This update will cover from Monday June 29th to Sunday July 5th. It was a momentous week for many reasons. 1. There was a major holiday. 2. It was the beginning of rehearsals for Seussical.
Monday was my first day back at work since I'd worked a few hours after cousin camp. I'm so glad I didn't take the whole week of cousin camp off. It was nice to get to work without feeling like I had to catch up on everything.
At home though, I did feel like I had to catch up on a lot. I hadn't done any work for Castle Therapy the week before so I hurried and did the billing for that. I also had little things to do.
While I was working on my computer in the kitchen I looked into the living room and saw Charlotte and Lydia both writing while sitting on the couch.
At 5:00 I met up with Andrea at her office for a minute to help with some billing questions. It had to be a quick meeting though because we both needed to be at the Orpheum that night. She was due there at 6:30 and I needed to be there at 7:00.
And at 7:00 I was at the Orpheum with Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica. This was our first rehearsal for Seussical. The whole cast was there. After a few brief announcements we all went around and introduced ourselves. We said our name, our character, and our favorite sweet treat. I already knew about half the cast and I was excited to get to know the other half. As a refresher, Veronica and I are Who's and Charlotte and Lydia are Thing 1 and Thing 2.
Then we started the read through. Scripts hadn't arrived yet so we were reading off of scanned copy on our phones. I wasn't too worried about any of our parts since none of us actually have lines. Lydia and Charlotte are basically mimes the whole show and Veronica and I are just in the ensemble singing along with everyone else.
Seussical is a big mashup of a lot of Dr Seuss books. The main story through is Horton Hears A Who. Horton hears a small voice on a speck yell "Help" and he is determined to help. All the citizens of the jungle think he's crazy. There's the Sour Kangroo, the Wikersham brothers, and Vlad the Vulture from the book. There's also a bunch of birds from a short story in the collection of stories Yurtle the Turtle. Girtrude is in love with Horton and wants him to notice her. Mayzie is a bird who ask Horton to sit on her egg - yes, they even throw in the plot of Horton Hatches and Egg into this story.
Meanwhile you also see the Who's on the speck. There's the Mayor, His Wife, their child Jojo, and other Who's. In this story the Grinch lives in Whoville because this is post - The Grinch who stole Christmas. The Lorax is also in Whoville.
Through it all the Cat in the Hat is popping up as himself and as different small characters. Thing 1 and Thing 2 are his helpers.
The whole thing is set to music so it's actually pretty easy to follow the story through the sound track. You can listen to it here. If you do listen to it, know that Lydia decided she wanted to do this play as soon as she heard the rock beat come through in the overture. She was like, "Oh this sounds FUN!"
It was so much fun to do the read through for this play. The lead characters had been practicing their parts for a few weeks already so they showed up READY. Those of us with smaller parts followed along and sang when we needed to.
This paycheck gave him the money he'd need - kind of. He'd saved up enough for Brandon's initial suggestion for a card. But Brandon had done more research and realized it was more expensive. So Derrick paid half and we paid half. They bought the card from Best Buy in the next few days and Derrick was so happy.
They are so good to eat!
Lydia went grocery shopping with me. It was a big trip. She bagged everything really well and wanted me to take a picture of everything in the van. I asked her where she learned to bag so well. She told me, "I went grocery shopping with dad every week for like a year."
Here I am enjoying the night.
The real fun for the kids happened after the band was done. The crowds left and the kids started playing tag in the twilight. They ran around for a long time. We finally left around 11:00.
Brandon got the graphics card installed and working in Derrick's computer. Derrick was so excited to see everything working.
My favorite part was when we all sang the song Solla Sollew. It was so pretty. I got chills. From some reason I thought of a line from the movie the Cider House Rules. Two characters meet and when they shake hands one of the characters says, "We just made history." Meaning this was an important moment even if neither of them knew it yet. That's how I felt with this whole read through and Solla Sollew in particular. This was important.
We all knew we had a lot of work to make this play come to life, but the read through had been a wonderful start. This show was going to be spectacular.
Tuesday was my day off - but not this week. I was taking Friday off because Brandon got it off for the 4th of July weekend. So I worked this Tuesday. I still didn't work at Aspen but I did go out to Filer to take care of Jump company stuff in the afternoon. I was able to get everything squared away after all the big transactions during show week.
In the morning I'd watered my garden and found a nearly ripe Blackberry. This was great because me and these blackberries have struggled. I moved them for a third time last year and they seem to like this spot a lot better. I also just ignored them and they seem to thrive on neglect.
I also had some raspberries growing on last years stalks.
The bigger harvest is on the new growth in the fall. But these berries are always delicious.
That night Veronica and I were called for part of rehearsal. Veronica is a cadet in the little Who army. So she needed to learn their marching cadences. We also worked on some little parts as Whos. Then we had a little break and we went to the second floor to talk to my friend Laura who is costuming the show. She had costume options for us to try. And to my immense surprise we found a dress for me. I couldn't believe that I had a costume on the second day of rehearsals.
Veronica's costume was a little trickier. She needed something that made her appear young. Also she hates dresses. Laura made note of all of that and would be looking for some things.
Then we were back to the 3rd floor to do a little bit more singing. And then we went home.
Wednesday was pay day for Berry farm kids. I picked them up from work and we went straight to the bank to cash their checks. Derrick was so excited to have his paycheck. He'd been saving up for a new Graphics Card for his computer. 
This paycheck gave him the money he'd need - kind of. He'd saved up enough for Brandon's initial suggestion for a card. But Brandon had done more research and realized it was more expensive. So Derrick paid half and we paid half. They bought the card from Best Buy in the next few days and Derrick was so happy.
I was so proud of Derrick for working hard and earning money. I kept thinking about how far he'd come from a little boy who could hardly talk.
Brandon was in charge of a "Constitution Night" for Young Mens that night. There's an assumption in our ward that since Brandon was in the military he's an expert in US history. So he was asked to do that activity. I could tell that he was a little in over his head. So I offered to help. He had the idea to play a game, but wasn't sure where to go with that. I told him I knew exactly what to do.
I came up with three games.
The first was to Name the 13 original colonies. We had a list of 20 possibilities and the boys had to select the correct 13.
The second game was a matching game of the timeline of the Revolutionary War. I had events on one paper and the boys had to match them to the correct dates on another paper.
The third game was inspired by my annoyance that this was called a "Constitution Night." I told Brandon. The DECLARATION was signed on July 4th if we want to celebrate the Constitution we need to celebrate it in September. So this game was a guessing game of sorts. I had a list of facts and they had to guess if they went with the Declaration or the Constitution.
Brandon also brought our puzzle of the united states and had the boys put that together.
He said the activity went really well.
The girls and I were all at rehearsal that night. We were working on learning to sing the choir parts of The Biggest Blame Fool. We'll be singing off stage for that song because it takes place in the Jungle.
We were divided into three groups. I was very happy that we were in group one and basically singing the melody the whole time. Veronica and I shared my phone and read the music on that. Charlotte and Lydia had the music on their phone.
As we sang I began to develop a new appreciation for Veronica's musical theatre talents. This is her first Rep play, but she's done FOUR shows with Ovation and I realized that she's learned a lot in those rehearsals.
Cameron, our music director would play the part and we'd sing along. Then he'd move onto groups 2 and 3. Veronica would seem to be completely disengaged while Cameron was working with the other groups. But as soon as Cameron said, "Okay all together." Veronica would snap back into attention and sing the group 1 part exactly as rehearsed.
And she'd sing LOUD. I was next to her just kind of singing medium loudness because I was unsure of the part. But Veronica just sang out without any hesitation or self consciousness.
Later that night Brandon was in a production meeting with the creative team. Cameron said, "I love Valerie, she sings what ever I give her." When Brandon told me that I said, "Um I think he's hearing Veronica, not me."
Thursday was another watering day. Here are more pictures of my berries.
We didn't have rehearsal that night. I really wanted to listen to live music as part of the 4th of July Celebrations so we went out to Rupert where they were having a week long 4th of July event. They had bands every night and fireworks twice!
Derrick was in a bad mood and didn't want to listen to music so that kind of put a damper on things. But Brandon took him for a walk to find a geocache and let me listen to the music.
I've been looking for a good live music experience for the 4th of July for a long time. We were spoiled by a cover band in Alabama and then we had an amazing experience with another cover band in West Yellowstone. But since then we haven't found an AMAZING band. And unfortunately we still didn't. But it was a nice evening anyway. The band did have a cool mash up of Rock Me Mama like a Wagon Wheel and Country Roads. And Sweet Caroline was fun too.
Friday was July 3rd, but it felt like a real holiday because Brandon and I were both off of work. I spent the first part of the morning watching the finches play in our front yard. This is the best picture I got, but they were all over the yard.
The kids wanted 4th of July shirts. We'd tried finding some, but we didn't like anything at the store. So we decided to paint our own designs. We'd bought shirts and paint at Hobby Lobby.
Brandon cut cardboard into the right shape so it could fit inside the shirts so we could paint the fronts without getting paint on the backs.
We could fit about three shirts at the table comfortably. Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica started working on their shirts.
Charlotte and Lydia were able to tape off the areas of their shirts where they didn't want to paint. Brandon made Veronica a stencil.
Veronica's needed to dry and so Derrick moved into her spot and started working. I was so impressed by how confidently he started painting on his shirt. There was a time he wouldn't have even touched this.
Lydia's was the first done and dry. Hers had a cool magic eye effect.
She'd also done the back with a USA barely visasble.
Charlotte was the next done. Her's had been done with dots made with a q-tip.
Here is the back of hers.
We'd been kind of joking that Lydia should draw a dinosaur holding a sparkler on Derrick's shirt. She was like, "I can do that." She printed out a reference image and got to work.
Here's Veronica working on hers after the back was dry.
I cut start shapes out of sponges and then used those to put stars on my shirt.
There's a lot of work going on in this picture.
Brandon made a stencil of a jet air plane. Then he used black spray paint to put the jet onto his shirt 5 times. He then painted colorful smoke trails.
Here's Derrick's final shirt. He'd drawn fireworks and even made his name a firework.
And here's the incredible back.
Lydia did such a good job!
Here's my final result.
While all this was going on I was getting food ready for a party. I'd made jalipeno cream cheese pinwheels with the first peppers from my garden. Charlotte had made red white and blue cookies the day before. I put those on a try.
Here's Veronica's front of her shirt.
And the back.
And here's Brandon's finished shirt.
We'd been invited to a party that started at 12:00, but the shirts had taken quite a bit of time. We'd been showing up around 2:00. But it went until 5:00 so that was fine.
At the party my friend Rebekkah took this picture of all of us.
She REALLY did that. There was a HUGE water slide that the kids loved.
the kids also had fun in the hot tub.
Here are my kids going on the water slide.
the kids and Brandon watched Independence Day. I think I just went to bed and read.
I also dug up the yellow tulips that are grouped around the little tree and moved them all along the side yard. I also transplanted a little grass.
Lydia showed me the dragon she painted on a hoodie. She'd wanted to do this for a long time. But she finally had the confidence after doing Derrick's shirt.
Soon after we got home it was time to leave again. We were going out to Filer to our friends Candice and Brian's house. Brian is a vet and owns his own veterinarian clinic. There's some sort of rule or law or something that a vet office always need someone on call even if they are closed. So Brian has to have someone around over the 4th of July weekend. He doesn't want his staff to have to work that day so he always takes that shift. And that means his family can never travel for the 4th. So instead they choose to always host a 4th of July party.
Here are my kids going on the water slide.
The adults had fun talking, but a few went down the slide too.
When the party was over we came home and had ice cream cones.
Saturday was the 4th of July. I spent a lot of time clearing out the side yard which was looking a little overgrown. This is what it looked like before.
And this is the after.
When I was a kid my family would often watch a BYU produced movie about the creation of the Constitution on the 4th of July. It was called A More Perfect Union I thought that was the most boring 4th of July tradition. But for some reason I was starting to think, "Hey I really want to watch A More Perfect Union." I told Brandon and he reminded me, "The DECLEARATION was signed on July 4th. Don't you think you should watch that in September when the Constitution was signed?"
So instead Veronica and I watched the Revolutionary War parts of Hamilton.
Since we weren't going anywhere for the 4th I'd let our ward know that my kids were available for watching pets and watering plants. They were all busy. Veronica and Charlotte were helping with Chandler's dog. Lydia and Charlotte were helping with Lindsey's dog. And Derrick had a job to water Alison's pots in her back yard. The girls could walk to their jobs, but Alison lived across the ward so I had to drive Derrick to her house.
Around 4 we went there to water the pots and then we went to CSI and put our blankets down to save our spot for fireworks that night.
And this year Candice went ALL out for the 250th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration. She even had festive water bottles!
When we'd been deciding what we did for the 4th of July Charlotte had been like, "Well we have to go to the party in Filer. I want to see the goats." And that's the first thing she went and did.
Here are Charlotte and Lydia loving on the goats.
Derrick was in a little bit of a grumpy mood. We'd forgot his goggles and so he didn't want to swim in the hot tub or the above ground pool. Candice found him some goggles and that helped a bit. He and I went to the hot tub. At first he was in there and I was just kind of standing there trying to figure out how to help his mood improve. But it was so hot outside and the water looked very inviting. So I climbed into the hot tub with him. He was like, "You can't be in here in regular clothes." I was like, "they will dry so fast, it's like 96 degrees out here."
So I got in the hot tub with Derrick. A little later Brandon came and found us and told us that food was ready. I told him I was trying to help Derrick with his mood. Brandon went and made me a plate of food. When that was ready Charlotte got into the hot tub and kept Derrick company.
Later Derrick ate something that that helped his mood. Here he is playing in the big pool with the girls. 
The results were pretty crazy. I'd noticed a man from our ward sitting by himself and I'd considered inviting him over to sit with us, but then Brandon's face was all crazy and I was like, "Nah, I think we'll keep this to ourselves tonight."
The girls painted Veronica's next.
And then did each other.
Here they are all together.
I'd had a good day, but I was feeling the effects of two parties in two days and just wanted to be on my own as much as possible. So I let them all be silly and I just read things on my phone.
Candice's ward boundaries had been redrawn in the last year. She'd invited a lot of new ward members to her party so there were LOTS of people there that Brandon and I didn't know. Then our friend Brianna showed up with her daughters. We know her through theatre. We talked with her most of the time we were there.
Candice had a little program to celebrate the 250th. It was short, and really good. Later she brought out a cake that had 250 written on it. We'd already had a lot of sugary desserts and I decided that like Halloween, the 4th of July just isn't a holiday that goes well with birthday cake.
In addition to Breanna we talked with a lady named Kat. At one point I was telling Kat all the cool theatre things Breanna has done. I was like, "She sang a song called Twenty and it was this big song. And then she got down and did TWENTY pushups. AND she was sick when she did all of that!" Kat was like, "You are such a good friend the way you talk about your friends talents." I was like, "Well I'm a HUGE fan of theatre in this area. I just want to cheer everyone on." I also told Kat, "I can follow you around for a while and then I tell you what you are good at too."
We could have stayed at Candice and Brian's for their firework show, but most of the kids wanted to watch the CSI fireworks. Also we were in charge of three dogs. We wanted to make sure they were all in doors while the fireworks were going off.
So we went back to Twin and made sure that Marcia was in our house. Okey was in her house, and Topper was in hers. And we also left Derrick at home because he was still in a bit of a bad mood and was not interested in the firework show.
Then we drove to CSI and found our spot on top of the hill. There were many people around us. I was glad we'd saved a spot.
Charlotte had brought paint and immediately started painting Brandon's face.
They'd brought glowsticks and put those on. Here they are settling down to watch the show.
The show was good as always. But I really wish they had music. There's some sort of radio station that plays the music, but we've never figured it out.
The most exciting part of the show was actually some drama that was happening on the ground. As the show started we could hear someone yelling something like, "Aurora!" over and over again. At first I thought it was some teenager whose girl friend had got mad and walked away. But he wouldn't stop and we started to realize it was serious. The lady next to us got up and went over to him and the people around him. She came back and told her husband, "They said their little girl is lost. She's three years old and has pigtails. I'll search the path. You search the canal."
We could see other people spreading out to search. Within two or three minutes someone started whistling behind us. Word spread that they'd found the little girl. The dad who had been calling her name ran over to her and carried her back to their area.
It had been really impressive to watch complete strangers spring into action - and during a loud firework show too.
Here are my people watching the show.
When the show was over we stayed on the hill and waited for the crowds to disperse. Here's Charlotte spinning a glow stick.
When we finally made it home Derrick was still awake. So we went to the street and lit our one big firework. And then we did sparklers. And then I went to bed because I was a bit of a party pooper at that point.
Brandon and some of the kids laid on the trampoline and watched the arial fireworks that people in the neighborhood lit off until midnight.
On Sunday I realized that I had a bit of a problem that was possibly an opportunity. Weeks earlier I'd agreed to say the prayer in church on Sunday. But now it dawned on me that I was going to be saying the prayer the same week that everyone had been asked to Fast for Religious Freedom. I'd been rolling my eyes at that fast request. I was like, "With everything going on in the world, THIS is what they want us to fast for?" And I was also worried that Fast and Testimony meeting would devolve into a brag fest about how true the church was and how amazing America was. I just didn't want that.
So I spent the morning puzzling over how I could use my prayer to set the tone for Sacrament meeting.
When it was time to pray I got up and said something along the lines of "Some of us are fasting for religious freedom. Please help us to remember that this freedom extends to all denominations and that everyone has the right to worship how, where or what they may."
After I sat down the Bishop got up and said, "Thank you for that inspired prayer Sister Illguth." After the sacrament was over he got up to give his testimony and again thanked me by name for my prayer. He said, "Valerie is very deliberate in what she does so I know she chose her words carefully. He then read the full text of the 11th article of faith and added his thoughts about how religious liberty is for everyone. It was like he spiked the perfect volleyball set that I'd put in place for him.
And then we proceeded to have a fabulous sacrament meeting free from any Christian Nationalist undertones. It was great!
And I got mentioned AGAIN. My friend Shaylee bore her testimony and mentions something about how my prayer got her thinking.
So that was THREE times in one sacrament meeting.
My friend Amy Toft pulled me aside after the meeting and said that she'd loved my prayer too. She'd been like, "Oh that's how we celebrate religious freedom."
Things didn't really calm down for me in Sunday school either. We'd FINALLY made it to Kings. I've been hanging out in Kings all year because that's where most of the 12 minor prophets take place. I sat near the front and told Jeff, "I'm here if you need me."
Needing me ended up being "hey can you summarize the first like 12 chapters of Kings." So I took us through the reign of Solomon (the high point of the unified kingdom) and then explained very quickly how the kingdom was split after his death. I explained that the southern Kingdom of Judah was with his son Rehoboam and the northern Kingdom of Israel went to Jeroboam. I joked that this was like a pop quiz because I had to try to remember all those names on the fly.
Afterward people were like, "So you just KNOW that?" And I was like, "Well this is what I've been studying the whole year. I needed to know that back story when I was studying Amos." And then people just stared at me because why was I studying Amos already. That wasn't part of the Come Follow Me schedule yet.
And then later Jeff and I planned to have me take a few minutes in two weeks to explain the fall of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. (Events that take place 150 years apart - but for some reason our fast paced curriculum wants studied in the same week.)
And to top it all off I got a text from the executive secretary asking me to meet with the bishop on Sunday. (Spoiler alert, it was for feedback about the young mens program. And I DID NOT hold back.)
When all the dust settled I had a new hive breakout. But it had been a good day so the breakout was worth it.
I'd also broken out after Cousin Camp so you really can't read too much into the timing of these things.
And that was the end of that super busy week where I lived like 5 different lives in 7 days.
Thanks for reading.
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