The Trials of a Busy Mom

Month: August 2013

Five for Friday

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

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.

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.
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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.

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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.
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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.

First day of school 2013

How could school be starting and summer over? Didn’t school JUST BARELY get out?

Neither I nor the kids were quite ready for school to start, but start it did.

To help the kids get ready, I took each of them on date with shopping. Well, John just got the date with Mom and Dad. He went shopping with me another time and got some school clothes then. It was fun to see what they would pick out. Megan, my least fashion conscious, picked out a single t-shirt. When I pressed her, she also got a pair of shoes. I should be happy that I don’t have to spend much on her, but I kind of wish she would branch out a bit.

This morning we had our traditional breakfast at the bus stop.
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The kids have fun goofing around with their friends while the moms commiserate or cheer that it’s back to school time.

I always print up a little sign that says the year so we can look back and remember our first day of school.

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The bus came at a weird time and not to the regular place. One of the more assertive moms talked to him to ask if they could please have the same two stops that we had last time, but that dang bus driver held his ground. “There will only be one stop” he kept saying. This is very frustrating. It’s bad enough that they make the kids get on the bus at 7:18 (School starts at 8:00, so what are they doing for the extra half hour at school? goofing off, or freezing in the winter), but now they have to walk a 1/4 mile down to the bus stop? Argh! But at least they haven’t taken away our elementary bus. The junior high bus was taken away from us several years ago, and I have had a big hassle trying to get our carpool figured out. BUT, I didn’t want this post to be complaining about the bus.

It’s bittersweet when school starts again. On the one hand, I feel like I have SO much time, now that I get up early and get the kids off to school, I always make big goals, like this is when I’m really going to get organized or work out every day and all that. In reality, by the time you clean up the morning dishes, do some laundry, exercise and take a shower, a big chunk of the day is gone. Once you add in volunteer work, planning or carrying out your church calling, writing your missionary and some time online, MORE of the day is gone. Then by the time you get dinner planned and pull a few weeds. it seems it’s 2:30 and they start coming home.

I also teach my chime choir two days a week, and for the past two years I’ve substituted off and on. I haven’t decided if I am going to keep subbing or not. I don’t love doing it, and it is kind of a stressor for me, making me not as patient or kind with my family, plus, with my carpool duties and chime choir and piano lessons after school, there isn’t a single day that I would be available to stay at school until 3:30 when the pm kids get out.

There is a sadness that I’m not the one in charge of my kids all day. I like having the freedom to take them somewhere, or do things with them. Now they are in school and their teachers become the important people. I miss those days when they were little and we had no schedules.

Megan is a senior this year. She’s been working hard on her 3-d AP art projects this summer (there were 12). I can’t believe all the exciting changes that she has ahead of her. And I’m a little scared. She has no idea what she wants to do, where she wants to go to school, and we need to help her decide.

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John is in 4th grade. Fourth Grade! How is that possible?

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Natalie is in 9th grade. I think she’s kind of excited to be the big dog in middle school.

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Jenna is 7th grade, new middle schooler.
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She actually went to school for a half day on Monday, to learn the ropes of middle school and all that.
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Here she is with her friend, Brittan.

When the day was done and they came home from school, at least no one came home in tears, or declaring that they hate school, or have no friends, or got lost, or what have you, so I guess the day was a success.

One down, 179 to go.

Here’s to many more years together

It’s our Anniversary today. August 18th. We have been married 21 years!

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Together we have five children.

This week will be our 15th “First” day of school with our kids. That’s about 100 parent teacher conference visits and hundreds of hours of helping with homework.
We have eaten roughly 7,350 dinners together. Some were stellar, some were not so stellar. Some have been downright terrible.

We have been to approximately 1,090 sacrament meetings together. I’m of course estimating here, because some of the time Ryan is out of town, or someone is sick, or I have missed church because of bells. Some of those were before we were married.

Together we have weathered 5 job changes, 8 months of unemployment, we have built two houses, and moved 5 times. We have gone through 45 months of pregnancy.

During our marriage, we have gone through 7 cars. We started with my Mazda GLC and his 67 Galaxy, then bought our 1990 Nissan truck (which we still have). As kids came, our cars got bigger. The Camry that we bought from Vicki and Chuck, then the 1998 Dodge Caravan Van that we later passed on to my sister and her family. Then we got a 2003 Suburban, and finally our “new” car, the 2011(? I think) Kia. (We do also insure an 88 Camry that was gifted us by the grandparents, but we don’t ever drive it, so I hardly count it as OUR car. It’s more of THE KIDS’ car). With those cars came many frustrations and car repairs, but no accidents to speak of.

We have hosted 11 exchange students from four different countries.

We have sent one missionary out. He’s been out almost 3 months now.

We are not perfect, neither one of us, but we are determined. Ryan has been supportive of me through emotional outbursts, angry spats, times of overwhelming stress, and patient with me even when I am determined to follow through with some crazy or wonderful idea. I have tried to also be supportive of him with his work demands, oft times frequent traveling, his wiring and rewiring of the house, the abundance of gadgets and all that is Ryan.

We like to have a good time, and have hosted hundreds of barbeques and parties. 71 birthdays for the just the kids!

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He has been supportive of me in my many hobbies and endeavors, which include 6 plays, 7 Christmas concerts with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, 17 concerts of the Bells on Temple Square, and one year so far of teaching the elementary chime choir at school. Of course, I have also taken him on many different trips that I have won, including several with the family to Disneyland, San Diego, Mesa Verde, and two trips for just the two of us to Cancun and New York City.

I can’t imagine spending my life with anyone else.

We aren’t real consistent on Anniversary gifts. One year we both got each other watches. We usually try to have a get away or even just a date to celebrate. This year things are quite hectic, as he’s been out of town this week, and I’ve had to do 4 shows this week, so there wasn’t much celebrating going on, but, I came home late last night after our closing night at the Scera to find he had bought me roses and scissors. The roses are so pretty and so sweet, but the scissors are an even nicer gift. Seriously. I was rifling through a drawer on Saturday complaining that we had lost or broken all of our scissors, and I had none. He heard my complaints, and bought a 3-pack of scissors for me. I guess the gift for 21 years is scissors.

I am forever grateful that he loved me enough to be patient while I fell in love with him, and he’s been patient with me from then on. Thank you, Ryan, for sharing these years with me. Here’s to many, many more years together.

Some call it retro. Some call it art. Some call it junk. Not sure what we call it, but it’s done.

Megan has been working on several art projects this summer. It seems she has to do a dozen projects BEFORE school even starts for this AP 3-d art class (just a tip, don’t ever let your kids take AP art. It will take ALL their time and kill a few grades in other classes.) Well, summer is winding down and the projects are not all finished, but she is making progress.

Somehow, when Ryan was cleaning out his office, he may have suggested a project idea using old 3 1/2 inch floppies. The idea took off, and took OVER.

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First, this required a trip to Spanish Fork to acquire a whole bunch of old floppies from Grandpa Erickson. Lucky for us he’s a pack rat who never throws anything away (even worse than Ryan) so he HAD several boxes of the disks to give her.

She mapped out her design and started to paint.
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My counter was her place of choice to paint, and things looked like this for a couple of days. Patient, aren’t I? Not really. I couldn’t STAND having those disks all over the counter for too long, and made her move the whole operation to the basement, where there is a whole table she can use.

I came home from my show one night to find Ryan and Megan working in the basement. Wonder what’s going on, I thought. It’s time for these people to be in bed.
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I found that they had gotten this thing started. Ryan has been a great help to her on this project. He said he felt like he owed her that much since he kind of put the idea in her head. They had gone to Home Depot to get baling wire, a shower curtain rod and hangers, and he had made 360 s hooks for her to hang this thing.
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On the floor, she had the rest of the design all laid out. I have to admit, it’s pretty cool.
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If you don’t know what that is, it’s a dragon character from the old game “Bubble Bobble.” Kind of obscure, but if you like old video games, you might recognize him.

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The next night there was more progress, until Monday night she finally got this huge thing finished.

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And on the back..

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As you can tell, it’s VERY big. Right now it’s a “screen” between our family room and the rest of the basement. I have no idea how she’s getting that thing to school to pass off, or what happens to it then. It’s currently attached to two of our light boxes. I am impressed that she finished it, and that it turned out so well. Not that I want it hanging in my family room for the long term, but it is interesting.

Maybe she could find a buyer.

So, if you are possibly in the market for a very unique piece of “recycled retro video game art”, give her a call.

Hair!

We are halfway through our run of the Scarlet Pimpernel at the Scera Theater, and my hair is different every night.

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One night it looked like this when I left the house.

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Which I liked, but by the time I sweat and change my clothes 5 times, it ends up pretty flat.

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It looked like this by the time I came home.

Another night it started out looking like this.
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Which was pretty good. Here’s our group shot of our ‘family’. We are the family of the Marquee de St. Cyr.

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But when I come home, it’s looking more like this.

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Every time I do a show I end up buying new hair products to try to keep the hair from going flat. And bobby pins. I buy 2-3 packages of bobby pins every time I do a show.

Friday night it looked like this when I came home. Still trying to hold it’s shape.

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Saturday I didn’t wash the hair, but threw it into a ponytail for our family adventure. It looked ok…
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(But you aren’t looking at my hair here, you are looking at the puppies, right? SO CUTE!!!)

Until we ventured up to the top of the Memorial Hill in Midway.
We looked like this.
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Windy, right. Right.

AFter a whole day of family stuff, the family dropped me off in Orem and I went to the theater with straight, albeit windblown hair. I went to work with product and a curling iron until it was mildly acceptable. Oh, and a bumpit. To my my hair go even higher. It was not as high as these girls, I tell you.

As I was driving home after the show, I pulled bobby pins out of my hair. Yes, I can do that with one hand, so I’ve still got one hand on the wheel. Don’t worry.

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Ryan and Megan were still up and working on this big old art project that I will show you in a different post. But my hair was pretty dang scary at that point.

No pictures of how it looks today, because it’s a day of rest. No hot rollers, no curling iron for the straight hair today. Hopefully I don’t do too much damage to the hair over the next two weeks with my ratting and spraying and curling. It’s times like this that I look upon those with long and thick hair with envy. But I will deal with what I have, and try to keep taking pictures of it, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Chinese girls

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After all the changes that we’ve been through in the spring, losing both Cole and Larissa, I wasn’t hip for hosting any exchange students this summer. Let’s just have a nice quiet summer with the four kids, right?

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Somehow the family thought it would be fun to host again, even though I told them over and over again that I would NOT be around, since the hosting was at the same time as our final rehearsals and opening of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Ryan assured me that he would be fine, even if I wasn’t around. Ha.

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A few things were actually in my favor this time.
#1-Carpool. I actually had a lady from Alpine call me and say that she and another lady each had vans and were willing to carpool, they just needed a third person. Hooray! With each of us housing two students,that’s 6 kids to haul back and forth, so you really need a van or big car to be able to carpool. Last time we did this, I was kind of late in finding a carpool, and could only find someone with a small car, and the driving was unbearable. This time, I had to drive only 9 times. Hooray! I told them that I needed to drive in the mornings, since afternoons get crazy, especially when I have to turn around and go back to Orem for rehearsal, so mornings were best. But it was dang hard getting myself and the girls up to leave by 7:30 each day.
#2-Distance. The home base school, where all the classes and activities started, and our place to pick up and drop off, was at about 800 North in Orem. While that’s still a ways away, it’s better than driving all the way to Provo, or BYU. On a good day, I could make it there in 20 minutes.
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#3-Megan could drive herself and her sisters to the buddy program. They always do a buddy program with American kids, and this year three of my kids were old enough to do the buddies. There were 5 days of activities that they did together, although my kids flaked on the Seven Peaks day. They just didn’t want to go, and said it wasn’t as fun as in past years. But whatever. I didn’t have to drive them!!! Hooray!!! Megan couldn’t drive the Chinese girls anywhere, but she can drive her sisters.
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I feel bad that I wasn’t around to take them to do fun things. In fact, the last week, I would only see them in the morning, as I would be leaving by the time they got back. But Ryan was GREAT. He took them and John to see Despicable Me 2, took them bowling a second time, brought everyone to the theater to see a dress rehearsal of my show, and took them to yogurt. He took everyone to the parade and Fireworks for the Highland Fling. He even took them to fix a broken ipod case. What an amazing guy!

Hopefully they won’t look back at their time here and think, that was boring.
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On their last night here, we invited over another host family and our new carpool buddies, and had a barbeque. The girls came alive with friends to talk to, and everyone had a nice time. That night we even all played “Mafia” in the basement.
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Although we were a little unclear on the rules, it was fun.
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Monday morning I took them to school for the last time. I gave them both hugs and Yao said sweetly, “We will miss you!”. I hope we can keep in contact with them. It’s always fun to send Christmas cards to our foreign friends.

Of course, it’s NOT fun to mail them stuff that they forgot. We found a camera in the back yard after they had gone, and now don’t know how exactly to get it back to her.

Trying to avoid the Guillotine, night after night.

Whew! Made it through the week, and what a week it was. On the rehearsal schedule it’s called “Tech Week”, but most people refer to it as “Hell week” because it’s…well…difficult. Rehearsals run long and tempers run short when adding costumes, lighting and sound, scenery, and hair and makeup to. Yes, those are the things that really make a show come alive, but it’s an adjustment.

It started last Saturday, when, after having rehearsals at the outdoor stage all week, we had to come in on Saturday morning to record the singing onto the tracks, and then have a scene change rehearsal. Everyone learns what scenery they are responsible for, and when those things need to come and go.

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Here’s a model of the set, and all these set pieces change and move and turn around to change from England to France, a ballroom to Percy’s office, and even a boat. The set, REALLY is amazing. But, to get everything changed around…well…that’s pretty amazing, too.
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There are four pages of this kind of notes, telling us who is assigned to each piece of scenery and when to move it where. It’s quite amazing, actually, and we have our stage manager Julie to thank for that. But we had to rehearse the on and off, and when those things come, and it was getting very hot and sweaty. I think we stopped at 1:00. We had to come back at 6:00 for another rehearsal.
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By Sunday, I was wiped out, and enjoyed sleeping in, and a pretty restful day. Well, restful if you could church, nursery, then a trek fireside. But no rehearsal.
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Monday morning I had start my week of driving the Chinese carpool. I was supposed to have the girls ready to go by 7:30. We may not have always left by 7:30 every day. Had to pick up four more Chinese kids and take them to their school in Orem every day, so there was no sleeping in.

I kind of dragged through the days, taking a naps when I could. At about 4, I started curling my hair. Some days I drove to the theater with hot rollers in my hair. It’s still kind of a work in progress, and the hair changes every night.

It would start out curly like this
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One of those days I convinced Ryan to drive the morning carpool for me so I could sleep in a bit, and by opening night I was at least not SNEEZING all over every one.


http://youtu.be/JVOpqCdbIac

Kudos to Bryson, who made this video of the cast before opening night. I wish I didn’t look so GROUCHY, but considering I felt like crap, well, what else should I expect. I love seeing everyone ELSE in the video, and love the music.

Saturday was a LONG day with breakfast at the park for Highland Fling, a Parade (which I had to skip), a wonderful funeral for my friend Diana (hopefully I’ll write more about that later), then a bridal shower for our niece Camille that we aunts were hosting. I went straight from there to the theater for our second show. I didn’t do any singing on stage, because singing makes me cough, and if I start coughing, it’s not pretty. But that’s ok. They can do without my voice for a bit. Just typing that makes me ready for a nap.

So today is Sunday. It’s our last day with our Chinese girls, and we were going to do something fun, but I was seriously just so tired, so we decided to just go to church and spend the day at home, then invite the other host family and their girls, as well as my parents over for dinner tonight. I was coughing a bit much in church, so I came home after sacrament meeting, and brought the Chinese girls with me. I had a heavenly nap.

I’m looking forward to THIS week. Yes, we have performances on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but that means we get Tuesday and Wednesdays off! And we send the exchange students on their merry way tomorrow morning, so that will eliminate that added pressure (mostly on Ryan, since he’s been the one taking them places. Friday after we all went to their closing social, he took them to the mall AND to fix a cracked ipod screen. He’s awesome!)
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S0, if you are local, I sure hope you’ll come and see our show. It really is GREAT. I’m a tiny part of the show, but I still love being part of the show. I may complain about how tiring it is, but it’s such a great experience.

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