So today ended my run at Jazzercise.  It's been great going once a week with Jami and Tonya.  It's been even better going, working out hard for an hour, and then coming home to find a wonderful feast prepared by my husband and sharing it with some great company.  Unfortunately my $20 "deal" runs out at the end of March, and as today is clearly the very end of March today was my last class!

It has been fun, and Ray has promised to continue to make Wednesday dinners, regardless if I Jazzercise or not!

So at midnight last night (or I guess early this morning), Vermont Stage Company's fourth annual online auction closed.  This was excellent news, but also meant that I had to head into the office at midnight to oversee the proceedings.  Fortunately, I had much better luck "closing" the auctions items this year than last (I had some trouble with them re-opening themselves) and was excited to learn that we beat our fundraising target for the event!  But this, of course, meant that I had hours of credit card processing to do (it's amazing how long it takes to process tens of credit cards) and lots of emails to write: to let the winning bidders know they won, to tell them how to pick up their items, to tell the donors know who won their products, etc.  Last year the auction closed on a night that I had been on the running crew of the show (and we had a lead actor break his leg before the show and Mark had to fill in).  And for reasons I only vaguely remember Ray spent 3 hours sleeping in a chair in my office.  I think there had been an EMC event/party that night, and with the one car, he had come to the office afterwards...

Well, this year I didn't have any company (which can be creepy at 3am when the elevator goes up and down and opens the doors and no one is there).  But, I did manage to get to sleep before 4 am!  This morning I came in (late and) invigorated and ready to rock.  My first task was sort out all the items so that when a winning bidder shows up, I can just had over what he/she won.  Without much searching.  Or waiting around.  It was an orange post-it-note frenzy, but the fruits of my labor filled up the four big tables we have in the conference room, and they are an organized wonder!

So Ray has been getting a lot of love from MFA programs lately.  He has applied to five programs (sort of six, the last one is unofficial) and has been accepted into four schools!  This leaves him with a big question.... where to go to grad school?

It's really wonderful to hear how excited these schools are to potentially have him as a part of their programs.  And well they should be!  Now that all of the decisions are in, Ray will need to weigh the scholarship offers, the ciriculums and the locations before he makes his decision.  He has applied for two different "types" of MFAs: one set is art focused and generally animation focused while the other set is more technology focused, with a bit of art thrown in for good measure.  Ray has always been very talented in both areas, but now he has to decide to which one he wants to devote the next two years and gain a deeper expertise in.  This is an exciting, and stressful decision for him, but I know he'll weigh all of his options carefully before he makes a decision.  But in the mean time we'll celebrate all of his acceptances!

So today we closed Shipwrecked! and Jen and I are ready for the home stretch - just one more show left in the season!  Jen is off to NYC tomorrow for a little over a week.  The first week of rehearsals for My Ohio will be done in the city because that is where the director, actors, musical director and choreographer all live.  So we have to ship Jen down to stay with a long-time friend of VSC (and excellent actor) who lives in Yonkers.  Before we ship her off though, Ray thought it might be a good idea to feed her!

As usual Ray prepared a wonderful feast.  After dinner, Jen thought it would be fun to have a group phone call with Evan, as he has the evening off and we were worried he might be lonely all by himself down in Florida.

All in all it was a very pleasant evening, made far more entertaining by both Jen and Evan's senses of humor.  We will miss Jen while she's gone, but heading to the city means that she's that much closer to the end of the season - and "officially" moving to Florida.  You know, so she and all her stuff can be reunited.  Because her stuff has already relocated to the sunshine state.

Technically Jami's Birthday was on Tuesday, but in all her planning, she decided that dinner at Koto Japanese Steakhouse was best saved for Saturday night!  An intimate group gathered round a lovely hibachi grill and let the festivities begin!

Of course dinner started out with soup and salad and we all placed our orders - mostly chicken with noodles (my favorite), but a few steak and shrimp with fried rice thrown in for good measure.  Then our chef got to work creating our yummy dinners and putting on a great show!

I have to say the flaming volcano of onions is my favorite part.  Well, maybe when he juggles the egg with the spatula.  I am not talented enough to (a) catch flying zucchini in my mouth or (b) catch squirting saki without getting all over my clothes.  So the fire works for me!  The food was excellent, as expected.  After dinner, a wonderful, gorgeous and extremely tasty cake from Mirabelles was brought out; a fluffly white cake with lemon filling and coconut ALL OVER it!

Happy Birthday, Jami!  You don't look a day over 29!