An anniversary outing

We have a list of "things to do in Florida," and seeing a show at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in nearby Sarasota was on the list. Even though I asked for no presents for our wedding anniversary in November, Tim insisted on getting something. He bought tickets to see Mamma Mia at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in Sarasota in February. (It was baby's first musical!) Seeing a show at the Van Wezel is something we've wanted to do for a while, and I'm really glad we got to go to this show there.

The Van Wezel is nicknamed
the Purple Palace.

We both took the day off work and saw a Sunday matinee. It was the cast's closing day. We had good seats and it was a packed house (although the people who packed it totally annoyed me, but that's another story). We drive by Van Wezel every time we go to our baby doctor appointments, but this was the first time we'd actually seen a full parking lot. (Uh, probably because there aren't a lot of shows at 8:30 in the morning.)

Purple Palace sidewalk.

The coolest part about the show for me was that about halfway through the first act, I realized that I recognized one of the actors. I watched a lot of Days Of Our Lives when I was growing up and after college, and Matthew Ashford was one of several actors who played the character Jack Deveraux. Apparently Matthew Ashford loves performing in the theater, and he played Bill Austin in Mamma Mia. I might have been a little bit *too* excited that a connection to my childhood was performing on stage right in front of me.

Van Wezel is right on the water
and the weather was gorgeous,
so we took a photo.
I was starving at this point.

After the performance, we went to dinner at Primo, an Italian restaurant that had been recommended to us by the realtor who sold Tim the condo almost four years ago. We've driven past it countless times but never around a mealtime or with time to spare. We now LOVE this place. They had an amazing "early bird" special that they were serving around 5:30, which isn't exactly all that early. We had a fantastic meal, and it was the perfect end to a great afternoon, and a great way to celebrate our anniversary (and actually, Valentine's Day, because I'd been called in to work on the Monday that we were going to celebrate that), even if it was several months later.