sign up Monday morning, March 25th.

On Friday, Allison and I spent a very busy day together. We started the morning early by dropping off my car for an overhaul and a recall repair for the air bag. Tom noticed my van was idling a bit rough, so I wanted to make sure it was running smoothly before we head to Michigan to pick up Scott at the end of April. We dropped the car off and headed to the Y for the swim aerobics class. Afterwards we tried the new Chick Fil A fish sandwiches. Something new for Fish Friday during Lent. Very good for a chicken place!  After lunch we drove out to Frederick MD, about a 30 min drive. We wanted to visit the MVA in Frederick since it is not as busy. Tom decided it was time for Allison to take over her own car insurance and title.  On Thursday night they called Geico and got a terrific deal. Much better than staying under our coverage!  So now we had to go to the MVA to get a title and registration in Allison's name. Tom believed we would have to get new license plates too, but there was a new policy in Maryland that allows  cars to be gifted. So we really only needed to do the paperwork and get a new registration. So we could not make an appointment and there was a very long line of people waiting for all sorts of tasks. Fortunately this MVA is very organized. Two women would walk up and down the line checking to see what everyone needed and sending them in different directions. When they got to Allison and I, the woman announced that we were there for Allison's driving permit! Allison was a bit offended, but I took it at as a huge compliment! If Allison looks 8 years younger, then so do I!  After Allison corrected the woman, she gave us a number and we sat down to wait. They said there was a 2 hr wait-Allison and I were prepared with things to read and our phones. Turns out, we only had to wait 1/2 hr! And it only took a few minutes to get the paperwork signed, pay for new registration and get a tag. The title would be coming in the mail. Done!

We headed back home and my car was almost ready. We stopped into the grocery store to pick up a few items before Allison dropped me off to pick up my car. I then rushed home to change, pick up Tom and we headed to the Guinness Brewery to meet Tom's cousin Scott Conrad and his wife Gerry. The two of them were visiting family on their Spring Break here in the mid Atlantic/South from Santa Rosa, California up near Napa Valley. They actually flew into BWI airport the week before and visited with family in the Virginia area. Although there appears to be some family members in the Ellicott City area! (adult kids of cousins). The group visited Olde Ellicott City last Friday night, just minutes from our house. Some of the shops and restaurants have reopened since the flood last May, but many buildings are still under renovation, or in limbo. The county board has still not decided if they should tear down some of the most damaged and flood prone buildings or not due to the historic nature of the town. So far they are trying to renovate a few of the small streams and rivers north of the city that flooded and rushed through downtown to the larger river below. And they put in alarms to let you know if the town is going to flood again. Wonderful.

During the week of their visit, Scott and Gerry mostly spent their time in the DC and Virginia area, touring the capital. On Friday, they made their way back up to Ellicott City to meet us for a tour and tasting, plus dinner at the country's only Guinness Brewery outside of Ireland. Tom and I had dinner at the brewery before with friends, but never did the tour. I signed us up for the free tour and the tasting afterwards. Turns out, Scott and Gerry were stuck in DC traffic and missed our 530 tour and tasting afterwards. The tour was very quick-not much to see, but very informative. Tom and I stayed for the tasting and as we finished around 730, Scott and Gerry arrived. We all sat down for dinner on the 3rd floor(brewery on the 1st floor, bar and souvenir shop in the 2nd floor and restaurant on the 3rd). We had a wonderful dinner and had lots of time to chat, including a first hand report of living through the California wildfires. Afterwards, Scott joined another scheduled tasting(Gerry does not drink). And Tom and I gave them both the nickel Brewery tour. They picked up some souvenirs for their kids before we headed out. Their oldest son cooks in a restaurant in Napa valley and was especially excited to hear that we were visiting the brewery. Seems that the kids keep up with everything new and hot. Even from the other side of the country!  It was getting late and we were all tired, especially Tom who had recently returned from his trip to Rhode Island. Tom checked them into a local hotel which was covered by Tom's travel points and we said goodbye. They graciously shared a box of See's chocolates from California and a lovely scarf for me as we headed out. They were flying out of BWI Saturday morning.

Saturday was spent finishing housework(for me) and getting school work done(for Tom) On Sunday, while Allison was off  playing frisbee and then participating in a Dungeons and Dragon game, I had picked up my mom in the early afternoon to get her hair done and have lunch. Afterwards we both enjoyed seeing "The Wizard of Oz" at the high school. I had bought tickets ahead of time and was very glad I did since there was a very long stand by line of people hoping to get in with any leftover tickets. The play was sold out and packed with kids. My mom loves seeing all the kids and enjoyed the play and the music, although we did not have the best seats. A few tall, wide men sat in front of us and it made it very hard to see the stage. Overall, the kids did a fantastic job and mom and I had a good time. I just had enough time to drop her off to her apartment for dinner afterwards.