Summer Vacation - Week 10 - The Set: Part 1

AHHHHHHHHHH I'm behind and I'm stressed about it. So we are just going to jump right into recapping the last few weeks. 

Basically the last two weeks were dominated by one thing - THE SET. Dun Dun Dun. Specifically the set for the Shakespeare play, "Much Ado About Nothing." Or as I called it, "Much Ado About Much Ado."

Everything turned out okay in the end. But my goodness this set was a big stressor for a while. 

Back at the beginning of July I was like, "Hey Brandon, you going to work on the set yet?"  And he was like, "oh maybe someday."  And then all of a sudden it was the end of July and Brandon had a few too many commitments and guess who ended up overseeing the majority of the work on the set? Me. And I was mostly okay with that. But also a little annoyed because there was a lot of time in early July that some of this work could have been done.  

One of the big problems was the Brandon was leaving for FIVE DAYS. He'd been asked to help with the boys camp. (Yes I know it's call High Adventure. But as long as every one persists in calling the Young Women Camp "girls camp" I will be calling the Young Men Camp "boys camp.")

Our ward was doing a really cool thing this year. All the Young Men were going to camp together on the first night. Then the older boys would leave on a three day backpacking trip. The younger boys would stay behind at the base camp. Brandon was in charge of entertaining those younger boys while the big boys were off on their adventure. 

And Brandon came PREPARED! He had little totes full of activities like everything they needed for fire starting. Or learning first aid. Or building shelters with ropes. He also packed everything he could think of needing. This is what the back of the Pilot looked like when he was finished packing it on Tuesday. 

It was actually kind of a relief when Brandon and Derrick finally left. It had felt like Brandon was packing forever! So it was good to know that was done. 

Another problem with the set was that Lydia didn't quite seem motivated at first. Back when we first found out how much painting would be involved in this set I'd been like, "sure Lydia can handle that."  But now that it was time to paint the set I wasn't so sure. She kept getting distracted by so many other things. 

Like I came home from work on Tuesday and I was like "hey we need to go paint the set at 3:00 like you and I agreed on." and she's like, "Oh I'm in the middle of a sewing project. Can we go in an hour?"

AHHHHHHHH. 

So Charlotte and I went to the Orpheum and picked up more paint and then went to Walmart to get supplies for the stained glass window and then we came back to get Lydia. 

She had been working on another dragon. Here she is posing with it in a pile of the bodies of other dragons. The one she was working on is the pale one in the middle. 

Anyway, so we FINALLY make it out to the Curry building where the flats were being stored. We'd been out here on Saturday and Brandon had brought the kids on Monday. Lydia went to work painting. 

Here's the one she'd finished earlier. 

Charlotte worked on cutting out and then gluing tissue paper squares onto wax paper to make a stained glass window. 

Here's my panel. It was VERY much a work in progress. I was only working on it because seeing my terrible attempts motivated Lydia in her amazingness.

We listened to an episode of the Big Flop and that was fun. We were there about 90 minutes. When we were done we went to Smiths and bought ice cream. We ate it at home with Veronica who had stayed home to watch a movie. 

Wednesday ended up being a day of SO MUCH DRIVING. I took the girls out to Tubbs Berry Farm in the morning. They were doing a lot with clipping garlic and Lydia ended up getting sick from the smell. So she called me to pick her up early. And then I was back out there to get Charlotte and Addie. When I picked them up they smelled very strongly of garlic. 

Veronica had Physical therapy in the afternoon. And after that we were back to working on the set. I'd been hoping that the panels would be moved to the Orpheum by this point. But they were not. So we were back out to Curry. 

Veronica came with and helped paint this panel brown. It was going to be a door. (Though later it basically all got painted greyish brown. 

Here's my panel getting better. 

Somehow I didn't get a picture of what Lydia and Charlotte were up to. I actually spent the last 30 or so minutes washing out brushes. The Curry building doesn't have running water. I'd been bringing our big cooler of water out there. I'd kind of perfected washing out brushes with the water from that cooler. 

The flats were getting moved, but Alexandra said Jared probably wouldn't grab the paint. So we put all the paint and brushes in the back of the van. There were a bunch of rollers that had paint stuck on them from when the cast painted things white the week before. I took those rollers home and got them washed out and rehabilitated. 

Then we went to McDonalds for soft serve ice cream. Lydia was driving so she learned how to order at the drive through. I'm thinking of making a list of things the girls need to learn to do as they are getting their driving hours. Things like drive throughs, the bank, tricky parking lots. 

Thursday was another big driving day. Charlotte really liked trimming garlic so she was interetested in going back for an extra work day on Thursday. So at 7:00 I dropped her off at the berry farm and then went to walmart. Then I went to work. At 10:00 I picked her back up. In two days I'd driven to and from the Berry Farm FIVE TIMES. 

I'd planned to go to work at Aspen Grove. But my brother Billy was driving down from Canada and stopping in Twin Falls for a while. He wasn't sure on the exact time. So it was just easier to work from home. So I worked from home. 

And almost as soon as I was done he arrived. It was fun to see him and Becca and their kids William and Clara. The first thing William did was tell me, "I'm five!"

He and Clara liked all of our toys. They stayed for about 45 minutes and then kept driving to Utah. 

We went back to working on the set. And we were finally at the Orpheum which is closer to our house and had running water. Oh the luxury. 

My friend Jori was interested in working on the set, but the times we were working on it meant she would have to bring her kids. I told her not to worry about helping the days we were at Curry. It would NOT be fun. And then she was busy on Thursday. But actually it's good she couldn't help on Thursday because not all of the stuff had been brought over. There was barely enough for the four of us to work on. I ended up going home to find more glue sticks for Charlotte and I took Veronica home because she'd already done everything there was. 

Here's another one of Lydia's panels. 

In the time it took her to do three panels I was still working on my one. Veronica had helped me paint the grass at the bottom. 

Here's Charlotte hard at work on her stained glass window. 

This was the last day we'd be working on the set. It was no where near done, and the next week was tech week. I was really wishing we could have been done by tech week, but that just wasn't possible. 

We stopped at Smiths and bought drumstick ice cream. (There was a lot of ice cream involved to keep Lydia focused on this project and not distracted by other things.)

Back at home I watered my garden really well because I would be skipping the Saturday watering. There were birds all over the sunflowers while I was watering. 

The birds LOVE to eat the seeds. And I love to see them. 

We started packing for our weekend away. Brandon wouldn't be home until Saturday. A few weeks earlier I'd asked my sister Emily if we could visit while Brandon and Derrick were out of town. She invited us along on a backpacking trip to Wall Lake. She was organizing this with a bunch of other moms and any kids over age 8. 

Charlotte and Lydia have been backpacking with Brandon so they were excited. They were also experts and packing their bags. We were trying to convince Veronica to go, but ultimately she decided she'd rather stay at Emily's. That ended up being a good decision because the backpack that Brandon had left for me broke and I needed to use Veronica's backpack.  

I ran to Walmart (again) to buy a sleeping pad for the girls and I to share. We were all going to share the twins tent, but we realized we had nothing to sleep on. So I went to get something. (We were running rather low on our camping supplies because Brandon had a lot of them and he'd loaned other supplies to a friend who was backpacking with his son. 

While I was gone Charlotte expertly packed all our food into ziplock bags. She even wrapped ears of corn in tin foil. I was so grateful for all the training Brandon has done with these girls. 

On Friday I went to work for a few hours and then came home and we packed up the car. We drove down to Utah and arrived at Emily's around 2:30. 

We moved our bags over to her van. Veronica stayed home with Titus, Vance, and Juniper. Emily drove us and Hazel in her van. Asher would come with his friend and his friend's mom. And Bridger had his own campout with the boys in his ward. 

Emily drove us to Kamas. We met up with two other moms at a gas station. Then we all caravaned to the Wall Lake Trail Head. The parking lot was full so we unloaded our bags and I stayed with the kids and the bags while Emily and the other two drivers took their cars to an overflow parking and then walked back. 

Here are Charlotte and Lydia waiting. 

We started out on what we thought was the trail. But realized it was wrong. 

This is the correct trail. 

I was in the back because I am a really slow hiker. Emily and I had been telling everyone how easy this trail was. Turns out it wasn't quite as level and easy as we'd been talking it up to be. I was so glad Veronica had stayed behind. She would have been miserable. 

This was my first back packing trip since 2009. That trip had also been to Wall Lake. Brandon and I had gone with Bryan and Kara before any of us had kids.  Actually, all my back packing trips involved Wall Lake. I'd gone past this lake three years in a row as part of the girls camp 4th year hike. 

We made it to Wall Lake and Emily's friend Savannah saw us and yelled at us so we knew where she was. She was already up there with two of her friends. She came over and then walked with us to show us where she'd saved us a bunch of spots. Here's the view of "The Wall" from our campsite. 

Charlotte and Lydia and I started putting up our tent. 

Here's the little "Hobbit Village" we ended up with. Ours is the Orange tent. Emily's is the blue one. 

Here's another view of the lake. 

Charlotte lit a fire and then cooked our corn on the cob in the coals. It was so fun to camp with just Charlotte and Lydia. They were so competent. I felt like I was camping with friends instead of my kids. 

When it got dark Emily and I taught everyone how to sing the Spiders Web song. We did amazing singing it together considering we probably haven't sung it together in like 20 years. We also sang the Misty Song. 

Then we went to bed. I was really worried about being cold - especially since my big fluffy sleeping bag didn't fit in my backpack. I'd brought my old college sleeping bag that no longer has a zipper. We don't even consider it part of the camping stuff anymore. It's the porch blanket. 

To make up for the sub par sleeping bag I'd brought Brandon's long john thermal underwear he got in the army. I also had wool socks. And I had a stick on body warmer. All that stuff helped keep me warm. It also helped that the weather wasn't that cold. I don't think it went below freezing or really below 40 all night. It was probably the warmest I've EVER been in the Unitahs. 

But I wasn't exactly comfortable. The biggest problem was my neck. I didn't have a pillow. I was just sleeping with a wadded up blanket. And that was not enough support. My neck hurt so bad all night. Rolling over was excruciating. 

But all things considered it was a good night. I was warm, I was dry, and my hips didn't dig into the dirt. 

In the morning I got out my little camp stove (the same one I'd brought with in 2009) and heated up water for oatmeal and hot chocolate. 

Emily and the other moms jumped in the lake. I didn't bring enough clothes for that so I didn't jump in. But it looked fun.

We didn't quite have enough water for the rest of the day so we used iodine tablets to purify lake water. We packed up our stuff and got ready to leave. But we weren't ready to go back to our cars yet. Instead we left our bags at the trailhead and hiked up to what I'd always been told was the Twin Lakes. (Though when we got up there there was just one lake, so now I feel like that might have been a lie.) 

This is where we always came for the 4th year hike. I came here when I was in my 6th year of camp. (We'd been in another stake that didn't really hike for my 4th and 5th years.) In 2011 I wrote about that visit here.  I'd also come for my 7th and 8th years of camp. 

This place had always seemed like a magical place that I couldn't get to on my own. I had to be brought here. So back when I'd been here as a teenager I'd NEVER imagined that I'd come back with my kids. It was kind of surreal to be here with Charlotte and Lydia. (And Marcia because she was along too.)

The lake looked different than I remembered it. The shore line seemed higher and I could see the natural spring that had been near the shore. But I remembered the spot where we'd have a group testimony around the fire. And the rocks where I sat during solo time. 

And even though it was different it was still pretty. 

Emily had been in her 4th year of camp when I'd been in my 8th. So we were here together before. We took a picture to commemorate being back here. I'm so glad she coordinated this. 

Here's a meadow of flowers that was prettier in person. 

And a board walk though it. 

One last look at the lake. 

We hiked back down from above the wall and picked up our packs. Then we hiked down to the parking lot. I stayed with the stuff and kids and Emily went to get the car. I took this picture of the map so I could have some clue of where we'd been.

We drove back down to Kamas and got ice cream at a little shack. Then Emily drove us back to her house. 

Veronica was very happy to see us again. Everyone took showers and we had pizza for dinner. 

Brandon had come home from his camp and so that night he and I talked on the phone for about an hour and caught each other up on our weeks. That night when I slept on the couch it felt incredibly comfortable. 

My kids were needing some Illguth time on Sunday. So instead of hanging out with Emily's family in the morning we went on an adventure. We went out to Antelope Island for the first time in either 10 or 11 years. Actually I just checked. We went there in 2014. So it's been 11 years. 

I can't believe we've been visiting Emily in Layton all these years and haven't been to Antelope Island yet.

We paid $15 and drove out on the causeway.  

Then we went to Lady Finger Point and walked around. 

We soon realized there were GIANT spiders in GIANT webs all over the sage brush. I asked later and found out they were called Spotted Orb Weavers or something like that. 

Lydia had wanted to climb the rocks. 

But they were covered in spiders too. 

Then we drove over to the campground because the twins wanted to see where we camped when they were babies. Might as well link to that too. We also found where we want to stay next time we come. There were three of these house/cabin things you can rent for $200 a night. They look AMAZING. The biggest issue with Antelope Island is the bugs. But staying in one of these would solve the bug problem. 

Then we drove over to the ranch. I think last time we were here everyone was asleep by the time we got here so we didn't get out of the car. But this time we could get out of the car. 

First we checked out the barn. 

They used to sheer sheep in here. Marcia was pretending to be a sheep. 

It looked really cool in here. 

This grain silo has owls living in it now. 

Charlotte LOVED everything. She tried out this steer roping demonstration. 

She loved the little house. 

And the sewing machine. 

We explored these little trees. 

I was surprised there was this much water. 

Charlotte climbed this fallen tree. 

Then we went to see the horses. 

And the old equipment. 

Here are the girls in a boat. 

Charlotte was so excited to see they offered horse back rides. We were already planning to come back here for a weekend. So we decided to do horses when we come back. 

Here's Charlotte on a saddle in the museum. I told you, she was trying everything. 

Lydia got on this saddle. 

We also loved these little hobby horses. 

Charlotte playing with the lasso station again. 

Here's a wagon house that Charlotte also loved.  

We were on the island for about 3 hours. We probably would have stayed longer, but the visitor center was under construction so that wasn't really an option. We want to come back when it's done. 

We went back into the city and got lunch at McDonalds. Then we found a park and I took a nap while the girls walked Marcia around. 

At 2:00 we went to Emily's for a family party. I'm glad we took that break for time as just a family. It was fun to walk into the house and feel excited to be back there. My dad was there and soon Billy arrived with his kids. Walter and Penny were dropped off later too. Emily had lots of yummy food and I'd made no bake cheese cake. My kids call it "Frosting Pie."

At 6:00 we left and drove back to Utah. Derrick was so excited to see us when we got home. He kept saying, "We are all back together as a family."

The happiness was a little short lived though. Brandon and I ended up getting into a big fight about the set. I'd thought he was going to work on the set on Saturday. I'm pretty certain that he'd said that was what he was going to do. So I'd told Alexandra to expect him. But he'd forgot or something and hadn't done anything with the set. I was mad that he made me look bad and I was stressed because the show opened on FRIDAY and so much still needed to be done. 

So yeah, not the best way to end the week. But that's how it ended. 

Don't worry, it all gets done and is amazing next week. That will be my next post. 

Thanks for reading.