Superpaige's Pad

The Trials of a Busy Mom

Author: Superpaige (Page 20 of 180)

Denver

October 1, 2013 / / 1 Comment

Ryan invited me to attend this year’s CEDIA trade show with him in Denver. It’s actually been on on the radar for a year, since last year, he said, “next year’s show is in Denver. You should come to that.” Since I can stay in the company paid hotel room for free, it’s not expensive for me to join him, so I booked a flight.

It took a bit of arranging to be able to leave for 3 days, but thanks to some awesome relatives, the kids were chaperoned and carpooled and fed the whole weekend.

I flew in on Thursday, and thankfully, Ryan picked me up at the airport. I am not a fan of flying by myself, especially when I have no idea where I need to go after I arrive. But he was able to borrow the company’s rental car and pick me up. We dropped my stuff off at the hotel and walked back to the convention center. He worked in the booth while I walked around the show floor, trying to find fun free stuff to take back to the kids.

I ended up getting myself lost in the convention center. My attempt to walk it in grid style defeated because I would get sidetracked by cool things (Ooooh, something shiny) and veer off course. At one point, I stopped and looked around, and some nice gentleman said, “are you lost?” Yes, in fact, I am. No worries, I’ll find it eventually. “What are you looking for?” he said. When I said Control4, he pointed, and it was seriously just two booths away. Like I said, I would have found it eventually.

By 5:00, I was ready to leave. Sadly, the booth doesn’t close until 6:00, so I hung around, talked to the few people I knew, met some more people that Ryan introduced me to, and then we left just before 6:00.

Ryan didn’t have any scheduled group dinners that night, so we went to Chili’s. It was a beautiful night, and we ate outdoors.
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Downtown Denver is very walkable, with a free bus that goes along the 16th street mall. 005 So Friday, I was set to explore. The weather, however, was wet and not welcoming. I may have taken a bit longer getting ready for the day than I usually do, lounging on the comfy hotel bed and watching MONK. But I did venture out, and went to the Opera House (gives tours on Saturday, not Friday), the Money Museum (a little sign outside saying they were sorry for the inconvenience, but closed today), a Big old book store, and some shops in the mall. Then I went to the convention center to see how Ryan was doing.
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That night we went to the Control 4 party in a museum on a former Air Force base (Wings over the Rockies). There were planes everywhere!
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The food was all fancy and airplane themed. They had camo cupcakes, even.
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We even could climb into an old fighter plane. The party was huge and VERY well done.

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Control 4 invites their dealers and partners and employees and people they want to schmooze to this party. It was fun to meet the people from around the country that Ryan works with. One guy came up to us at a table and said, “Someone just told me who you are. I just have to come and say thanks, man.” I kid you not. I thought it was a plant. I asked if Ryan had any idea who that was, and he said he didn’t.

We talked a bunch to some friends of his that he works with from England and New York. Funny guys. And since many of the people there are taking advantage of the free bar, they get funnier as the night goes on.
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Eventually we were getting tired, and took the bus back to the convention center, then walked the 6ish blocks back to the hotel.

Saturday was nice and sunny again, so I set out on more adventures while Ryan went to work. I didn’t even GO to the convention center on Saturday, instead took the bus the other direction. I saw the Capitol Building,
097 as well as many other beautiful houses and buildings. My destination, however, was the Molly Brown Museum. It was more of a walk than I thought it would be, but I found it.
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It was an interesting tour (an hour long, too), but they wouldn’t let us take any pictures inside the house “for insurance reasons”. What the heck? I was kind of disappointed at that, but I took plenty of outside pictures.
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In my walking around, I saw a bunch of teams of people running some kind of race. Their tags said the Great Urban Race. I guess it’s some kind of amazing race type event, where teams must find and decipher clues. When I saw team Eeyore, I just had to get a picture.
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That night we went to dinner with a bunch of the Control4 guys (and two other gals) at Mellow Mushroom, a pizza place. They all had to carb load before taking down the booth. After dinner, I walked back to the hotel and they went back to work. Yes, I had the good end of the deal there.

I really enjoyed Denver. It’s a beautiful city with so much rich architecture and art. I had never been there before (can you believe it?), but I hope to go there again!

Feathered Stalkers

September 27, 2013 / / 0 Comments

I looked out the kitchen window to see some visitors on the back porch.
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Are they stalking me? Or just getting closer to see what the humans in the human house are doing, and when is that lady with the blonde feathers going to come out and bring them some more food?

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Silly chickens!

Harvest

September 24, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Fall Harvest. It’s not much of a ‘bounty’ around here. Sadly, we let our garden just go crazy with no pruning or cutting back, and the squash and tomotoes are sprawling all over the place. Even the ones I caged have tipped over their cages. We had to put a little fence around the garden to keep the chickens out, but they have learned they can fly over that little fence or worm in around the gate, and many of my tomatoes are beak picked.

Because I have heard it will be cold later this week, we went out and picked all the tomatoes we could find that were at all ripe. Seriously, what is with the ripening (or lack therof?) Most of my tomatoes are green, and the ones that have color are mostly orange. I picked the orange ones and brought them in to ripen. I can hope.

I also picked a couple of butternut squash, but left some others out there to grow some more. Don’t want to pick them too early. I have ONE tiny pumpkin among the leaves, and since it was orange, we picked it and brought it in.

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Can you tell which one is the pumpkin?

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I have another place where I planted a pumpkin seed, and in the whole sprawl, I think there is one pumpkin there, too. Then, in my front flower beds, we see this.

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If you look closely, you can see our biggest pumpkins of the harvest.
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And this from a volunteer plant. At the end of Halloween last year, I chucked an old gross pumpkin off the porch into the flower bed, and it’s decided to grow and produce pumpkins for us.

Oh, and here’s my little outside visitor, hoping to someday be let inside.
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Really, kitty? You’ve lived here for a whole year now, and in that time has anyone let you in? Sorry. If you wanted to come inside, you should have latched on to a family without allergies.

Yesterday we did find the hidden stash of eggs from the chickens, though. I had been wondering why they were only laying 5-6 a day, when all 11 of them should be laying at least every other day, now. They had a secret next, silly girls.
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Yes, most of those were pretty dirty, but still good eggs. I made a big batch of brownies and used MOST of them in that, just to use them up quickly.

So, no, we’re not self sufficient and living off of what we grow, but we at least try.

People are amazing

September 17, 2013 / / 2 Comments

There’s a lot of terrible crap going on in the world, I do not deny it. This week we have horrific flooding and a shooting in our nation’s capital. BUT, there are also amazing people everywhere you look. People who are trying to do their best to make things a bit better.

I saw this 3 minute commercial and cried, I was so touched by the sweetness of the message.

Isn’t that amazing?!

I just read a book for Book Club called Zeitoun.

This tells the true story of the Zeitoun family and their experiences during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. I learned a lot about what really went on after this terrible disaster, and loved reading about the many large and small acts of service that Zeitoun performs.

As I was reading this, I would see on the news the flooding that is happening in Colorado right now, and the similarities were just too uncanny.

I am sure there are many many miracles and amazing stories of people helping each other.

Just today I saw a facebook post about how local Coloradoans could help, by going to the command center and donating food, snacks, and even just saying thank you to the National Guard and others who were working there.


In the Relief Society Session of General Conference in April of 1995, President Gordon B. Hinckley reminded us..

“Each of us can do a little better than we have been doing. We can be a little more kind. We can be a little more merciful. We can be a little more forgiving. We can put behind us our weaknesses of the past, and go forth with new energy and increased resolution to improve the world about us, in our homes, in our places of employment, in our social activities.

We have work to do, you and I, so very much of it. Let us roll up our sleeves and get at it, with a new commitment, putting our trust in the Lord.”

When I see my neighbors and the things that they are doing, I am amazed.

One of my neighbors put up 65 quarts of peaches. She also bakes like a mad woman, and is ALWAYS giving away her tasty treats. We have been the recipient of her baked goods more than once, and we are always appreciative. She is amazing.

Another friend is valiantly holding her household together while doing all she can to ease her husband’s suffering. She is doing her best to keep things as normal as possible, even though she has to take her husband to chemo and other doctor’s appointments, and she has to be the strong one in the family. She is amazing.

I see this friend’s visiting teachers faithfully bring chemo day meals in to this family, and many other helping with yard work, treats, and anything they can think of to do to help ease their suffering. They are amazing.

There are two sweet ladies in my neighborhood who have recently taken up biking, and just completed their first 70 mile bike race. They call themselves the bikin’ grandmas. Amazing.

Four friends from our bell choir just ran a half marathon. One just ran her 4th (or maybe it’s more) marathon. They amaze me.

I see people volunteer at school, spending hours making sure their programs run smoothly. They may not be publicly recognized for their work, but they are amazing.

Everywhere you look, you will see ordinary people doing amazing things. They really are trying a little harder to be a little better, and they are accomplishing wonderful things. I’m sure if you give it some thought, you will see that YOU are amazing too.

Things are a bit Fishy (and how I’m excited to reclaim my kitchen counter)

September 13, 2013 / / 5 Comments

Another of Megan’s projects is done (Whew!) and that means I can reclaim my kitchen counter again, at least for a day or two.

She’s been working on this FISH thing. I don’t know if Ryan suggested this one to her, too, or if it was her idea at first. It’s another project for her AP 3d art class. First she had to paper mache’, then it was cutting up a dozen soda cans, and then the endless gluing, gluing, gluing.
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Can you see the little notes she left that say, “Work in progress”. Warning me to not clean her project away. Um, whose kitchen do you think this is, girl?

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Last night she and I worked on that thing for a couple of hours. She LET me help her. I did a lot of cutting and even helped with the gluing of the scales. When you hot glue on aluminum, the whole thing heats up very quickly, and we had some burned fingers.

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I think she’s been working on this one for two weeks. I lose track of time, but I do know the fish and cans and pieces of cans have been on my counter since Monday.
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Now that it’s done I think it looks REALLY cool. Like she should win some kind of award cool.
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I don’t know if it’s because she’s using the cans of my favorite beverage as an art medium, or what, but it turned out great. Ryan even built that little stand for it to sit on so it won’t get tipped over or whatever. This girl’s got some talent! She has named this one Frankie De Piranha. (It’s a reference to a Monk episode. Do you get it?)

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And now I’m going to go clean off the rest of my counter. It will probably stay that way for all of about five minutes before I haul up the pears and decide what I’m going to do with pears today.

Rain, Slip and Slide

September 8, 2013 / / 1 Comment

Saturday.

John’s Birthday party.

Decided to rent a bounce house or inflate a slide because that would be an easy activity for the boys, and I found a deal on KSL for a slide rental.

When the guy came to set it up, it was sunny and hot, and the kids were excited to give it a try.

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We started the party with just a few kids, since some of them had said they would be late or had to leave early because of football games and such. Since John wanted to have a “Mustache” party, we did the mustache things first.
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When we went outside to slide, it wasn’t quite as bright and sunny, and there were dark clouds off to the west. No worries, though.

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For we had boys and we had a slide and we had water. What could be more fun?
There was lots of jumping and climbing and twisting and turning and splashing. Such fun.

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Soon the skies began to darken even more and we saw lightning a short distance away.
Not wanting to have to explain to any of the mothers why we let her child be hit by lightning instead of bringing him back inside, we reluctantly made them get off the slide and come in.

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The wind was getting quite strong, and one boy was just shivering. I wasn’t cold, but then again, I wasn’t wet.

We ended the party inside, turning on the Three Amigos, and the kids dried off and were all happy. Party deemed a success, even though only half of the invited guests came and we only got about an hour of slide time in. I was a bit ticked off, because even with the deal, that slide had not been cheap, and I wanted to be using it ALL afternoon with the other kids and their friends.

Even worse, DARK clouds soon covered the area, and I read online about areas in Alpine being evacuated due to flooding. Ugh. We had another party scheduled to start soon. I had invited the cast of Scarlet Pimpernel over for a backyard barbeque. Not much dry backyard after the rain started pouring.

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But I went online and reassured everyone in the group that the party could still happen, we would just have to move it inside. I had told them earlier about the large water slide, and to bring their suits, and one of the guys replied that he thought it would be fun to go down the slide, even in the rain. Ha.

Well, even through the rain and wind, they came, and we ended up having a houseful of loud, funny, theater people. My family, not used to being around such a group, kind of cowered in the corner, but they warmed up eventually.

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Once the rain subsided a bit, we were able to get the meat on the grill, and eventually we had a prayer and ‘started’ dinner (even though everyone had already been eating all the chips and food that was on the counter already).

Soon, the rain was just a drizzle and I decided to plug that slide back in. Three of the guys ripped off their clothes to their swim suits underneath and jumped at the chance to go down that slide, even though it was kind of dark and kind of cold.

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I should have played around with my camera settings because it was hard to capture any good images with them moving so fast and it getting dark. But let me just say that there were some spectacular jumps.
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Even people who did NOT bring swim suits or a change of clothes had to try it out, and soon we had 10-15 people going down that slide. One of them was John, who got to do round two of his slide party, I guess.

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Eventually the wind kicked up again and it was just plain cold. And dark, so we deflated the slide and went inside to finish the party.

It was really fun. Even after all the food was gone, people still stayed to play games, watch a movie, or just talk.
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We had a game of Settlers of Catan downstairs, Fooseball matches going on, and a big game of BANG upstairs.

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It really was fun. The day, even though it was not what I had planned and not the best weather conditions, was great. We managed to have LOTS of fun, rain or shine. I’m glad my Pimpernel friends braved the rain to come all the way out to Highland. When the show ended, I knew I would miss those friendships, and I told one of them that I just needed people to come to my house and entertain me, and that’s what they did.

What a difference one year makes

September 6, 2013 / / 4 Comments

A year ago I had grand dreams. I was going to start a chime choir at the elementary school. Something unique, different, and wonderful. I was sure kids and parents would JUMP at the chance to enroll their children in such a great program, and I was sure that I would be able to get funding in the form of a grant to be able to buy a four octave set of chimes, maybe even a bigger set, for our school. How hard could it be, right?

RIGHT.

I had no idea.
I DID get a chime grant and got to use a loaner set of chimes for the school year, so that was fantastic. But then the beginning of the school year started and the band teacher shot down my plans, and I couldn’t get a grant, and I only had two kids show up, and we had no place to set things up, and I had no idea what to do if kids showed up anyway….that was discouraging. In fact, I just went back and read a bit about what I was going through last fall with this choir, I felt like crying again for that girl last year and all she was going through and trying so hard to get this choir off the ground. But then I read this…

Dreams take time. Yes, it seems like I’ve been working on this project forever, and it feels like it’s never going to get off the ground, but in reality, it’s only been since May that I’ve been trying to get this thing going. I have these chimes for a year, and hopefully by the end of this year, I can get funding to buy another set for next year. And hopefully I can get 20 kids interested enough in joining a chime choir that I can run this program. If I don’t? Well, maybe I can make it work with less kids. I don’t know.

Impatient much, are we?

And you know what? I did it! It was hard. I really didn’t know how hard it was going to be.

I had to do two different groups, one before school, and one after school. Together there were enough kids to play a song. Alone, they could play about 1/2 to 2/3 of a song. But we did it.

And after Christmas, we even took the choir to two different locations to play, and I did my OWN fundraiser to raise the money to purchase a three octave set of chimes, even though more than one person told me it couldn’t be done. And at the end of the year, the principal told me that he appreciated all the work I had put into this, and offered to buy a fourth octave set for the school. He wants me to stay and teach, and not give up just because things are hard.

This year, I have my own 3 Octave set of chimes, the school purchased the 4th Octave for us, and I already have 20 kids signed up! 20 kids was the requirement needed to PAY ME the whole year, so this year I should be able to be paid for all my time, not just half, like last year. I don’t get paid a ton, but it does work out to about $100 a week, which is better than nothing. I don’t know how it works, if there’s money left after they pay me, if I can use that to buy music or things. I hope so. So far any music or supplies I have bought have pretty much come out of that paycheck.

But more importantly, with 10-14 kids in each group, they can play all the notes, so each group can learn and play a song, without being frustrated that it doesn’t sound right, and not knowing how the song is supposed to sound until we get all the kids together for a concert. I’m SO excited about that!!

I’m still inspired by this statement that I read on my friend Tess’s blog. She is a writer and is just in the process of publishing her second book. She’s really quite amazing. She said,

“I am so glad I didn’t give up! For all the times this story was rejected … for all the times my earlier work was rejected … for all the times I wondered if I could really have a book published on a national level — I am so glad I didn’t quit. Dreams take time. But here’s the thing, If you keep trying and learning and believing, they will come true.”

So, a big thank you to my friends who inspire me to keep trying, even when it’s hard. I wish I could take this lesson and apply it to every aspect of my life where things are hard. But silly me, I kind of have to learn the same lesson over and over again.

Five for Friday

August 30, 2013 / / 1 Comment

Five things for you this lovely Friday…

1-We get to go to a wedding today. My lovely niece Camille is getting married! I’m so excited for her. She’s the FIRST grandchild on the Erickson side (actually the first of any of the kids’ cousins) to get married, so it’s kind of a big deal. We’re heading to the Mt. Timpanogos temple soon.

2-I bought myself a cute new purse.
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Cute, huh? And it was quite a bargain on Amazon.com (and free shipping..Woot!) I love it. Yes, I kind of do have a thing for purses. But this is only my second purse of the year, so it’s not TOO bad.

3- I auditioned for a play today. (Shhh…it’s kind of a secret.) I’ll tell you more about it if I make it. Thankfully it wasn’t the flop sweat nervous horrible experience this time. If it’s meant to be, it will happen, if not, then that’s ok, too.

4- I won ticket to Dave Matthews Band concert a week ago, thinking that Ryan would really enjoy going, but he wasn’t too thrilled about it, so I offered the tickets to friends, and one of my friends from bells was SO EXCITED to go. Even though it rained, she said it was an amazing concert, and she was REALLY happy to go. I’m so glad when I can share the prizes like that. Hopefully that good Karma comes back, right?

5-Speaking of tickets, I’m excited about this one, even though it’s still a ways away. You might remember that Michael Buble is kind of my boyfriend. If you look really closely, you can see that those tickets are for the 5th row! 011

So there you have it. Have a wonderful Friday and a superb weekend!

Life’s a Peach

August 28, 2013 / / 4 Comments

We have three peach trees in our little “orchard”. For several years they didn’t yield much fruit, and then it’s kind of hit and miss. Last year there was a late freeze in the spring and we didn’t get more than a dozen peaches. We were at the mercy of a neighbor whose trees did not freeze to get our peach fix.

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This year Ryan attended a pruning and gardening workshop and learned that we should be picking a LOT of the tiny peaches so that the peaches can have the energy, food, and room to grow bigger. He picked at least a 5 gallon bucket full of the tiny little peaches early in the summer. But he said it was like murdering peaches and he didn’t like it.

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I don’t know if it was due to the fact that we pruned those trees last year, or that he picked those tiny peaches, but this is the most peaches we have ever had. And they are nice sized, too. Gorgeous. For weeks in the summer, we would go out and hope for ripe peaches, only to realize that close up, they were not ready yet. Well, they are ready now. Saturday I started picking. Mostly because I was worried that branches would be breaking off if I didn’t do something to lighten the load of peaches on those branches. I picked a 5 gallon bucket, with a smaller bucket full of smooshed or buggy peaches to give to the chickens. I realized these peaches weren’t going to wait, so I got the steam canner down and started going to work.

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It’s a messy process, washing, blanching, peeling, adding a simple syrup, boiling the lids, sterilizing the bottles. It had something on every single burner on the stove. I enlisted the kids to help. They are good at the peeling and their smaller hands fit well into the bottles, and really I just could use the help so the peaches don’t go brown and yucky before I get them processed. I always have to look up the instructions every year..How much sugar? How long do they process? What’s our elevation? But I got going quickly.

We got 8 quarts done that first day, leaving the non ripe peaches to wait for the next round.
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Aren’t they gorgeous?

Monday dawned, and I was a little sad that I didn’t have a play to go to that night, but all the better to get sticky and can some more peaches, right? I went out and picked another 5 gallon bucket full of peaches, and got started. No kids to help me at first, but I got the first batch of 7 into the steam bath before they got home. After I picked them up (early out day and all), everyone was home by 2:00, and they each helped for about an hour. It seemed much longer to all of us. We got another 7 quarts done for a total of 14 that day. I had to send Natalie out to pick me just a few more peaches when I ran out right after I started the last bottle.

Tuesday, I picked another bucket and took a bunch with me visiting teaching. After our VT appointments were over and I had finished my obligations at the elementary school, I figured I had better get back at it. I also sent out some texts and messages to friend to PLEASE feel free to come over and get some peaches, as we have more than we can eat or bottle. I wasn’t super productive and only did 8 or 9 quarts. Also, I was running out of wide mouth jars. As I was searching the basement, I find lots of regular jars, but I was down to my last bunch of wide mouths. Hmmm. Maybe if I make taco soup and use this jar of tomato juice, that’s ONE more wide mouth jar. Pitiful, I know.

My friend Lisa called and said she was going to come over and pick some peaches, and she had some bottles I could have. She did NOT want to bottle them, and was super generous to bring me a whole box of 12 wide mouth jars! She picked about a 5 gallon bucket full of peaches, and her kids played here for a bit while we talked. It was wonderful to have her visit, as I haven’t seen her all summer!

Wednesday I was going to skip the canning for the day, but I HAD all these bottles, and there were still LOTS of peaches on the tree, so what’s a girl going to do. I got started and pretty soon my back was aching and I was finishing up the last of the 11 quarts for the day. Work like that makes one sticky, so it was time for a shower, then clean the counter and mop the floor… AGAIN. I haven’t cleaned the stove, even though it TOTALLY needs it, but I want to finish the intense canning before I scrub all the mess. I’ll just make more mess tomorrow.

So, if I am remembering correctly, we how have about 40 quarts of peaches. I have 8 more wide mouth jars, so if I fill those tomorrow, that will be 48 (or so). That’s enough, right?

Thoughts after it’s over. Thank you, Scarlet Pimpernel.

August 26, 2013 / / 1 Comment

Not everyone understands why I do what I do, and why I love it so much. Why would I want to “waste” my whole summer just rehearsing and performing a play? It interferes with family things, makes me tired, takes up most if not all of my free time, and for what? A free t-shirt and a water bottle?

I auditioned for the Scarlet Pimpernel because I really liked that show. I had seen it before and loved the music, the costumes, and the story. I knew I would only be in the ensemble at best, if I did get in. And, I thought if I did this play at the Scera, it would have less conflicts with my weekly bell choir rehearsals, since they don’t perform on Wed nights at the Scera. It was difficult to not be in the Alpine Community Theater play, since I have a lot of friends in that group, and Natalie was in that play, too.
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There was a real sense of community in this show. Almost like a family. Maybe it was from the Director.
027 Jerry is 83 years old and has been directing and acting for over 60 years. He is really quite amazing, but he’s soft spoken and when he gives direction, most of the time it’s in a positive way. On our first attempt at a run through, after it was done, he said, “Well, that was pretty good for a Monday.” Which we knew meant that it wasn’t that great, but he was still accentuating the positive.

At the beginning of the rehearsal process, they schedule people to only have to come when their scenes are rehearsed. Since I was only in 6 scenes, I didn’t have to come every single night, and when I did come, it was usually not the whole night. Kind of easing us into the reality that we would be spending every night with these people. When it’s run through time, there’s a lot of free time for the ensemble. The leads have things to work through, and the rest of us get time to chat. We learn things about each other, like that fact that about half of the cast is related. Seriously. I was talking to one girl, and she pointed out her four sisters and about 8 cousins. “Oh, and Jerry’s my grandpa:, she said. So, most of the cast knew Jerry was related to Jerry, or had been in a show with him at some point.
013 Even though MOST of these kids are young (like I could be their mom, that’s how young they are), I grew to love them. At the end of the show, one of the cute 20 year old boys came up to me and gave me a huge hug. “You’re my mom crush,” he said. He tried to explain that by saying I was like a mom, or like the mom he would want, or something like that. I understand, though, because I grew to love that boy very much, as well.

One night at rehearsal, I brought some balloons and ended up making animals and swords for a bunch of people. I tried to teach a few people how to make things, and I made LOTS of swords, since this is a sword fighting show. But then I worried that I was making TOO much noise. Have you ever tried to twist balloons quietly?

When we moved to the outdoor stage, we started adding in the scenery, props, costumes, lighting and sound. IT went from just a bunch of people saying lines to telling the story. One Saturday we spent several hours just learning our scene changes. Every set piece had a name, and we were all assigned to move these pieces at different times in the show. It made things more complicated, because instead of just sitting backstage between our scenes, now we had to figure out when we were doing our costume changes, and when we had to be there for our scene changes.
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I am happy to report that I never missed a scene change.

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We really had to work together to make everything work. There are some pretty complicated costumes, and a lot of us needed help to tie corsets, get out of dresses, do hair, fix hair, fix skirts, etc. And few things bring people closer than helping each other change clothes. I mean, you’ve seen me in my underwear, so we must be pretty close, right? We would laugh in the dressing tents as we were all changing, laugh as we fixed our hair, but not right backstage, of course.

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We started rehearsals June 17. We started performing August 2. We did ten performances at the Shell. A couple of them, we weren’t sure if we would actually have a show because it was rainy and windy right up until the show started. But we never had to cancel a show for rain. Then, once our run at the Scera was over, we moved everything over to BYU, and did four shows right in a row for BYU education week. Because the stage is different and things had to be changed to accommodate it, even though we had just done 10 shows, we had to have additional rehearsals to get things right. We ended on August 25. So, that’s 14 actual performances we did together. More than two months we spent a LOT of time together.

daniel

We formed some pretty good bonds. We performed through sickness and injury, jokes and laughter. It’s also a much more emotional show than I’ve ever done before. There’s love, hate, betrayal, deception, imprisonment, death, beheading (that usually leads to death), and joy. When you go through such a range of emotions, even if it’s just pretend, it really brings you closer together.

The cast had a few get togethers through the show. Many nights people would go out after rehearsal, and they even had a couple of parties. Because I do have a family and live 30 minutes away, I didn’t go to many of those, but I did go closing night out with some of the cast to Sonic. Sorry to the servers, it was late and we were loud.
after party

Now that the show is over, it’s like a part of my life has ended. Well, a part of my life HAS ended. I have to go back to ‘normal’, and remember with fondness my time that I got to share the huge Scera Shell stage with so many friends.
shell stage I laugh at the pictures that friends post of backstage and rehearsals (thank you, facebook), sing “Falcon in the Dive” while I load the dishwasher, or hum “Madame Guillotine” while I’m doing laundry. I will never forget this experience. I may be crazy, I’ll admit, but I’m glad I am. I am so glad that I took that leap out of my comfort zone, that I was brave and tried something new and scary. It’s only when we try new things that we can have new experiences, meet new people, and have more joy.

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