ABD!!

As of yesterday, Thomas is officially ABD!!!

photo from UT History Dept facebook page

For anyone not involved in academia, ABD stands for All But Dissertation. He has finished his coursework and this past week had his comprehensive exams, written on Monday and oral on Friday, and he passed!! From here on out, he will be focusing on his dissertation. This is a huge step.

Of course, we had to celebrate.

We had dinner at Tupelo Honey Cafe on Market Square. We've been wanting to go there since it opened and were happy for the excuse. So, so good!

 

After dinner we walked over to the Tennessee Theatre to see the Broadway version of Mary Poppins. We absolutely LOVED it. The set was fantastic, the acting and singing were wonderful, and we had splurged a little to get good seats. Favorite number hands down was "Step in Time," especially when Bert actually walked up the side of the stage and across the ceiling. Um, amazing.

It was our first time at this theatre, and I was surprised by how small it is. Most of my Broadway experiences have been at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis, which is huge by comparison. This seemed more like the size of Baldwin Auditorium [at our alma mater], meaning in the future, we could definitely handle the cheaper seats. But it was nice to have good seats for once; I'm used to nose-bleed!

A couple of illicit pictures:

 

Our walk back to the car afterwards took us past our favorite gelato shop, and when we realized it still had 5 minutes til closing time, we decided we better take advantage.

We had such a fantastic night. So glad we had such a good reason to celebrate! Congratulations Thomas!!!