Ms. Julie Andrews

I am still on cloud nine after being in the presence of Julie Andrews for two nights in a row. Julie Andrews. Yes, Julie Andrews. Mary Poppins, Maria, Princess Mia's mattress-sliding grandmere. Julie Andrews!

Tuesday night we saw her at the Tivoli theatre in Downers Grove where she answered audience questions.

Here are the limited pictures I do have:

That picture was zoomed in and then cropped, this is how far away we actually were!
Here's the poster that was outside the theatre. She's just timeless.
Here's the book that we received and my ticket. It is a wonderful collection of poems and the artwork is great.
Presigned copy of the book. Love it!
Wednesday night we went again to see her but this time it was at the Borders in Schaumburg. No cameras were allowed this time so I took as many pictures as you can take without actually taking her picture. Here I am with Jordan and Chad in front of the display of her book.
Here's the chair she would eventually sit in! You have to imagine her there...
Here's the picture Chad took of me...he was trying to see how it would turn out if he sneakily peaked the camera out of his pocket just enough to take a picture...not bad, but in the end he didn't try it. We were too afraid of getting caught and forcefully expelled from the store. (Why does my forehead look unusually large???)
We got our book signed and Jordan talked to Julie Andrews. It was really sweet. She said we should be sure to read aloud to him from the book and we told her of course we would. I told her that I really like her daughter's book about parents reading aloud to their kids called Raising Bookworms. It was awesome. She was magical. There were some 14 year old girls in front of us in line who were hysterically crying like they were at a Beatles concert. I thought I was going to go into hyperventilation mode myself but I kept my calm despite feeling emotional about being a foot away from her. (!!!!!!!!!)

My friend Kathy was lovely enough to depict what the picture would have looked like had Julie Andrews taken a picture with me. Take a second and just imagine.

Finally, here is my last and probably most desperate attempt to get as close as I could to taking a picture of Julie Andrews. I am downstairs, she is upstairs. See the three windows in the gray area, she's sitting right behind the window all the way to the left. She's really there...really.