Not waiting for biopsy results

Okay, here we are on the second post of my two week catch up. The big news of this week is that the Anastasia auditions happened. We'll talk about those as we go through the recap.  

Monday started out with another brunch at Kori's. It's so fun to hang out with other women. I even BAKED for this. I made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins on Sunday night and brought them to the brunch. 

I wasn't able to stay for very long because I had to take Veronica to the doctor. She'd fallen on her ankle on Saturday night and on Sunday afternoon it was still swollen enough that I was worried about it. She was supposed to dance on it at rehearsal that night and would also do a dance audition for Anastasia. So I wanted to get it checked out before she did those things. 

The doctor looked at it and decided that yes, we probably should do an x-ray. So we had that done. The doctor also wrote a note excusing Veronica from dancing that week. But in the end there was no break. 

When I finally made it into work I had so much mail to process. I was working basically until it was time to pick up the girls from school. 

Veronica had theatre after school. Lydia wanted to go to Hobby Lobby and BRANDON was able to take her. It's so nice to have him done with Sweeny Todd. 

All afternoon I'd been a nervous wreck about the Anastasia auditions. They would be that night. A few weeks earlier I'd signed up me, Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica. We were sent an email with our audition times. Mine would be at 7:56 on Monday. Veronica's was at 8:20. Charlotte and Lydia's would be between us. 

At some point Charlotte and Lydia decided they didn't want to audition. Charlotte had never even bothered to learn the dance and Lydia hadn't been practicing. They were more interested in doing Alice in Wonderland with Ovation (and kids their age) than being in Anastasia. So it was just me and Veronica. 

My time was still 7:56 so that was kind of the count down all day. I'd been practicing my song and the dance for weeks. I was at the point where I just wanted the whole thing to be over. 

When I'd picked up Charlotte and Lydia from the school I told them I was nervous. Lydia said, "Well at least its for something good."  And I said, "That's a good point. It's not like I'm waiting for the results of a biopsy or something like that."  So that helped. 

I went to pick Veronica up from theatre about 30 minutes early. I just walked around downtown trying to get rid of my nervous energy. 

Brandon had dinner ready for us when we got home. Then we had apples and caramel for dessert.  Several days earlier I'd bought caramel dip and red, green, and yellow apples to eat with the dip. I'd wanted to cut them up and eat them as a family, but it seemed we never had time. So on Monday it was a big deal when Brandon cut open the apples and we ate them with dip. 

Around 7:20 Veronica and I gave up on waiting around at home and went to the theatre. This helped. It also helped that it was dark by this point. Everything kind of felt like a dream. 

We were greeted by my new friend Laura. She was taking everyone's measurements because it was easier to get them from everyone now rather than try to track down specific ones later. She said there were something like 110 people on the audition list. 

I knew it was big, but that was an insane number. Due to fire safety reasons the stage can only hold about 42-45 people. So a lot of people were not making it into this cast. 

When it was my time to audition I went into the room and was greeted by Crayson's smiling face. As scary as auditions were, this was for my friends. I knew the director - Crayson and the music director -  Cameron. I didn't know the assistant director or the choreographer. But I know that they could be friends. So that was encouraging. 

I sang my song. It wasn't the best I've ever done, but it wasn't the worst. Then I stumbled through the dance. I was surprised when they have me read for a part. I really just wanted to be Alexandra - who has no lines. But they had me read anyway. And then I was done. Whew!

Veronica went in next. She sang a song from High School Musical and then did the dance. She asked to do it without the music so she could be less hard on her foot.

And then she was done too. I'd been talking with my friend Carol in the hall. But as soon as Veronica was done we got out of there. It was so nice to have it all over with.

For the next few days we would be in a weird waiting limbo. Auditions were scheduled for Monday and Tuesday. There had actually been so many people that signed up they had to extend Monday and Tuesday by 30 minutes and then have auditions on Wednesday.  So there really was no way to know how things were going until all those auditions were over. 

On Tuesday I had a surprising amount of free time in the morning. I didn't have to go into Aspen Grove until about 11:30. So I spent a lot of time taking care of Castle Therapy billing and solving some oldish billing mysteries.  I also had free time after work. I worked on making a cute schedule for my scripture study group next year. We are going to read through the 12 minor prophets. We'll do one book a month. 

That night we had NOTHING on the calendar so it was a perfect night to carve pumpkins. 

Derrick washed his off first. He was so surprised that it was bigger than the sink. 

The kids were so good at carving their pumpkins completely by themselves. 

It was really nice to just hang out.

Derrick wanted his to say 2025. Here's the 20 part. 

And the 25. 

Veronica made hers a cat. 

Here it is up close. 

Here's Lydia's. 

Charlotte - as usual - took a long time on hers. She did one that looked a lot like Jack Skellington. 

Here they are with candles in them. 

and Derrick's somehow triggered the flash. 

On Wednesday I'd been planning to have scripture study in the morning. But on Monday I found out I had been scheduled for election training in the morning. So I had to cancel scripture study. 

As soon as I dropped Derrick off at the school I drove to the county offices for election training. This will be my first year as a Chief Judge so I was REALLY paying attention. I'm the one that will announce the polls opening at 8:00 AM and then announce them closed at 8:00 PM. In the meantime I'm the one that's supposed to have all the answers at my location. Thank goodness its a small election. 

The lady in charge had us do a little exercise where we determined what order we should do things in the morning. We were VERY wrong so I took a picture of the correct way. 

When the training was over I pulled my car up in the round about outside and the county workers put a bunch of stuff in my van. I have two printers, three voting booths, and the ballot box. I couldn't think of a good place to put these in my house or garage so I just covered them with a blanket and have been driving around with them all week. 

I went home and ate lunch and then worked on auditing the Exponent financial things. I was able to finish August. (I'd needed to see a check clear on the September statement before I signed off on August) and then I finished September as well. 

I picked up Charlotte and Lydia and dropped them off at home. Then I went to pick up Veronica. Usually she walks home, but she had a costume party at the theatre so she needed a little extra time at home to eat and then put on her costume. I took her to the theatre. 

Brandon took care of getting Derrick and then he went off on many adventures to get all the ingredients for home made root beer for rootbeer floats at that nights trunk or treat. 

Meanwhile Derrick was SO EXCITED for the trunk or treat. He'd been looking forward to it all day. He cheered Charlotte and Lydia on as they gathered all the things they would use to decorate the car. My car was still full of election stuff so they planned to decorate Brandon's Honda. 

Some of it fit in my car through. I ended up with Barbara the dress form in my van. I picked up Veronica and took her to the church to meet up with Brandon and the kids. 

Brandon went to work on the rootbeer, the twins went to work on the back of the Pilot, Derrick and Veronica went into the gym to talk to people and I went to the bathroom to have a panic attack. My nerves about the play were inexplicably back. (And the afternoon had been A LOT.) I calmed down in the empty room and then came out to enjoy the party. 

Here's Derrick loving all the dry ice making smoke. 

My friend Julia had decorated the stage so cute. I made sure to let her know that I loved it. 

Normally we just have a trunk or treat, but last year we did a dinner and then the trunk or treat. That was too much so we scaled down to a party of sorts and then a trunk or treat. 

The Primary was in charge of this. They welcomed everyone and then encouraged everyone to get a rootbeer float. Which was a problem because they weren't quite ready. So I went over to see how things were going over there. Brandon and Jeff were trying to figure out if they should have people fill their own cups with rootbeer and icecream. I was like, "Heck no, that will take too long. You guy need to fill the cups with ice cream, then fill them with rootbeer, and then put them on the counter for people to grab."  Then I came into the kitchen and started scooping icecream into cups. Brandon scooped too. Jeff filled them and put them on the counter. 

I scooped ice cream for something like 30 minutes. It was actually perfect to help me feel all regulated again. 

Brandon had thought it would be a good idea to have Five 5 gallon jugs of rootbeer. I felt that was too much and told him to picture 25 gallons of milk. So he scaled it down to Three 5 gallon jugs. I thought that was still too much. My suggestion was to do Two 5 gallon jugs and then just buy several more 2 liter bottles of rootbeer to have in reserve. But Brandon thought that was too little. (If you can't tell his instinct is to overbuy food while mine is to underbuy.) Well guess who was right in the end. We used two of the 5 gallon jugs of rootbeer and that third one was still full. So Brandon went home with half the jug and Jeff went home with the other half. 

They had a costume contest and divided up by age. Brandon went up with the other adults. 

Here he is between his friends Tim and Robert. At one point they were about 6 guys doing a kick line. 

I made sure to get pictures of all the kids. Charlotte was a vampire. 

Lydia was an assassin. 

Veronica had the dragon puppet. 

And Derrick was a DNA scientist. 

Veronica ended up winning the best costume for the 9-12 year olds. Charlotte and Lydia won Most Creative. Lydia told me later, "I'm happy to win, but I ALWAYS win most creative."

Then we went outside to the trunk or treat. This was the first time I saw what Charlotte and Lydia had done. It was so cool looking.  

They had all sorts of pumpkins, candles, dragons, books, and other details. 

Here they are posing with it. 

Everyone got a lot of candy. Derrick and Veronica have been saving all their candy so they didn't eat any of it. 

We cleaned up the car while Brandon finished up in the kitchen. And then we went home. 

Thursday was a blessedly simple day. There were no fall activities. I stopped by the Castle Therapy office to pick up the mail and Ivan was there. He had also auditioned for Anastasia. He had call backs that night for Vlad and Gleb. He said that if he didn't make those roles he probably wouldn't take an ensemble role. He is co-directing Prince of Egypt this summer for Jump company so he'll need to focus on that. He's also starring in White Christmas this December so he's a little busy with that.

He said that Crayson told him the final number of people who auditioned was in the 80s. So that was better than 110. But still meant that half the people who auditioned wouldn't make it.  

Brandon had his last night at CSI. He's done for the year. YAY!!!

I went grocery shopping with Derrick. It was a big shopping trip so it was really nice to have his help. 

Friday was a big day. It was Halloween, and the twins 15th birthday. It was also the day we were supposed to hear back about Anastasia casting. At this point I was still hopeful that I'd make it, but I was also pretty realistic. So many talented people had auditioned. What chance did a third stringer like me have?  Also Derrick and I had been eyeing spring break on the calendar. The last weekend of Anastasia shows would cut into Spring break. If I wasn't in Anastasia we could go on a longer spring break. That was sounding pretty nice. 

Charlotte and Lydia and Derrick didn't dress up for Halloween. But Veronica was able to dress up at her school. She wore her dragon puppet the whole day and had so much fun showing it off to everyone. 

I spent a long time at work figuring out lots of billing things. At 1:30 I went over to the elementary school because I wanted to see my friends' kids in the parade. I was supposed to be meeting up with Jori, but I ran into Rachel pretty much right away. 

She had also auditioned for Anastasia. I asked her if she'd heard anything yet. She said, "Yeah, about 10 minutes ago I got the call. I'm the Tsarina - Alexandra."  I was so happy for her and only a tiny bit disappointed. Honestly, my main emotion was relief. Being in the play would have been amazing, but I was feeling relief that I didn't have to commit ALL of January, February, and March to the play. I would have free time. And that sounded awesome. 

The Halloween parade got off to a rough start. There was some sort of incident happening locally that necessitated the elementary school and the middle school going into Soft Lock Down. The kids were fine, there was just something happening nearby that meant the kids couldn't go outside until it was lifted. So the parade was cancelled. And then about 5 minutes later the lock down was lifted and the parade was back on. 

I had a good time talking with Rachel, and then Kaymie, and Tracy, and Kori, and Shaylee, and yes, eventually Jori. I haven't seen Kaymie in forever. She's busy with school and a little work study job. She'll graduate this December. 

I went home and took care of a few last minute things. Then I picked up the twins, dropped them off, and went to get Veronica. She'd didn't want to walk home with her puppet. 

At home things the usual Birth-o-ween crazy. We worked on setting up the fire pit in the driveway. Brandon made French toast for dinner. The Twins opened presents. And then it was time to get into costumes. 

We'd put up a table and put the pumpkins on that. Barbara the dress form was also there. 

I'd left my dead flowers up because they looked very spooky. 

Here's Veronica ready to go. 

And Derrick. 

Here's our set up.

We were killing time because Charlotte and Lydia were still doing their make up. This was the first year I wasn't helping with make up. 

Here's Lydia. 

And Charlotte. 

And all of them with their pumpkins. 

They all took off down the street. Brandon followed along. I stayed home and enjoyed the ambiance. We had music blasting from our speaker. It was really fun to sit by the fire and listen to music. 

I loved seeing my neighbors and giving out candy. 

This is one of my favorite holiday traditions. I prefer to be outside and part of the fun rather than be inside. 

My street was pretty cool again. One house had a cool spooky walk through with a tunnel and lots of animatronics. 

The people across from them had hot chocolate, apple cider, and were showing a movie. 

Here I am with my apple cider from that house. 

And here's my fire. 

Here are the kids on one of their breaks after walking all over the nighborhood. 

Here's Charlotte at the end of the night with her GIANT bag of candy. 

Here's Derrick's bag. He'd been saving every piece of candy he got for about 2 to 3 weeks. 

Here's Lydia's big bag. Seriously, these kids look like they are holding todlers. 

Veronica was pretty tired so she went to bed really quick I didn't get a picture of her candy bag. 

At 9:30 I turned down the music and we started cleaning up. I think we had it all cleaned up around 10:00 and I turned off the music. That was the end of our Halloween playlist until next October. 

On Saturday we slept in so late. Then we cleaned up the decorations and costumes. 

Our big goal for the day was to organize the craft room. It's been a disaster for a while. Here are some before pictures. 

The bed wasn't even usable any more so we decided to take it out. 

This area was full of random stacks of papers. 

Lydia and I were the main ones working on that room. But we both took breaks. 

At one point I was upstairs while Charlotte was sorting out her candy. 

It was quite an impressive haul. 

She's always really proud when she has enough mini snickers to spell Snickers. 

The cast list came out and it was fun to look at that. Ivan is not in the play. I know about half the names on the list. I know they were going for a lot of dancers so I think the people I don't know are more from the dance community than the theatre community. 

My friend Marianne is also NOT in the play. But she's helping with costumes. I told her to reach out when she needs help. I can't design the way she can, but I can follow a pattern. So I'm still involved in this in some way. And Brandon's helping with the set. 

Here's the after pictures of the art room. We took the bed out and moved the shelf down. That changed so much. 

Lydia got a dress rack for her birthday. That made a big difference too. 

And the paper piles moved. (I still need to go through them.)

These are the kids upstairs comparing the sizes of their jaw breakers. Veronica had jsut started hers. Charlotte and Lydia had been working on theirs for two weeks. 

This had been our first Saturday at home with no distractions in WEEKS. It had been just what we all needed. 

That night we watched the 2022 version of the Witches. It was fun. 

And now we are here at Sunday. We had a good time at church. Then Brandon took the twins driving. I made lasagna for dinner and we had that when they came home. I also spent a lot of the day catching this blog up. 

At one point I sat on the couch while Derrick gave my various sour candies and laughed at my reactions. It was funny. 

And that's us. Thanks for reading.