Summer Vacation - Week 9 - Arts And Entertainment

What a week!  Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica went to girls camp from Monday to Friday. Derrick stayed at my in-laws house on Sunday night and was there until Friday. And I took advantage of the mostly empty house and painted the kitchen. 

And that's just the A story. The B story is of Brandon working on the set for Much Ado About Nothing while also prepping for Boys Camp next week. We also took advantage of being childless to hang out and go on a date. 

And at the end of the week we went to see HadesTown which was INCREDIBLE. So sit back for this recap that features a lot of arts and entertainment. 

Monday was a busy day. It started at 9:00 when I dropped Veronica off at the church. It was supposed to be our church building. But our church building is on Eastland which the crazy construction street this summer. Our building is on the west side of the road which was the accessible side . . . until Sunday night when it was blocked off and became inaccessible for the next month. The road construction people ripped up the asphalt road so that they can pour cement to match what they've done on the east side of the road. (They allow access via the gravel on Sunday's but that's it.) So the meeting location moved to the Stake Center by the Temple. 

I told Veronica that I would wait until she was situated. So I was there while she loaded her backpack and sleeping stuff into the trailer. And I hung around talking to other moms for about 15 minutes. And then she told me, "I'm fine, my friends are here, you can go."  So I was like, "okay" and left her while everyone was still getting situated. 

You might be wondering "why weren't Charlotte and Lydia there too?"  Well they had another camp to finish first. All through July they'd been doing the Production Academy for Hadestown. This was the day they would build the set. 

So at 10:00 I dropped them off at the Orpheum. I would drive them up to Girls Camp after they were done that afternoon.

They have really liked this Production Academy. These are their bios that were shared on Facebook. 

 

As soon as I dropped off the twins I went to work. I worked for about an hour and then clocked out and got onto a zoom meeting for Idaho Parent's Unlimited. I didn't really have the time to drive home for the meeting so I just brought my laptop and hung out on the couch on my office and ate my lunch. 

I planned to be in the meeting until 1:00 and then clock back into work. Get stuff done. Finish by 2:00 and pick up the girls. 

But at 12:00 the girls texted me and said they were done with the set. WHAT???

So that upended the plan. 

I hurried and sent a message to the zoom chat that I had to duck out early. Then I grabbed the deposit stuff from work and took that with me. And I went to the orpheum to pick up the girls. They wanted me to come inside so I could see the lanterns all lit up. I walked into a completely dark theatre and only the lanterns were lit it was really cool. 

I took this picture of them on Saturday when we saw the play. They looked cooler in real life.

We went home and the girls hung out with Marcia while I did the deposit stuff for work. I was done at 2:00. 

Then we all got in the van. Lydia was our first driver. Our first stop was the bank. She was so excited to be the one to push the button to send the tube with the deposit into the bank. 

Then I had her drive all the way to Shoshone. She did great. At Shoshone we switched and Charlotte took over. She drove all the way to Ketchum. Then I took over and drove us into the SawTooths. We had such a good time talking. The drive didn't feel that long at all. 

After a total of 2 and a half hours of driving we arrived at the church owned campground at Alturas Lake. 

This is where Charlotte and Lydia were last year so they knew exactly where to go. We walked up a hill to the lodge building. Before we got there Veronica came flying out the door. She was so happy to see us. She was so loud and excited about everything. She was like, "I'M HELPING WITH DINNER!"

Here's the view from the lodge.


Charlotte and Lydia went back down the hill to get their stuff out of the car. 

Veronica showed them their cabin. They were sharing it with about 9 other girls. Veronica had the top bunk and Charlotte and Lydia shared the bottom bunk. 


I'd talked to the leaders for a minute while the twins got their stuff. I kind of wondered if I'd get invited for dinner, but nobody said anything. Which was fine - I had stuff to do in Twin Falls. So about 20 minutes after I arrived I was back on the road. I stopped at the top of the mountain to take this picture of the Sawtooths. They are so pretty. 

I listened to Baconsale's latest episode on the way home. They were ranking all the Superman movies. When that episode was over I listened to an old episode about the Muppet Movies. 

Brandon was home when I got there. He'd been out at the theatre storage building working on some set stuff. 

We went to Lowes and finalized the paint colors for our kitchen. We'd already picked out the main color. (Aptly named Dreamstress). I had the blue and orange figured out, but I wasn't sure about the green and yellow. So we looked at the paint samples and found the exact colors we needed. 

We've decided to embrace the 60's heritage of our house and have a vaguely 60's color scheme. It's based on colors of the remodeled dining lodge at Canyon Village in Yellowstone. 

It was about 8:30 by the time we were back home. Lately Derrick has discovered he can add more programing on our TV. He did it first by somehow upgrading from Disney Plus to Disney Plue with Hulu. It was only like a $3 extra charge so I didn't really care when he did it. That must have emboldened him because later he somehow added HBO Max. I didn't know until a charge for $15 went out of our bank account. Then Brandon looked into it and put a password on our Roku account so Derrick can't do that anymore. 

Anyway so since we had HBO Max for the next month we decided to make that $15 worth it by watching a movie. HBO Max is also the home of all the Warner Brother's movies so for a minute we were considering watching a Super Man movie. But then I saw that Sinners was on there. I was like, "WE HAVE TO WATCH THIS!"

I'd heard good things about this movie from a few friends on Facebook and Kenny had talked about it in a Payconbit for Baconsale. I knew exactly 3 things about this movie. 

1. Michael B. Jordan played identical twins. 

2. The plot involved putting together a musical. (This ended up being wrong. I'd misheard it when Kenny had talked about it. He'd been saying Music Hall. But I'd heard Musical.) 

3. There were vampires. 

It was the vampires that really intrigued me. I just couldn't figure out how they fit in the movie. 

So we watched the movie and it was so so so so so so good. It was scary and bloody, but it also had amazing music and compelling characters. I've been thinking about it all week. 

There was one point where nothing too scary had happened yet, but I felt like it was coming. I paused the movie and told Brandon, "we have to go take care of the chickens right now, because we'll be too scared to do it after this."

I turned out to be wrong, it didn't get scary until like 10 minutes after that.

Anyway, it was a great movie and made that surprise purchase of HBO Max worth it. 

We went to bed around midnight which was late - but I was excited because I didn't have to go to work the next day . . . or drive ANY kids ANYWHERE. 

Brandon still had work though so he was up and out the door around 7:30. After he left I started putting up plastic sheeting to keep the drywall dust from getting on our cupboards or floating into the rest of the house. The drywall dust is the reason this project stalled back in February. Brandon had patched the walls, but sanding them down sounded impossible with all of us walking all over the house. A few weeks ago I realized that it would probably be a good idea to tackle this while the girls were at camp.

So I got to work sanding down the drywall mud that Brandon had put on in February. And pretty quickly I leaned that I HATED this. It was so boring, it made such a mess, and honestly after a ton of work it still looked patchy and terrible. 

I don't even know if this is a before or after picture. It looked the same. Brandon had put the platform over the stairs on again. He'd made this flatform when he'd first patched the walls. Our slanted ceilings are 9 feet high at the highest point. So they are hard to reach anyway. But add in the stairwell and they are something like 15 feet high. That platform is super important. But then it makes going into the basement really hard. It feels like you are going below deck on a ship. So we didn't go in the basement much. Again, I was so glad we weren't trying to do this when the kids were around. 

It did feel smoother so that helped. But it was still not that exciting. 

And then after all that work I still wasn't even done. I had to put more mud on it and try to smooth things out even more. That was annoying. Necessary, but annoying. 

When I was done with that second coat of mud there was nothing left to do but wait for it to dry. So I took a shower and got ready to spend the afternoon with Brandon. 

He was teaching at CSI that night. I met up with him at the Twin Falls Visitor Center parking lot and then we drove to Burley together. This was the first time I was seeing his classroom. 

I hung around inside for a little while and met his class. But then I was like, "It's 79 degrees outside. What am I doing in this boring building. So I went outside and got a blanket out of the back of the van. I laid on the grass outside the building and read a book for like 2 hours. It was lovely. 

When Brandon was done we went out to eat at Burgers Etc. This was the whole reason I'd come along. Brandon said this place had good burgers. So we had a date there. I had a ranch burger and it was good. 

Then we drove back to Twin Falls. I tried to sand a little bit before bed, but I wasn't really in the zone so I gave up for the night. 

On Wednesday I was so happy that I didn't have to get up at 6:00 to take the girls to the Berry Farm by 7:00. It felt like a vacation sleeping in until about 7:30. After Brandon went to work I went back to sanding. I got it to the point where I was like, "It's as good as it's going to be." 

At one point I took a break on the patio. I took a lot of breaks. My favorite thing to do was to watch videos on Facebook. Lately I've been loving videos of dress restorations and beehive removals. They are so fascinating to watch. But during this break I had some interesting stuff going on in the back yard. There were birds all over my sun flowers. They love eating the seeds. I tried to get a picture, but they all flew away. 

Then a bird flew over to the sun flowers closer to me. 

I was able to get a really good picture of it. 

I watched it for a long time. It made me so happy to see all this wildlife enjoying my yard. I could have gone to all the effort of putting in grass in these areas, but then there wouldn't be any birds here. 

I went back inside to finish sanding the ceiling. This is where I was having the most trouble because the patches were just so uneven. (Brandon had done the best he could, but it was a tricky area.) I set a timer for 30 minutes. But after 15 I decided I was done. It was just too annoying to try to sand over my head on a ladder. 

So I was done with sanding. I let the dust settle a bit and then I pulled down all the plastic sheeting. It was nice to just throw all that away. 

Then I mopped the floor to get up more of the dust. Brandon and I had been tracking it around the house a bit so it was nice to know that we wouldn't be doing that anymore. And it was really nice to know that I hadn't been trying to keep four extra people from tracking dust around. 

I decided it was time to move onto washing the walls. After what felt like days of non results from sanding it was incredible to wash the wall and see immediate results. There would be a spot and I'd wipe it and it would be GONE. I loved washing the walls. 

The fridge was dead, but we hadn't pulled it out yet. I pulled it out for possibly the first time in the 6 years we've lived here. I found the manufacture date on the back. It was May of 2010. So this fridge was 15 years old. That's only slightly older than the twins. 

This might have been the first time the fridge was ever pulled out since we lived here. Underneath was actually cleaner than I expected. 

I was all done with the walls a little before Brandon got home at 3:30. I was pooped. I took a shower and then laid down for a nap. When Brandon got home he laid in bed with me. I thought we'd only sleep for about 45 minutes. Nope, we woke up at 6:00!

We had frozen burritos for dinner and then went to Lowes to buy paint. That was fun! When we got home our friend Tim came over to borrow our tamper and he helped Brandon move the fridge out of the house. When we get our new fridge the delivery people will haul our old one away, but in the meantime we have a fridge behind our house. 

I started taping everything off. 

I really really really wanted to start paining that night, but I could feel myself wearing down. So instead I spent some time vacuuming up more sanding dust that I found on the stairs and getting everything really ready. 

Brandon and I had planned to get ice cream or shakes together that night, but our nap had put us behind schedule. Brandon was working on stuff for the set and I was busy taping so we didn't have time for ice cream. Instead I went to smiths around 10:00 and bought two pints of ice cream and we ate that on the patio. That was fun too. 

I was looking forward to painting on Thrusday, but first I had to go to work. I could have taken the whole week off, but I knew that was just setting myself up for a lot of stress the next week. So I planned to work on Thursday. 

First I went to Castle. That was tricky. All summer long there has been construction in front of Castle Therapy, but there has always been a business access. This week though they closed both north bound and south bound lanes in the block where the office is located. I could not figure out how to get there. I texted Ivan about it on Wednesday night and he told me that there was still a business access and how to get to it. But when I tried that on Thursday morning there was a cement truck in the way. So I went into the neighborhood and parked on a street behind the office and just walked there. Later in the day they opened up the southbound lane in that area so hopefully things will be easier next week. 

I was there for about an hour and a half and then went to Aspen Grove for what I hoped would be only 2 hours. I didn't even bring a lunch I was so hopeful that I'd be out of there quickly. 

Well, that was a little wishful. I ended up running up to Fred Meyer to buy a premade salad so that I could eat that while I was finishing my work. But I was still done by 12:00. I dropped off the deposit at the bank and then I was free again. 

I came home and went to work painting. I'd spent a lot of the other days listening to old episodes of Baconsale. I'd listened to the two episodes where they went through a lot of 70's One Hit Wonders. I also listened to the spotify play list to go along with those episodes. 

Today was Thursday so there was a new episode of a podcast called "Digging up the Duggers."  A couple watches one episode of the old show "19 Kids and Counting' with the Dugger family every week. They recap the episode and then talk about a element of the Institute of Basic Life Principles which was basically the fundamentalist Christian cult the family belonged to. It's a fascinating podcast and I've listened to all 141 episodes over the last year. The episodes are LONG though. Most of them are over 2 hours. Usually it takes me a few days to get through an episode. This episode was 2 hours and 49 minutes long. And I listened to the whole thing while doing the first coat of paint. 

I started painting at 12:30 and I finished at 4:00. Sanding had been so anticlimactic that I really didn't expect much from this first coat of paint. But I was so happy with the results. 

Just look at these before and after pictures.  

This are looked completely different. 

Here you can see all the drywall patches. 

And here they bend in. Up close you can still see how uneven the patches are. But from far away they aren't that noticeable. 

I mostly used a paint roller on a long pole. That made it really easy to cover the wall quickly. My favorite part was when I went around and did all the corners where the walls and ceiling met. I did those with a paint brush. Suddenly this room looked so cohesive. 

The area above the cupboards was a little tricky to paint - I had to stand on the cupboards, but it was easier than the bookcases had been. 

I was so happy with how this turned out. 

Brandon was home around the time I was done. He was busy with Much Ado set stuff so he worked on his project and I just kind of sat around zoning out. I put a post up on Instagram and Facebook because I needed to dopamine hit from a lot of people admiring what I'd been working toward for days. I got so many nice comments. 

I went outside and spent about an hour watering all my plants. I hadn't had time to water that morning. 

I'd gone through a whole gallon of paint on the first coat so I had to go back to Lowes and buy a second gallon. I also bought more tape because I was completely out. 

At 8:00 I went to work on the second coat of paint. I'd been trying to think of something to listen to. I remembered that I was actually about two months behind on the Payconbit Episodes of Baconsale. These are the extra episodes available for patrons. I'm a tier 2 patron and pay $8 a month. It's totally worth it for this show that has entertained me for over a decade. I usually stay caught up on the payconbits, but I got behind. So this was a perfect opportunity to catch up. Each episode is about 30 to 45 minutes long so I got through most of them while doing the second coat. I finished at 11:30 and went and took a much deserved shower. 

I'd been planning on a 3rd coat on Friday when the sun came up and I could see any missed spots. But when I looked around everything looked pretty well covered. There were some missed spots, but I dint' think they warranted getting all the paint brushes and rollers out again. I still needed to do the area under the platform at another date so I figured I could do those touch ups then. 

So I went around cleaning up the tape and papers. 

The walls looked so good. Though I started realizing how dirty the cupboards are. They need a good scrub down now.  Oh and shout out to that cooler in the area where the fridge would be. It's an electric cooler that Brandon got from someone when he was working on RV's. We've never taken it camping because it's too big to bring along, but it was so useful this week. It kept everything at fridge temperatures. I don't know how we would have survived without it. 

I'd been really hoping to get to the part of painting where I could use the accent colors. But I hadn't had time. That will have to wait. But I still wanted some of the color in the room. So I got out the curtains that I'd ordered on Amazon. They'd arrived on Wednesday and I'd been dying to put them up all week. I didn't have a curtain rode, so I just taped them up. 

I LOVE how they look. One reason we are going so bold with the colors is because of our orange cabinets. The orange can be a bit garish, but I have no plans to take them out anytime soon. They are well built and solid so I'm not pulling them out just because of the color. I know some people would sand and paint them a different color, but I'm not some people. It took me nearly 6 month to get the time to paint my kitchen walls. I will NEVER have time for a cupboard project. So I decided to embrace the orange and go EVEN ORANGER.  Now that we have bright orange curtains the cupboards look almost tame. 

I spent the rest of the morning cleaning up all the paint and sanding supplies. I took down the card table. I mopped the floor really well. I moved the big table and chairs back in. 

I was done with that around 11:00 so I sat down with my laptop and paid some bills and caught up on some things I'd let slide all week. 

At 12:00 I went to the church and picked up the girls. They'd had a great time at camp. They had been a little nervous about sharing a cabin with so many girls - especially since they didn't get along with some of them. But all the girls in the cabin bonded really well. I was really happy to hear that. 

Here are a few pictures I poached from some facebook posts. 

The girls each got awards at the end of camp. Lydia's was best hiker or something like that. 

Charlotte's was best fashion because she'd had mis matched sandals all week. 

Veronica had Best Energy because she's Veronica. She'd been the youngest there (remember she doesn't turn 12 until September) but you wouldn't have known it. She had such a fun time and did really well. 

Here are the girls drawing. 

And here are all the girls in the ward. 

The girls all told me all the fun stuff they'd done like hiking and swimming. They showed me their crafts and their secret sister gifts. I'm so glad they'd had a great time. 

At 1:00 I went to get gas and then drove an hour and a half to Snowville to meet up with my in-laws to get Derrick. He'd done fabulous at their house. He'd been there since the previous Friday. They had taken him to see Jurassic World Rebirth at the $5 movie on Tuesday. I knew that he'd make it to that day and had low key been expecting to pick him up every day after that. But he'd made it all the way until Friday. 

He told me a lot about his week. He'd helped Steve fix some steps in front of the house and had gone with him to buy wood at Home Depot. They'd killed a wasp nest. They'd moved rocks. Steve paid him $25 for all his work. Derrick was really excited about that. 

And he'd loved the movie. He wouldn't tell me anything about it because he wanted it to be a surprise. 

When we got home Brandon had picked up pizza for us all. I ate some of that and then went into my room and took a long nap. It was like my body said, "We made it to the finish line. You need to rest now."

I really don't even remember the rest of the day. 

Saturday was busy day. Like almost overwhelmingly busy. We were stuck in the middle of Brandon's overlapping projects. 

1. He was working on the Much Ado Set

2. He was getting ready for boys camp the next week. 

There were a lot of errands and things to do in the morning. I went grocery shopping and bought food to get us to Tuesday when our fridge would FINALLY be delivered. 

One of the things I'd literally written on the to do list was to pick tomatoes and peppers in the garden. I'd seen them getting ripe whenever I watered, but I hadn't had time to pick them (or really anywhere to put them) So I made sure to do that on Saturday. It was quite an impressive looking harvest. 

In the afternoon Brandon,  the twins, and I went out to the theatre storage place to start painting the set. The cast had been out there on Thursday and had white washed the fence and a bunch of panels. It was now up to us to get the panels painted. Or rather it was up to Lydia. She started working on one of the panels and was producing the most beautiful painting with a sub par brush and like 5 colors. 

Charlotte and Brandon worked on putting caster wheels on the fences and panels. 

I started working on a panel (if anything mine is the mediocre one that encourages Lydia to keep going with her actual talent.)  But after about 10 minutes I had a text from Veronica to come home. Derrick was not doing well. 

So I rushed out of there. Derrick was having a migraine for the first time ever. Veronica was trying to help him, but he was really freaking out. So I came home and got that situation under control. Then I went back and picked up Brandon and the twins. 

Brandon and Charlotte made taco salad for dinner. At 6:30 we dropped Veronica off at Jori's and Brandon, the twins and me went to the Orpheum. Derrick's migraine was better and he was fine staying home alone for the evening. 

We were going to see Hadestown.  This is a tragedy and I knew Veronica's tender heart would be wrecked by the ending. So that's why she wasn't coming. And Derrick had hated the William Shakespeare comedy so there was no way I was taking him to this. But the rest of us were looking forward to it. Charlotte and Lydia had listened to the rehearsals during production camp and they said the singing was so pretty. Here we are in our seats before the show started. 

Charlotte and Lydia are wearing their production acadamy shirts that have their names on them. 

This show only had three performances and this was the last night. The theatre was completely sold out. People had been raving about it all week. Jori had taken her whole family to see it on Thursday and loved it so much that they all came back on Friday. This is her favorite musical and her kids have listened to the music a lot so even though they are all younger than Veronica they were more prepared for the tragedy than she would have been. 

Okay, I feel like I'm doing a terrible job talking about this musical. So let's go back to the beginning. At least my beginning. 

Jori told me about this play about a year ago. It's based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. I wasn't familiar with that myth so she told me that basic story. The couple is in love, but Eurydice dies. Orpheus travels to the Underworld to find her. When he is there Hades makes a deal with him. He can leave the Underworld with Eurydice, but they have to walk out single file. Eurydice will follow him out. If Orpheus turns around to check to see if she is still there she has to go back to the Underworld. 

And he does turn around. 

That sounded terrible. And also intriguing. Jori explained that it's impossible for him to not turn around. He loves her so much he had to check. But it's also so sad because then he loses her again. 

A little while after Jori told me about this I heard that the Ovation Teen group would be doing Hadestown for their summer intensive. I decided to not listen to the music from the play or read anything more about it. I wanted to go into this blind and experience it fresh. 

I'm so glad I did that because it was incredible. Everyone was so talented. I was completely blown away. 

Hermes is the narrator of the play. He starts the whole thing off telling you that it's a tragedy. Hermes was played by Preston Harmison.  He'd played Tommy Djilis (the kid who lights a fire cracker) in The Music Man. He'd been good in that. The next thing we saw him in was Jive. He was in Jive for a year. He was also good in that. Last November he played Laurie in Music Man. He'd been good in that too. But in each of these things he was Preston. It was like, "oh look there's Preston in that thing."

But in this show. In this show he WAS Hermes. I was shocking by his acting and his singing. 

Persephone is another character in the play. She was played by Tava McMurdie. I was first aware of Tava in the teen production of Decedents. She'd played Evie just as good as the actor in the Disney movie. Then I saw her in one of the lead roles in Crazy for You with Jump Company this summer. She was great in that role. She was equally great as Persephone. 

Andrew Williams as Hades was a complete surprise. I think I've seen him in Jive, but I'm not sure. He was so scary as Hades. So scary. He has a deep baritone voice. Much much much deeper than you'd expect in an 18 year old. I heard that the Teen edition is different from the original broadway version because some of the singing parts were adjusted for younger voices. But I also heard that this cast was so talented that they actually took the parts back to the broadway version. I'm sure that was referring to Andrew's vocal talents. 

Orpheus was played by Colin Duersch. Who apparently is cousins with Andrew who played Hades. His voice was on the other end of the spectrum. He was a high tenor. He played Orpheus with so much beautiful innocence. He also plays the guitar and learned the songs he needed to play while he sang. It was so lovely to hear him strumming the guitar and singing. 

Luxie Graham was Eurydice. ( I don't know why she didn't have her own character promo card.) She was the one I knew the most about going into this production. This was actually the third time I've seen one of Luxie's characters die in like the last 18 months.

She'd played Epinine in Jump Companies production of Les Mis last June. Then she was Beth in Little Women last November. And now she was Eurydice. She's an amazing singer and did such a good job in this play. During Act I she looked so cold and hungry and worried. I was so happy that I'd left Veronica home because Veronica would have been a mess from worrying about Eurydice even before she died.    

The other principle characters of the cast were three cruel fates. They harmonized so beautifully. Even when they were being so mean. I didn't know any of them, but they were amazing. 

The ensemble had so many people in it. Three of the teenagers from Cinderella were in it. Charlotte's dance partner from Music Man was in it. And so were a few other people we knew like Jarod's son and Ivan's daughter. They were all incredible too. 

The show had a steam punk vibe and all the costumes were done by my friends Diana and Rome. Everything was perfect. I think my favorite costume was Hermes top had. Rome made this. I loved it so much. 

The costumes and the lighting and the props and everything were great, but it was the music that makes this show into what it is. Every song was just wonderful. 

The main song is Wait for Me. Here is the link to it.  It's so beautiful. 

My favorite song was Why We Build the Wall. (This recording is NOT as good as in real life.) It was sung by Hades and was incredible. When it was over I leaded over to Brandon and whispered, "Holy Shit!" We have a couple different times when we say it's okay to swear. One is when you are having a baby at home. (Brandon swore when he saw Veronica crowning.) Another is when you do surgery on yourself. (In the Martian, Mark Whatney says the F word after doing surgery on himself and I'm always like, "Hey that's totally appropriate in that situation.") We have now added, "When you see an 18 year old Baritone completely chew up a song and spit it out and scare you to death in the process" as an appropriate time to swear. 

At intermission we went around talking to our friends and saying, "Oh wow this is so good over and over again."  

Act II was just as good as act one and then it was time for Orpheus and Eurydice to try to walk out of Hadestown. I knew it was coming. I knew what to expect. And yet, it was still such a gut punch when Orpheus turned around. I was like, "oh."

I didn't cry. I was determined not to cry. But it was so sad. 

Hermes comes back and reminds us that he told us it was a tragedy. And yet it's sung over and over again in the hope that maybe it will be different. I was starting to tear up through this part. The last line of the show is Hermes saying "And we'll sing it again."  And this is where I started crying because I knew they wouldn't sing it again. Yes, another cast would do this show. And maybe even some of these actors would do this show again. But THIS cast would never do THIS show again. This was the last night. Every principle character in this show has already graduated from High School. They are going off to college and missions in a few weeks. It will never be this show again. They won't sing it again. 

And so I cried for them because it was the last night. And they'd done such a good job and now it was over. 

The cast came out and did bows. Everyone got a standing ovation. 

And then they sang a final song. During intermission everyone in the audience had been given a red solo cup. The actors on stage had glass cups. We all raised our cups during this song. 

The song is called We Raise Our Cups:  And it is completely unfair and manipulative because this is where I started crying and couldn't stop. 

Pour the wine and raise a cup
Drink up, brothers, you know how
And spill a drop for Orpheus
Wherever he is now

Some birds sing when the sun shines bright
Our praise is not for them
But the ones who sing in the dead of night
We raise our cups to them

Wherever he is wandering
Alone upon the earth
Let all our singing follow him
And bring him comfort

Some flowers bloom
Where the green grass grows
Our praise is not for them
But the ones who bloom in the bitter snow
We raise our cups to them

We raise our cups and drink them up
We raise 'em high and drink 'em dry
To Orpheus and all of us
Goodnight, brothers, goodnight

I wasn't the only one crying. There was a lot of sniffling in the audience. There was also a lot of sniffles on stage. Luxie was completely breaking down. It was so emotional. 

Emily Johnson came on stage and did some shout outs and congratulated the cast. She was an emotional mess too. 

The cast ran out to the lobby and people started filing out. We knew we weren't getting out of there for a while so we talked with the people who were around. 

We picked up Veronica from Jori's. Or rather, Brandon picked her up. I stayed at Jori's and talked about the play and other things until 1:00. I was so happy she'd told me about this play. She said she'd started crying before it even started and then cried with happiness at how good it was the whole time. 

I came home at 1:00 and then slept in for a long time. We went to church and that was good. After church there was more sleeping. We were getting ready for another busy week. 

I'll tell you all about it in my next post. 

Thanks for reading. 

Summer Vacation 2025 - Week 8 - The Twins are driving

This week was kind of odd. The first half of the week wasn't very eventful. And the second half was super eventful. 

There was one common thread though. The twins now have their driver's permits so they can drive with me or Brandon in the car. Up until now I've been really nervous to drive with the twins. Part of the problem is that I'm just really anxious. I'm nervous when Brandon drives. And that guy can fly planes and helicopters. So to put a newly permitted driver into a car makes me incredibly nervous. 

The other problem is that the girls have experience with the little sedan sized drivers ed cars. They aren't as used to the big mini van and pilot. So I wouldn't drive with them until Brandon took them out in the bigger cars and got them used to them. 

And then I gradually started letting the girls drive with me. Overall it's actually been okay. But we learned that I can't be in the backseat if Brandon is in the passenger seat. I just feel too out of control. The one time we did it was AWFUL for everyone involved.

Anyway let's get talking about this week.

When I was at church on Sunday I picked up four donation envelopes. When we came home I had each kid take turns filling out their camp money donation slip with me. Charlotte and Lydia had earned the full $100 fee. But they hadn't been paid for one job yet so I wrote out a check to cover that last little portion. I showed them where to fill out the amounts for cash and check and we made sure it matched the total. (They will learn accounting techniques whether they want to or not.) Derrick and Veronica had each earned $40. So I wrote checks to cover the difference for them. I also had them fill it out. In other years I've just paid online, but since we had so much cash this year it made sense to actually fill out the donation slips so the kids could see how that works.  

Here are some pictures I took on Sunday evening. Derrick likes to go sit in the chicken coop. He likes the birds a lot. Before I took this picture one of the birds had been sitting in his lap.  

Here's a picture I took for Facebook. I was doing before and after picture to compare this July to last July. 

Here's the same area last July. A lot has changed. 

I took this picture to highlight the changes from this angle. But I just laughed because the sunflowers are so tall you can't even see anything. 

 Monday was kind of a funny day. Derrick was supposed to have Outdoor camp, but the office texted me and said that the lady in charge had food poisoning so they were moving it to run Tuesday- Friday instead of Monday-Thursday. 

Veronica was supposed to have her first day of physical therapy for her knees, but that office called me and said her therapist went home early so we rescheduled for Wednesday. 

So the day was a lot more open than it would have been. 

Lydia wanted to buy yarn at Hobby Lobby so she drove there with me. And Charlotte drove on the way back. 

Then Lydia crocheted this cute goat for Charlotte. She did this without a pattern. That girl is so talented. 

That evening Peyton came over for the first time in a while. She'd been on vacation in Washington with her mom. (That's where they are from and they go there every summer when Kerri is done with work.)  Her mom and dad are both in Much Ado About Nothing so they had rehearsal. I offered to take Payton to the pool with us because I knew she needs a break from the Orpheum every so often. So Peyton went to the pool with Derrick, Veronica, and me. 

Lydia wanted to stay home alone (and work on her goat.) Charlotte didn't want to swim either. She went to Lowes with Brandon and bought wood for the picket fences that are part of the Much Ado Set. 

On Tuesday I woke up early and watered my lawn and garden really well. I'm STILL watering the front yard with just a regular sprinkler. Our sprinkler system has been quite the saga. We got it all put in, but something is wrong with the pressure. 

Brandon ordered a special pressure thingy, but it took FOREVER to ship. When it did finally ship it was delivered to the wrong address. We got a package, but it was for a house down the street. When Brandon took the package to the correct house he saw another package for a different address sitting on their porch. And about three days later some guy came to our house with our real package that had been delivered to his house by mistake. So something was wrong with Fex Ex that day. (We reported it and I told the delivery guy about it and he said, "I take one day off and this is what happens!")

And after all of that Brandon opened the package and it was the wrong part. This one is for the wrong voltage or amps or something. So he had to call the company and they "opened an investigation."  That was like 2 weeks ago. He followed up with them on Friday and the customer service guy he talked to said, "Oh I don't know why nothing has been done with that."

So at this rate I should have a working sprinkler system in November.

In the meantime I'm forced to water areas for 20 minutes at a time and then drag the sprinkler to another area. It's a pain, but it works. 

Brandon and I had switched vehicles for the day so I could take the pilot in for an oil change. I took it over to Jiffy Lube right at 8:00 and was the second person there. I think I drove out of there at 8:25. 

Derrick had to be at Outdoor Camp at 10:30 and so I had some time that morning to work on a tricky billing thing for Gaining Perspective. I had to make three phone calls, but in the end I think I figured it out. That felt really good. 

Veronica and I took Derrick to Outdoor Camp and dropped him off. Then we went and did a massive grocery shopping trip. It was the type of trip where we first bought all the bulky non perishable stuff like laundry soap and toilet paper. We took that to the car and then went back for small perishable food. We picked up Derrick at 12:00 and came home and all the kids helped bring the food in and put it away. 

Then I went to work. I was supposed to be there at 12:00 for our admin meeting. But obviously that didn't happen. It was fine though. 

I was at work for a long time. When I got home Brandon wasn't there because he was at CSI. We've started calling these "fend for yourselves" nights because I just can't be bothered to make dinner when Brandon isn't around. (Making dinner when Brandon is around is pretty iffy too. He usually makes dinner.)

Charlotte had been working on a lego house for several days.

 It was done and had the cutest accessories. Here is the kitchen.   

The bedroom.

Another view of the kitchen with the stairs. 

And the living room.

The kids talked me into going to Dierkies Lake. Lydia drove there and Charlotte drove back. On the way there. I realized that oops, we were in Brandon's car which doesn't have a Dierkies lake pass. So we had to pay the $5 entrance fee. But it was worth it because the kids swam for over 2 hours and I just sat there and read. 

Wednesday morning I was up at 6:00 with the twins. I took them and Addy to Tubbs Berry Farm for work. Then I went to Aspen Grove for about two hours and Castle Therapy for about 15 minutes. Ivan was out of town on his ward's high adventure, so there wasn't much for me to do. 

I went home and picked up Derrick and then we went out to the farm to get the girls. We dropped off the twins, then Addy, and then I dropped Derrick off at Outdoor Camp. Then I hurried home and got ready for Scripture study. 

Originally I'd planned to continue to host my scripture study group every other week all summer long. But when I saw how much each week differed from each other I realized that I would be miserable trying to keep up that routine. So I decided to just do one meeting for the summer. 

And even that was tricky. Outdoor camp was supposed to happen in June, but it was moved to July because no one else signed up for the June session. And then it was supposed to be in the afternoon, but they realized it would be to hot so they moved it to the morning. And suddenly that meant that I was starting Scripture study at 11:00 and had to be done at 11:45 in order to pick Derrick up at 12:00.

This is when I decided that I LOVE the fact the twins have been doing drivers ed because next summer THEY WILL BE ABLE TO DRIVE ON THEIR OWN. Next summer they will be able to drive Derrick and Veronica to random middle of the day stuff. But in the meantime, I'm stuck as the sole taxi driver during the day. 

So scripture study was 45 minutes for the whole summer. But it was still really good. Jori came and all four of her kids played in the basement. Rachel came too. And Diantha attended via zoom. We discussed the book "Crossings" by Melissa Inouye. It was the perfect summer read. Melissa was an LDS scholar. She passed away from cancer last year. She was first diagnosed in something like 2017. Her children were really small so she wanted to leave them a collection of her writings. That idea evolved into a book. It's a collection of her essays, lectures, emails about cancer, and her yearly newsletters - with little doodles in the margins. We all loved the book so it was fun to talk about. 

At 11:45 I left to get Derrick. I told Jori and Rachel to stay as long as they wanted. I thought they would be gone by the time I got back, but they were still there!  So that was great. We all talked and updated each other about life. At some point Jori and Rachel remembered that Jori still needed to pierce Rachel's ears. 

So Jori ran home and got her supplies and pierced Rachel's ears right in my living room. That was exciting to be a part of. 

And then we talked and talked and talked and all of a sudden it was 1:20 and I needed to make sure Veronica was ready for physical therapy at 2:00 so we all started saying goodbye and Jori rounded up her kids. It had been a great time together. 

I took Veronica to physical therapy. I was little on the fence about this whole thing and honestly I was kind of hoping she would have a terrible time. But she ended up having a super fun time. We go to a business that is almost aggressively friendly. The staff is like SUPER encouraging and will talk to Veronica the whole time. She LOVES the attention.  And at the end they had her sit with something warm on her knees and she liked that too. She said it was really relaxing. 

I'd been super tired while I was waiting for Veronica so I took a nap as soon as we were home. It was a good nap and I was in a really good mood the rest of the evening. Brandon came home from work and made pizza for dinner. I put on our fun play list of songs and we all listened to that. 

The girls didn't have Young Women's. (The Young Women's president's oldest son was getting married that weekend so that effectively cancelled the activities for everyone.) I took them all secret sister shopping at Walmart. We'd premade the lists of what they were going to buy so we just had to go in and find the things. 

Brandon took Derrick to Young Mens which was some sort of equipment check for the High Adventure part of Boys Camp. They are having all the young men start out together at a Base Camp of sorts. Then the priests and teachers will go on an overnight hike for 2 or 3 nights while the younger (and less inclined to hike) boys stay behind. Brandon is in charge of keeping the base camp boys busy. 

I thought Brandon was going to stay at the activity, but he came home and worked on the fence for Much Ado. When I came home with the girls I helped sand the boards down while he worked on screwing them onto the fence.

Here I am sanding. 

And here is the first fence. 

And the second. 

Also, here's a picture of my tomato plants. They are doing well and starting to have ripe tomatoes. 

Thursday was busy as usual. It started with watering. Then I went to Castle Therapy and met up with Ivan. He was back from his High Adventure and we were catching up on stuff. 

When I was done with that I came back home for more watering while also emailing Cassy about Gaining stuff. We'd decided not to have an in person meeting this week because it was too crazy with outdoor camp.  

At 10:30 I dropped Derrick off at Outdoor camp and went to work for about 80 minutes. Then I picked up Derrick and we went home. 

I helped Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica start packing for girls camp. They were going out of town for the weekend so we needed to pack for Girls Camp and also pack for the weekend. It was easiest to start with the girls camp stuff. Charlotte and Lydia found most of their stuff on their own, but Veronica needed help tracking down some things. 

I'd ordered camping backpacks for Derrick and Veronica. They were supposed to show up that day. Well, Derrick's did. But Veronica's wouldn't come until Tuesday. That was disappointing for her. But Derrick let her borrow his. 

I'm always so happy when we are packing for things like this and the kids have their own sleeping bag. I didn't have my own sleeping bag until college. Every year for girls camp I'd have to borrow one. Sometimes I don't know what I'm doing as a parent, but knowing my kids have camp gear helps me feel like I'm doing something right. 

At 3:00 the girls had to be at Production Camp. I dropped them off at the Orpheum. They worked on spray painting their lamps. (Lydia later showed us her spray paint circle in the alley behind the Orpheum.)

And when I was back stage on Friday I saw the lamps hanging high above the stage. These will be props in Hadestown next week. 

I went to work and stayed there for a really long time. I was planning to work very reduced hours while the girls were at camp so I was trying to get ahead of a few things. I was there until 5:30 and even my boss Michael left before I did. 

Brandon had dinner ready when we got home and we ate that and then got ready to go to the Orpheum to see The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] (again). 

At this point I had seen the show from back stage three times during tech rehearsal and one time during a real performance. I was excited to see it for real. And I was really excited for the kids to see it. 

I took these pictures while we were waiting. These are very, very misleading. Derrick looks happy while Veronica looks indifferent. 

And Lydia looks miserable, while Charlotte looks like she's smiling just to make me happy. 

In reality, all three girls LOVED the play while Derrick was miserable. I'm not sure what his deal was. He'd had kind of an off day. He hadn't talked to me much on the way to Outdoor camp. And at camp he'd been laying down and saying he was tired. So maybe he wasn't feeling well?

Also the play takes a little bit to get going with the zany stuff. It starts out with the actors just talking and they sound like boring adults. If you get the jokes you know they are saying really funny stuff, but if you are a 13 year old boy who had been promised physical comedy - well you feel like you're in the middle of a bait and switch. 

Derrick was NOT happy at all. He shut his eyes and missed the part where they have a "three stooges" type fight. And then he was getting agitated. 

I was thankful that I already had four nights of experience with this play, because if this was my only chance to see it I would have been pretty annoyed. But as it was, I was willing to be pretty patient with him. I tried moving with him to the back of the theatre to see if that helped. It did a bit, but he was pretty determined not to enjoy the show. 

Here are some pictures I stole from Facebook. Diana took these during one of the tech rehearsals. 

This is Tyler, Jen, and Tim in Romeo and Juliet. 

 

Here's Jen reading from the book while Tim is Juliet and Tyler is Romeo. 

Jen as the Friar and Tim as Juliet. 


Here's Jen doing Titus Andronicus - as a cooking show. She's wearing an apron that says, "Mrs Lovett's Pie Shop" which is a reference to Sweeny Todd.  

And here is Tim as Lavina. The cooking show is demonstrating how to cook someone and turn them into a pie. I'm not sure how much of this actually happens in this play. I honestly didn't even know about this play until this show. 

Here is Tim doing Othello, but he was confused about what a Moor. He googled it and thought it was a place where you dock boats. So you can see all the little boats on his chest. 

And here is the segment where they do all the historical plays as a football game with the crown getting passed all over the place. 


Derrick didn't make it to that part. I wanted him to stay around until Tim came out in a Godzilla head during Troilus and Cressida. (It's not supposed to make sense.) I figured if Godzilla didn't snap Derrick out of his mood nothing would. And unfortunately Godzilla didn't help. 

I knew that if Derrick didn't enjoy the madcap dash through 36 of Shakespeares plays in Act I - he was not going to appreciate Act II that focused on Hamlet. So I took him home. Again - I was so happy that this wasn't my only chance to enjoy this show. 

I dropped Derrick off and was back at the theatre before intermission was over. I was able to check in with the other kids who were having a BLAST. Lydia said she was laughing so hard she couldn't see because her eyes were shut. I'd been hearing Veronica laugh her guts out all night. She thought everything was funny. Charlotte and Brandon were also loving it. 

Act II was so much fun. Act I ends with Tim refusing to do Hamlet and running off. Jen chases after him and Tyler is left on stage to fill time. Act II starts with Tyler still on stage and no sign of Tim and Jen. They come back and Tim is now Pshyched to do Hamlet. He leads everyone in a cheer where he spells out H-E-L-M-E-T. And then says, "Yeah, I've got to go get my helmet."

When he comes out on stage he is wearing non other than Brandon's French Taunter Helmet. (In it's second cameo appearance of the year.) There are two Tim's in Magic Valley Rep. "Little Tim" was the one on stage. "Big Tim" happened to be in the audience this night. Big Tim is who directed Spamalot. As soon as Big Tim saw that helmet he laughed and cheered loudly. My family was also going crazy for that helmet. 

Act II was so fun without having to worry about anything back stage. When things go crazy at the end with Tim switching between Ophelia, Gertrude, and Claudius I was like, "Oh this is actually kind of slow from this perspective." It was still crazy, but as a passive observer it was nothing like the sheer terror that is going on back stage. 

The show ended and we took time to talk to friends and the actors. Our friend Crayson had been there and had a high pitched giggle through most of the show. Our acquaintance/friends Ryker and Natalie had been right behind us. Ryker and Brandon talked for a while and somehow got on the subject of Sweeny Todd. Ryker mentioned he was building the set. Brandon was like, "How are you doing the chair?"  And somehow that turned into Brandon being added to the set crew. Ryker was like, "I'm happy to design the set, but I don't want to build it."  And Brandon was like, "say no more!" So that's on our plate now too, but Brandon's really really happy about it. 

We went home and spent the rest of the evening talking about all the funny parts. Ironically, Derrick loved to hear about how silly the play was. Veronica would say, "and then Tim pretended to throw up all over the audience!"  And Derrick would laugh and laugh. But when he was RIGHT THERE WATCHING IT HAPPEN he'd refused to crack a smile. 

Autism is weird guys. 

Anyway, Derrick is not going to any shows at the Orpheum for the forseable future. I wasn't really planning on it anyway, because shows like Hadestown, Much Ado, and Godspell would be boring and Sweeny Todd is inappropriate. But now I feel really good about leaving him home for those shows. 

The next one I'd even remotely consider trying to get him to see would be Anastasia. But that's not until March. 

And here we are on Friday. Derrick was supposed to have his last outdoor camp, but he told me he didn't want to go and he was so out of sorts and I wasn't going to force that on the poor therapists. Plus that meant I could go to work without having to stop what I was doing and come home and get him. 

So I went to work for about three hours and then came home and helped the kids with last minute packing. 

Brandon had been going into work an hour early all week long so he could get off four hours early on Friday. He was home around 11:30. He was taking his nephew Bryson camping in the Uintah in Utah. Bryson's dad doesn't like to camp so Brandon takes Bryson every year for Uncle Brandon Camp. The kids were all going down to Utah with him. But they weren't going to Uncle Brandon Camp. They were going to stay at Steve and Jacque's. On Sunday Brandon's other nephew Wally had his mission homecoming. So the kids were going to be there for that. 

Originally, I was also part of this trip to Utah. I'd briefly thought about visiting my sister Emily and my parents on Saturday. But I heard the siren call of the play before any plans were made. So Brandon and I decided that I'd stay home in Idaho, and help with the play while he took the kids to Utah. 

The plan then evolved a little further. All three girls were going to camp on Monday. I realized that this would be a good - and perhaps only - chance to get the kitchen walls sanded and painted. Sanding the walls would make a lot of dust so we wanted to put plastic up all over the kitchen and seal off the doorways, but that was crazy to do with the kids all home.  If three of them at camp it would be less crazy. And if we found somewhere for Derrick to go that would make things even more convenient. 

Brandon asked his parents if he could leave Derrick with them for the week. They agreed. So suddenly I was committed to getting the kitchen done while the kids were all gone. I planned to work very reduced hours so I could focus on the kitchen. 

So Brandon took the kids and I stayed home and prepped the kitchen for sanding and painting. Also in the middle of all the last minute packing on Friday we realized our fridge and freezer weren't working. Veronica had actually noticed something was wrong on Thursday morning. She's been eating cereal and asked, "Is this milk warmer than usual?"  And I was like, "Someone must have left it out."

But on Friday I opened the freezer and noticed that all the frozen bananas and peaches were thawed out and leaking out of their baggies. Everything was thawing out. 

This wasn't great, but in a way it was perfect timing. I was the only one home so it was okay to not have a fridge. I ended up living out of a cooler and the deep freezers for the weekend. And I was going to move the fridge to paint behind it anyway. Now we could move it out, paint, and then put a new one in. 

As soon as the kids and Brandon left I made a big todo list for myself for the weekend. One of the first priorities was cleaning out the freezer and the fridge.   

I threw away a lot of stuff. (Food we should have probably thrown away anyway.) I put all the bananas and peaches into the compost. The chickens got the peas and blue berries that were thawing out and a cabbage that I'd forgot I bought like a month ago. (One reason I love chickens is they can eat the veggies that I let sit in the fridge a little long.)

Thankfully we have two freezers that aren't connected to our fridge. One is in the basement and one is in the garage. I moved a lot of food to those freezers. 

And then I took a nap because all of that was A LOT. 

In the early evening I let Charlotte's little chickens out of the coop. I tried to get good pictures of them.  

Here is Raspberry and Seed. Raspberry is the red one. Charlotte says she is the friendlies of the new chickens. Seed is the one with the lace patterns. I always tell Charlotte, "When I was a kid chickens were just brown. I had no idea they could have designs like this." 

This is Sunny. She is a Silky. They are so funny looking. 

And here's one of the original chickens. This is Rosy. She's a Rhode Island Red. 

This is Ginga' (Like Ginger with a Britsh Accent. Derrick named her after the main chicken in Chicken Ru) and . . . shoot I can't remember that other chickens name. I'd filled up the water dispensers by putting the hose in the coop and it left a big puddle. There were lots of bugs around that water and these two chickens loved scratching to find them.  

At 5:30 I started getting ready to go to the theatre. I took a shower and pulled up my hair. I don't like my bangs in my face when I'm back stage so I make sure to secure them tightly. Then I make myself a quesadilla. This is something I did during Cinderella. It's my favorite thing to eat before a show because it fills me up and I stay full. 

At 6:15 I drove over to the theatre. I arrived at the same time at Chris and Karin (pronounced like Corrine.) They had been back stage Thursday night and planned to help again that night. But that meant there would have been 5 of us and we didn't need 5. So they ended up watching the show. They said it was so fun to see what the actors out of the back stage sight lines. I was like, "Yeah, It was so great to finally see the things that make the audience laugh."

I was on Stage Right. Elleree was on Stage Left. And Delaney was bouncing back and forth helping as needed. I was a little nervous because I hadn't done this since Saturday night. But I remembered most of it. 

I took this picture with some of the costumes. The pink dress is Gertrude. The red cap is Claudius. And the white smock is Lavinia. 

That night we started a tradition at intermission that became one of my favorite parts of the show. When Tim comes back from running off he's eating candy. Tim had a bag of M&M's as a prop for this. He wanted it to be mostly empty, but didn't want to eat the whole thing. So he went around back stage handing out M&M's to everyone. I always really liked my little handful of M&Ms during intermission. 

After the show was over the cast went out to eat at O'Dunkin's which is like three store fronts down from the Orpheum. They invited us back stage helpers along. So Chris and Karin and I went over there first. I liked hanging out with them. I first "met" them at the Rupert Theatre when my family sat behind them during the Play that Goes Wrong. I had no idea I'd consider them good friends just 18 months later. 

Karin was a professional opera singer until a few years ago. Chris was in the Airforce. They met in Germany years ago and Karin pulled Chris into the world of theatre. He's really good at building sets. (He built the Cinderella set) And I found out that he's sewing all the costumes for the musical that Karin is directing called Hello Girls.

I love talking with them. Chris also had vitiligo so we were comparing light splotches. I told him that lately I've been joking that I'm "the chosen one" and a treasure map is slowing appearing on my skin. He liked that joke. 

Soon we were joined by Tyler, Jen, Elleree, Brendon, Tim, and another actor Curtis. We all talked and talked. People were talking about what shows they had been in together. Brendon said he's never been on stage with Tim or me. At the same time Tim and I both said, "We were in a show together!"  Tim played Sebastian in Cinderella. Later I realized that Tim has been involved in everything I've done at the Orpheum. He was in Cinderella. He was the Emcee at the Curtain Call Awards. And now we were doing Shakespeare. 

The evening was so fun. I like the whole play part of theatre, but the after parties are a really nice perk. 

I made it home a little before 11:00. I made sure all the chickens were in bed and locked the coop up for the night. Then read a little and went to sleep. 

And here were are on Saturday. There were four main things for Saturday.

1. Water

2. Clean out the kitchen

3. Errands

4. The play

And I got them all done. 

Here's the kitchen looking very empty. I moved the table and the microwave stand into the living room. 

I took everything off the top of the cupboards. 

I went to Lowes and started trying to figure out paint colors. Most of the kitchen will be a neutral bluish grey. But I have an idea for pops of color. The colors come from the color scheme for the dining hall at Canyon Village in Yellowstone. In 2017 it was redone with a 60 vibe. Since our house was built in the 60's I want to lean into that a little. Also I have no plans to replace or even refinish our orange cabinets. So I figure we need to play into that orange. Here's my wall of color ideas. 

One of the errands I ran was to get a haircut. I had about 3 inches of really damaged hair from the last time my sister Hillary bleached my hair. I had that cut off and my hair is so much healthier. Here's how I looked after my shower before I pulled my bangs back. 

I went through my pre-show quesadilla and other routines and was back at the theatre at 6:30. Saturday night might have been my most favorite show. It was Elleree, Delaney, and me back stage again. We had everything down to a science. This was the night that all the crazy costume changes during Hamlet felt slow to me while I was doing them. 

And the crowd was awesome. There were a lot of magic valley rep people out there because there was a get together after this show so they were having a great time. It was a really good night. 

After the show I went out to say hi to my friends. Sara, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, other Rachel, Rylee, and a bunch of others were there. They were all staying for the after party. 

If this was a musical we'd all be going out to the Redhawk for 4th Wall Night. But it wasn't a musical. So instead we were staying at the Orpheum for the first ever Improve night. Brendan asked a few of the improve people from the community to come and anyone else could sign up to participate. Most of us just watched. It was a hilarious evening with stuff that I can't explain. 

I'd thought the party would last until 12:00 like 4th Wall night does. So I'd had an energy drink at 2:00. But the party actually ended at 10:00 and I was left feeling VERY ALERT. 

I came home and ate ice cream and then talked to Brandon on the phone. He'd had a great time camping with Bryson. They had been rained on, but still had a fun time.  

And here are are to Sunday. I spent a lot of the morning sitting on the patio working on Exponent Guest posts. At 8:30 Brandon called me and we both got on Lowe's website and picked out a new fridge together. I HATE spending money on a fridge because they are super boring. Like, there is nothing fun about a fridge. But considering this is the first fridge we've ever had to buy in 18 years of marriage - I guess that's okay. 

I went to church at 12:00, but only stayed for Sacrament meeting because I had to be at the Orpheum at 1:30. The matinee show started at 2:00. I've decided I don't like matinee's because they mess with my nap schedule and my quesadilla time. 

But once I was back in the theatre I was back in the zone. Chris and Karin were there to help. Chris was on Stage Right with me. He helped a lot during Act I, but stepped back for Act II. I was on my own and it went just fine! 

I found myself feeling sad after every costume change. When Cinderella ended I'd been relieved. Her dresses were so complicated that I was happy when we were done with them for the last time. But this time I was like, "No, I wish that wasn't the last time I pulled the bloody socks off Tim's hands." I really wish this show ran for another weekend. 

During Act I Tim throws a dummy during the football scene. Then it comes back stage again and we wrap it up in a blanket and tie twine around it to look like a dead body. They use it to represent Ophelia during Hamlet. 

We've done a lot of funny stuff with that dummy and I thought it would be funny to go outside and take an alley picture with it. Alley pictures are a tradition at the Orpheum for big casts. I was like, "Oh this will be hilarious."

But as soon as I turned my front facing camera on I was like, "Oh shoot, this looks like a real body."  And a truck was coming down the alley and I just knew this looked strange - even for Orpheum alley standards. So I took the picture and hurried back inside. 

I didn't plan to post the picture, but it ended up so goofy that I put it on Facebook with the caption: 

That awkward moment when you are taking "funny" pictures with the dummy you wrapped in a shroud, but you realize how realistic it actually looks and you start to panic that the people driving down the alley think you really wrapped up a person.

And all too soon the show was over. I was not ready to say goodbye so I hung around to help with the clean up - and to take pictures. 

One of my favorite elements of the show are the book cases. They start off empty except for a copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. As the actors bring on and use different props they put them on the shelves. Not all the props end up on the shelves, but most of them do. 

This is the middle book shelf. It has the book that is placed up there at the end. The swords from Hamlet, the Laurel leaves from Julius Caesar. The bush from Macbeth. The Masks from the mash up of all the comedies. The pie from Titus Andronicus. The robot from Troilus and Cressida. The puppets from the play within a play in Hamlet. the ukule from Romeo and Juliet. And the bowl of blood and the knife from Titus Andronicus. 

This is the book case on Stage Right. The top has the godzilla head and the dinosaur from Troilus and Cressida. Then there is Tim's wig from when he plays an audience member at the beginning of the play. Next to that is the helmet of Hamlet's ghost father. Then there is the crown which is used like three times. The cups of water are from every time Ophelia downs herself. (They do Hamlet three times and get progressively faster and then to it backwards.)

Then there is a maniqun head that Tim whacks into the audience with a golf club during Macbeth (Doing an accent like Scrooge Macduck.) Then there's a sweat towel, and a flag and whistle for the football crown part.  Anne Boleyn's head and a book are on the next shelf. I'm not sure what is behind the book. Maybe one of the poison bottles? Maybe a flower? The bottom shelf has the scripts for the comedy play mash up.  

And here's the book case on stage left. The chainsaw is from Titus Andronicus. OOB is from when they run Hamlet backwards. (All the actors signed it and put it up somewhere after the show.) Then there are more masks from the comedies, The skull from hamlet, Romos's rose, Cleopatra's asp, and a bunch of wigs, (I think they are Romeo, Laertes, Cleopatra, and Cressida.) Oh and Tim's boats from the moor scene. 

And here I am with a costume - The French Taunter Helmet. I made sure to bring that home. 

I helped lay all the costumes out on the chairs to dry. Not only did Tim get the Ophelia dress really wet, everyone was also sweating like crazy. So yeah, these needed some time to air out. I put all the wigs on the next row. There were so many wigs. Juliet, Lavinia, Cleopatra, Cressida, Ophelia, and Gertrude each had there own wig. There were also wigs for Tim as an audience member, Romeo, the nurse, Laertes, and a wig for Claudius' beard.  

There was no cast party because the three cast members were pretty tired. I joked they needed to do the shawarma scene at the end of the first Avengers movie.  

And then Brendon was like, "that's a wrap" and it was over. And it was sad, but also good. I'd been so honored to be part of this show. It really was the highlight of my summer. I'm so glad I made this a priority. 

I came home and about an hour later Brandon and the girls came home. They were all surprised by how empty the kitchen was. We had a nice evening and then went to bed. 

And tomorrow things are really crazy. It's the first day of Girls camp, but it's also the set building day for Charlotte and Lydia's production camp. So Veronica is going to camp with the main group at 9:00. Charlotte and Lydia are going to the Orpheum to build the set for 4 hours. Then I'm driving them up to camp. And after I get home I'm going to start working on the kitchen. 

I'll tell you all about it next week. 

Thanks for reading.