Wicked in Melbourne

In Melbourne Aubrye & I had an absolute blast together; it was a total girls' weekend, only better because Matt & Tay were with us :)
At one point, Aubrye said to me, "I'm so glad we're in Daddy's family." Ditto for me.

Because he travels so much, he pretty much gets rockstar treatment from the airlines and hotels. It was fun to be a (very small) part of that, and funny that Aubs noticed. Let me illustrate...

real life: We go out to eat as a family about once a month. When the waiter asks for our drink orders, Matt or I say 'JUST WATER please' before the kids get a chance to beg for a $4 cup of Fanta (NO free refills here, mind you).

rockstar life: Eat out every meal. Order drinks and dessert. Be called Mr. Hall (or Mistah Hole). Get upgraded everywhere. Drinks & canapes in the lounge. Valet. Turn-down service.

I've admitted to being a bit jealous of all of this, even though Matt claims he'd rather be home than in a hotel. (good answer, I say.) Whatever it's worth, we had an amazing time together, executive lounge, or no executive lounge.

There are lots of fun little alleys with shops and food. This alley was covered in grafitti art.

Aubs with her "souvenier." She found a new purse. No more pink and purple Hello Kitty for this girl. I took the photo for the I *heart* My Dad. It's almost Fathers' Day in Australia. And, Aubs does *heart* her Dad!

Here are some pics...

Melbourne is full of old Victorian architecture. They are quite proud of their European heritage, and the wealth of their forebears (due in large part to a very successful gold rush in the late 1800s.) Melbournians like to think they are the cultural, sporting, and economic hub of Australia. We were definitely impressed with their city. The only thing that bugged was, you can hardly get a decent photo downtown because of all the tram cables that look like a massive web hanging over the city.

Greeters - "So the best shopping is this way?" Wicked ad on the tram--signs for the play were everywhere...








Ready to warm up with some hot chocolate and a yummy Italian dinner.

We wandered around the city, window shopping. This chocolate shop lured us in. Aubrye picked out chocolate covered cashews for Matt. I went straight to the dark chocolate.

Regent Theatre - This is where we saw Wicked. Very cool theatre. I didn't know what our seats would be like, so we brought along binoculars. Turned out we were in the front center of the balcony. Couldn't have been better! But, it was still fun to look through the binoculars. We have been listening to the Wicked soundtrack for a few years now, but it was a zillion times better to see it performed LIVE. We both picked "Loathing" as our favorite song, with "Defying Gravity" and "Popular" in a tie for second place.

"Green elixir" for sale in the lobby; Aubs is upstairs.

The next morning we drove out to the Melbourne Temple and mission home. Matt & the Mission Pres (former NuSkin-er) played tennis while Aubs & Tay & I hung out at the home. Spring is just getting started here, and of course the temple grounds were beautiful. We had been told that Melbourne is cold and rainy most of the time. We were happy to just have the cold, but not the rainy.