The Palladium--The Carmel Center for Performance Arts

Today was the big day, the grand opening and ribbon cutting of The Palladium. We have watched it go from a hole in the ground to a pretty impressive building since we have moved here. And we have watched people complain about the tax money being used for this thing during a recession. I have to say, I was on the side of the complainers (give me more parks and stuff the entire community can use!!!). But I have to retract those statements because today we were able to go inside and check it out and it was amazing. This is the view from the outside--all covered in Indiana limestone. We read in the paper that the roof is a foot thick concrete!! This is our new town tornado shelter.
There are a ton of stair cases in the place. They probably could have cut the budget by millions if they just scaled back to 10 stairways instead of the 25!

This is looking down from the top of the stairs at the big chandlier. And al that pretty marble steps. When we walked in, I noted the floor looked like Nordstroms. That got me some serious looks from the Palladium lovers out there. I didn't mention that to the Mayor when I talked to him today. I just said, nice job, when's Melloncamp coming?

The inside view from the cheap seats--which really aren't that cheap at this point, but as you can see, not a bad seat in the house. Today, members of the community were performing. We sat for a while up here, but we weren't done exploring.

We wandered down to the lower level and checked out some bathrooms that have tile work to look like piano keys and then found a seat in the box seats. This is looking up at the acustical glass ceiling.

This is the view from the not so cheap seats. Pretty nice. Hopefully, someday, we can go to a concert there.

Talk like a Polly

We had a fun weekend with Grandma and Grandpa Seibert. First, Jim and Grandpa cut a bunch of half dead trees out of the back yard. Then after a quick Mythbusters nap, we went down town to go up into the Soldiers and Sailors Monument that is in the smack middle of Indianapolis. All of us opted to take the elevator, except for Jim. He walked up all 331 steps. He said that he was taking the Elevator down.
Before we went down, Evie points out our house to Grandma

Then we decided to go to Buca's for dinner (thanks Grandpa!). Annalise was kind of a pistol the whole time. She drank 2 glasses of lemonade, ate the bread basket and declared herself done. that was fine with us because that meant more tiramisu for me!

Evie works on the noodles. Unfortunately, this whole weekend, Evie was battling fever and headache. She even spiked up to 103 before we sent her to bed last night. So I made the mental note that we were going to the dr. on MLK day.

So after a fun weekend with Grandma and Grandpa Seibert, we stayed home in order to not infect many more people. Annalise got out the Pollies. You can't play with the Pollies without making your voice sound really high. There is also a farm bent to Polly because someone has to take care of all those cows and generally, some sort of natural disaster occurs when Evie plays Pollies with us. Why is there an ice cream parlor and Princess in a barn? Why not?

The disaster of the day was a tornado and a possible Jaborwacky attack.

Evie, after her dr appt (no ear infection--just the normal ibuprofen and rest), made this solar powered boat. Not a lot of sunlight in the bathroom after dark, so she had to chase it around the tub with the flashlight.

She doesn't look so sick anymore, but is ready for an early bedtime tonight.

And this girl. What a ham.