I Just Can't Wait To Be King!

I love Cher's "Do You Believe in Life After Love?" I'm not ashamed to admit that. I'm not a big fan of Cher. But while I worked a retail job, the video wall we had played this song about a thousand times. You'd think that would turn me off to the song, as it did for many others, but that's not the case. I think I know every word. It's just a great pop song and perfect to sing along to.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I just want to say what a fantastic birthday this has been! My birthday was on Thursday, and it has been such a fun week. This is the first time ever that I've been able to celebrate my birthday with my husband, and we just celebrated our 4th anniversary last month. It's so nice to have him home this year.

Wednesday night we enjoyed steaks at the Enlisted Club on base. The have steak night about twice a month, and I kept telling Tommy I wanted steak for my birthday. So when we saw 2-for-1 steaks the night before my birthday, we decided "Let's do it!"

On my actual birthday, I went to Angelsey Abbey near Cambridge with my friend Robin. It was a nice house, but a little darker than I expected. The wood was very dark, and most of the windows were closed. They had some interesting art, furniture, and a display of opulent crucifixes. We couldn't bring strollers into the house (and I had forgotten mine, anyway), so the lady at the door offered to let me use a Hippy Chick hip seat for Caleb. It was pretty cool! It really helped alleviate the pressure of the weight of my little chunker. The Abbey also had very beautiful gardens that we wandered around for a while. Luckily the rain held off until we left the Abbey grounds.

And then today, Tommy and I went to London (sans-Caleb) and saw The Lion King in the West End! It really was an amazing show. The sets and costumes and music were unbelievable. I didn't know they could do those kinds of things with the stage! The way they constructed the animals to be part-human and part-puppet was phenomenal. The scene where the wildebeests stampede and end up killing Mufasa was very creatively done. And the ballet dancing during "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" was beautiful.

However, even though everything looked incredible, some of the actors didn't do the trick for me. I really loved the actress that played Rafiki, the monkey voodoo priest-type person. In the movie, Rafiki is a mail, but in the play (at least the London production of it, anyway) Rafiki is female, and the actress did a great job. I also loved the actor that played Pumba. He was hilarious!

But the actor that played Zazu, the bird that is Mufasa's advisor, really didn't do the trick for me. I just didn't enjoy his performance. His comedic delivery was just...off. For many of the bird's antics in the first half of the show, there was little to no laughter from the audience. It wasn't that the jokes were terrible, they just fell flat in his delivery. That really kind of detracted from the overall perfomance for me.

Having said that, I still loved it. It was a fantastic way to spend a Saturday afternoon, and a great birthday gift!

(Sorry for no pics this time. Blogger hates me!)