Johnny and Marie

I may be struck by lightning for admitting this, but we get a lot of e-mails from our Stake (a unit of organization within the church made up of multiple congregations) and because they tend not to have anything to do with us, we ignore them. There, I said it. (long pause) I'm still around, so I guess it isn't the worst thing I've ever done and I'll continue my story...

One particular e-mail came through with the subject line:Warm Springs Stake is offering limited FREE tics to DONNY & MARIE WITH GUEST JOHN SCHNEIDER.

Surely this couldn't be. We've wanted to see Donny and Marie for a while now, but tickets are so expensive. (Sidebar: when we were new to Vegas, my new coworkers asked me which shows I wanted to see on the Strip. I confessed that Donny & Marie were at the top of my list, which should tell you something about my standards. Our office manager suggested instead I go straight to Jubilee, assuring me that the nudity was very tasteful. Maybe she'd never heard of Donny & Marie?) This seemed too good to be true, but the e-mail came from a friend serving in the Stake, so I thought there must be some truth to it. So, I texted the number listed and requested tickets if they were still available - surely with this being Wednesday, they'd never have tickets left for Friday night. They did and we got them. There must be a catch, I thought. Well, the only "catch" (if you can call it that) was that poor Donny was out sick with an injury. To his gluteus maximus. Curse that Dancing with the Stars! John Schneider, a.k.a. Bo Duke was filling in for him. Seeing as we think he's kind of awesome, we were still excited. I told our wonderful friends, The Statens, about this miraculous occurrence and they saved us seats in their booths. The showroom was surprisingly intimate, Ye Olde Las Vegas style, with rounded booths and tables. Tres cool.

We arrived in enough time to watch the trivia slideshow through a few times and found out some interesting facts about The Osmonds, and view some old footage (I would totally have been on the Donny train had I been born a few decades sooner) and a hilarious side-by-side of Donny and Justin Bieber. After what seemed like an eternity, Marie came out and from her first step on the stage, it was obvious that she was born for the stage. She was an absolute riot! 

She told us about Donny injuring his gluteus maximus - proving once and for all that he really is a butt. And she said that he isn't that good looking in person anyway - just picture her with hair and it's like he's there. After her first number (impressive voice) she chugged an entire bottle of water and tossed it on the ground, exclaiming, "And you thought Mormon's couldn't drink!" Before drinking it, she toasted me! Well, she toasted 29 year old women as a group, but I'm there! 

Brandon very nearly had a run in with her...if he'd been a few decades older. She literally hopped from table to table kissing old men on the forehead - reapplying lipstick between each bald noggin and made it to the row just in front of us before the song ended. I'm sure she would have skipped him anyway - he had too much hair...not something you'll ever hear me complain about. We'll have to go back when Brandon's 60 something.

Most of the songs she performed we didn't recognize, but she made them fun to listen to. Aside from being incredibly talented and hilarious, she's also very brave. It takes a very confident woman to stand in front of jumbo-sized screens displaying 30 year old images and videos of herself. Bravo, Marie. Bravo.

John Schneider was a lot of fun as well. Apparently they dated in their youth? So they had great chemistry and he surprised us with an awesome voice. He sang a lot of country, which he said was ironic since he was from New York and about as country as a slice of pizza. He looked like he rolled his ankle jumping from table to table (yes, it was a fun show) and limped for the rest of the show. I told Brandon he should have had a card with him and jumped at the opportunity to become a personal PT for Mr. Schneider whilst he was in Vegas. Alas, it didn't happen.

The highlight of the evening could have been when they sang "Thank God for Kids" together - it's the anthem for their charity as well as a song by the only other group we've been to see here in town, The Oak Ridge Boys. Yep, we're ahead of our time. It was beautiful, and coupled with the footage of John and Marie visiting with sick kids and holding ailing babies (not to mention pregnancy hormones) I had tears rolling down my cheeks by the end of it.

It really was an awesome show, and we'd love to go back and see Donny, although Johnny filled in nicely. We broke the rules and took a photo after the show (perhaps it was just during that would have broken the rules?) with our best Osmond smiles. We may not have the teeth to be Osmonds, but he isn't bald yet and I'll take it.