Les Miserables

***Warning: This is by far a wordier post than normal, read it or not... but scroll down for some great songs from Les Mis if you'd like. - At least listen to the first video I posted!***

I've posted about Les Mis before (here - the post where I mentioned how they needed to make a musical version, and now... check this out). And I'm posting about it now... And I'll post about it later. Because...

YESTERDAY I BOUGHT TICKETS TO GO SEE IT AT THE UTAH SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL!!!

And I'm so excited! I'm going with a friend, and we decided that since we weren't going to be spending money on a hotel, and we wanted really awesome seats, we would splurge. So we did. We're sitting on the 6th row, dead center. I can't wait!

We'll be going on 24 July, which is a state holiday so I don't have to worry about getting work off. The play is at 2, so we'll drive down in the morning, watch the show, and drive back up that night. It'll be perfect, and I can't wait!!! (have I said that already?)

Since I bought the tickets I've been listening to lots of things Les Mis. A coworker sent me a link for the 25th anniversary performance on youtube. It was put in multiple parts, but I loved listening to that while working yesterday. My one complaint - No Jonas brother has any right to sing in Les Mis in my opinion. His voice was too pop-ish and he sounded like he was straining through his whole part. No good. It was good for me to listen to Les Mis with different voices though, reminding me that I can appreciate it even when it's not being sung by the voices that I recognize and love from the Complete Symphonic Recording.

Before we get into the wonderfulness that is the Complete Symphonic Recording... Let me share with you this little gem that a co-worker sent to me yesterday after we had talked about Les Mis. Seriously, it's incredible.

Valjean quartet with - Colm Wilkinson, Alfie Boe, Simon Bowman and John Owen-Jones. Wilkinson was the first to play Valjean 25 years ago (he's the first one to sing), and Boe performed in the 25th anniversary concert (the last to sing). I'm not sure about the other two, but I love all their voices and would be extremely happy to watch any of them play the part of Valjean.

And now - enjoy!

Here are a few (okay, more than a few, honestly, I could have included all 44 tracks... except maybe 'Castle on a Cloud', I've never loved that one. oh! and 'lovely ladies'...) favorites from that version.


The Confrontation -

Look Down -

Stars -

One Day More -

Drink With Me -

Bring Him Home -

The Final Battle -
(maybe a weird one to post, but I like the soldier's voice at the beginning, and it's the last time you hear Enjolras - whom I'm kind of in love with)

Javert's Suicide -

Empty Chairs at Empty Tables -

Finale (just becuase) -

Way Too Many Pictures (the curse of digital)

I went to the Thanksgiving Point Tulip Festival with my parents and brother this evening. It was so beautiful! Here's proof (a small taste of the over 90 pictures I took):

Shark Reef Diving

On Thursday, the last day I had in Orlando, we went to Typhoon Lagoon - Disney World's water park. I'm not much of a water park person... but when I was told that they had a place to snorkel with sharks, I forgot all about not being a water park person. (:

So we went.

And had a whole lot of fun.

When we got there we were told that we could  snorkel with sharks for free, or 'surface dive' (I think that's what they called it) with a respirator and an air tank for twenty dollars. Kind of like extended snorkeling...

We paid for the air tank.

Here it is in pictures.
Taken with a super-nifty/fancy/technical (actually, none of those things...) by Susannah and myself - I'm not sure who took which because they were all scrambled when they were put on a disk. Suffice it to say we're both awesome underwater photographers. (:

susannah, excited as we're signing up.

a leopard shark.

a bonnethead shark.

another bonnethead.

 random fish. not the most colorful that they had. it was hard to catch them at the right time.

a sting ray.

people could go down and look out those portholes.

susannah swimming.

me swimming.

both of us right before susannah got out.

(they let you stay in until you had 500 units left in your tank. susannah's tank was not as full as mine was.)

in the shark's mouth.

I kind of love sharks and have always been fascinated with hammerheads. When I read about bonnetheads and found out that they're the smallest of the hammerheads I was really excited. So I took a lot of pictures of them. (: