Sound of Music Sing-a -Long 2012

Every year in September you can find our family at the Hollywood Bowl's Sound of Music Sing a Long. What began as a date night, quickly became a yearly tradition for us, and since then has grown into a tradition we share every year with our family and friends. This was the eighth year for Sam and I, and we still enjoy every minute of it.

As usual, all 18,000 seats were sold out, and as usual, you could expect to bump into someone you know. We saw my college roommate, another friend from college, Austin's 5th grade teacher, our opthamologist, Sam's co-worker and another one of his doctors.

The show always begins with a pre-show costume contest, and we entered our kids again (this is our third time!). This year was extra special as we had even more friends join us for the costume contest. There were ten kids total that dressed up as....

all the items from the yellow goody bag.

If you're familiar with the event, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Every year the bowl hands out a yellow bag filled with props to each guest, and the host goes through the contents of the bag one by one explaining how we are to use them during the show. The yellow bag is part and parcel to the sing a long, and basically, you cannot have the sing a long without the yellow bag. 

And that my friends, is why having our kids dress up as the props was such a great idea (thanks eunice)!  Oh, and let's not forget the fact that the costumes were way less labor intensive this year, so no late nights and way less glue gun burns and needle pricks on my end. :)

After much anticipation, the winners were announced, and our kids got second place. It was a great win, and all the kids (and parents) were so happy. But guess what? I found out later on that we were supposed to win first, but the staffers recognized Austin as having won in previous years, so they wouldn't (or couldn't) give us first place again. With that said, I am officially retiring Austin from the costume contest (you hear that Sam?). I think three for three is enough, or maybe as one friend mentioned, we could just put Austin in a disguise next year. :)

Several people have asked me to post pictures from our previous costume contests, so here's a quick recap.

Our first year Sohpie and Austin won second place dressed as "sew, a needle pulling thread". They won a blue ray player and some movies which we still use to this day.

(here's my xanga entry from that night - http://mrssjlee.xanga.com/675347051/item/)

Our second year, Ella, Sophie and Austin won first place as "tea with jam and bread", and the prize was a 7 day Mexican Riviera cruise.

(unfortunately no blog entry here as i stopped blogging after being introduced to the world of facebook)

Two more pictures just because I LOVE Austin's reaction when he found out they won first place. :)