West Side Story!

On Friday, Andy and I had our awesome date night at the Performing Arts Center courtesy of his wonderful parents.  We had a fantastic evening!!

The weather on Friday was nothing short of apocalyptic.  This was the view out Andy's window before he left work:

Scary huh?  This past week we've had rain, snow, hail, freezing rain, and even some wind gusts up into 80+ miles per hour.  What's probably the most amazing is that on Friday afternoon it was 48 degrees outside.  It's JANUARY, Alaska!

The wacky weather has also provided some amazing sunsets recently.  How pretty!

After work we headed to Ginger, an asian fusion restaurant downtown, for dinner.  It was probably one of the best meals we've had since we moved up here! We'd only eaten there for lunch before, but we'll definitely be back for dinner again.

After dinner (and dessert at the baby's request), we walked over to Town Square Park in front of the Performing Arts Center to check out the ice sculptures.  They've been up for a couple of weeks, but after this week (and the warm temps) I don't think they're long for the world.

The statute of liberty is about 15 feet tall and currently dripping.  Sad.

At night the sculptures are all lit up in different colors and so pretty.  The city does a lot to try to make it look nice in the winter time and this is one of those things that makes you almost appreciate the cold.  You couldn't put these things up in most cities!

I took some pictures the day after they were put up when we went out at lunch time so you can see more of them.

The sculptures were in much better shape then as you can tell from this before and after shot.  Turtles before:

After.  One may be headless.

The Christmas Tree is still up.  I think they leave the lights on until about March.  At least through Fur Rondy.

Time to head inside for the show! 

Andy would like to point out to his parents that the carpet is the same.  Since 1988:

 We ran into one of Andy's bosses at the show (who now possesses the season tickets that Andy's parents had back in the day - small world!) and he told us an interesting story about the carpet.  Apparently the city bonded the building in the early 80s when the oil boom hit.  By the time it was actually built, the market crashed and they had run out of money.  Because the city was obligated to spend 1% on art, they decided to pick something functional and hired an artist to design the carpet.  Surprisingly, it's really held up and I, for one, think it's pretty nice!

Proof we were there (Andy at least):

Finally we made it to our seats.  Not a bad view!! All the better to see the choreographed dance/fight scenes!  When you're a Jet, you're a jet all the way...

Like I said, we had a great time.  Even though we stayed up way past our bedtimes, we couldn't have had a better night! Thanks for the tickets mom and dad, we loved it!