For several years I've loved the saying, "You don't have to be good at something for it to be good for you." I think this typo-riddled blog is proof enough of how much I live by that statement. But it shows up in many other areas of my life.
This week I've been thinking about it a lot. As I've struggled my way through learning the songs and dances for Cinderella I've thought about it. I'm not a natural in these areas. I've really had to work to figure out the dances and the songs. But I'm also learning and growing and having a delightful time as part of this production. So it's been such a good experience.
So let's talk about the week and I'll tell you more about the rehearsal process as it goes.
I felt like I was dragging through the morning on Monday. I went to work for about 2 hours and then went home for the quarterly zoom meeting for the Idaho Parents Unlimited Board of Directors. I was still so tired so at one point I turned off my camera and just laid my head down on the couch and dozed while other people were sharing their things.
Then it was time for the financial reports and since I'm the treasurer I perked up for that and was much more present for a lot of the meeting.
IPUL's budget is mostly from grants from the federal government. At this point there was a hope that funding would continue as normal, but everyone in the meeting was worried about reports that the Department of Education was going to be closed down. We were also worried about the State of Idaho's potential plans to get rid of Medicaid Expansion.
Angela, the Executive Director of IPUL said that in the meantime she and her staff were going to do the best they could to keep doing their jobs.
Well fast forward to Tuesday and that plan was upended. A federal funding freeze was announced late Monday night. IPUL would be directly affected by this. That meant that the staff would be unable to help families as with questions about helping children with Special Needs. Angela had about 2 weeks of payroll covered, but that was about it.
The day was full of emails and updates. I wrote to both our Senators and Representatives about the problems with the funding freeze.
Happily the freeze seemed to be rescinded later, but everything is still very up in the air. It is EXAUSTING.
Anyway, let's back up to Monday night because that was exhausting, but in a happy way. At rehearsal we went over the chorography for The Prince is Giving a Ball scene. Here is the song on Spotify. If you listen to it you'll hear its more complicated than in the TV movie versions. There's the usually Prince is giving a ball stuff - but there is also another song, "Now Is The Time" sung by the revolutionary character Jean-Michel. He has the towns people's attention . . . until Lord Pinkleton shows up to announce the ball. Then we COMPELETLY forget about Jean-Michel.
There's a lot of moving around the stage and then about 3 minutes of dancing. Lauren was the chorographer and she already had the whole thing planned out. She split us into three groups and there's a section where we just dance with our group. That's nice because it means we aren't dancing the WHOLE time.
I'd told the twins I was fine with any dancing except jumping. Well guess who ended up in the group with two jumps - ME! But my foot actually handled it okay so I think it will be okay. My biggest problem right now is just learning the dance, but it's doable.
I'm on the front row three times which is so fun. I think one of those times I'll actually move to the back because there are like way too many people on the front row for that part, but the other times I'm staying in the front.
The best part of the night was seeing myself in the mirrors. I'd worried I'd be embarrassed looking at myself, but I was actually pleasantly surprised to see my reflection. I looked so happy! There's a part where we turn to the audience and yell, "Herbert!" with a lot of excitement. I loved seeing my excited face looking back at myself.
I've never been in a musical like this before, but I did grow up in a community that loved dance. I was in social dance in high school and we would do dance concerts every semester. Those were always so fun to prep for. I loved dancing on the stage and I'm thrilled that I get to do it again.
Tuesday was a pretty basic day. Veronica had her theatre class after school. Her play isn't until April. I think it's funny that my play will have started and be completely over before her play happens.
That night we didn't have rehearsal. They were working with smaller groups and didn't need the full ensemble. So instead the girls talked me into taking them to the craft store. Charlotte has been working on another dragon and she needed more fabric.
Here's the dragon head.
She spent a lot of time making the inside of the mouth look real. She used gel nail polish.
Here she is with the dragon head.
Wednesday was my day off from work and I didn't have scripture study either. My big goal for the day was to clean off my dresser and to sweep under my bed. That took HOURS!
I set up the card table in my room and put everything that was on top of my dresser onto the table. Then I sorted it all out and put things away. One reason this was so tricky is because a lot of things on my dresser are there because I didn't know where they belonged. So there was a lot of figuring things out. Other things belonged all over the house. I took so many trips to the basement.
When I was done with the dresser I moved my bed and swept under it. There was so much dust!
I also washed all my curtains and the bed sheets and bed spread. The room was so much cleaner when I was done.
Here's the top of the dresser. I put the last fake plant on the dresser. Brandon was like, "Oh where did that come from?" I was like, "I bought it 2 years ago. It's been in the living room." He had no memory of that plant - or the two others that I've put in the bathrooms. I guess that tells you how cluttered our living room has been.
Here's a funny picture Derrick wanted me to take of him.
That night at rehearsal we went over more singing. I'm getting to know the songs better. I've been listening to them non-stop at work. (Quietly so they don't bother other people.) The songs are starting to be very familiar and I think I'm starting to pick out that alto part.
I'm really enjoying the Wedding song at the end. It's really pretty and ties so many of the themes of the play together.
Thursday was a big day because BRANDON GOT PAID. When he started his job I was on his case to find out the pay days. I thought maybe the pay periods ended on the 1st and the 15th. And there would be a one week lag between the end of the pay period and the pay day. Well I was right about the pay period ending on the 15th. But I was shocked to find out payday was nearly TWO WEEKS after the end of the pay period. Brandon wouldn't be paid until January 30th.
We were okay because we still had savings and I was getting paid from my other jobs. And we'd also had the unemployment. But ouch we went FOUR months without a paycheck from our main source of income.
It was so nice to finally have that money pop into our bank account. It wasn't a full paycheck because he'd started work on the 6th, but it was still a good amount. I went grocery shopping that morning and bought "fun" foods like Nutella and crystal light again.
I also got cash back at check out so I could pay the kids. I have a system where I pay them a dollar a day to go to school. (It cut down on school refusal so much when we implemented it last year.) But I wasn't able to pay the kids for October, November, or December because I was trying to conserve how much money was exiting our bank account. I promised them I'd pay them as soon as Brandon was paid. Charlotte and Lydia got a bit of an advance when we'd bought fabric on Tuesday, but I still owed them a few dollars. And I owed Derrick and Veronica each $52. So I got that money and put it in envelopes. It was really nice to pay the kids when they got home from school.
Derrick has been saving up for a Godzilla Action Figure. He was so excited to cross off the rest of the money on his savings chart. We ordered the figure right away. (And now he's asking me every day if it shipped.)
Brandon was working at CSI that night. That meant he went to work at 7:00 so he could leave early to drive out to Burley. He went out there directly after work. We didn't even see him. I was worried I wasn't going to make it energy wise so I bought myself a Celsius drink at the store and drank as I drove home from the store.
I unloaded groceries and then put away the perishable food. Then I went to work. I've never had an energy drink before work. WOW I was wired as I sat at my desk. I got so much done, but maybe next time I'll drink that in stages instead of downing the whole thing in 5 minutes.
The weather was really nice all day so after the kids were home I had them go outside and get all the dog poop picked up. Charlotte and Lydia also cleaned out the chicken coop and put all that into my compost pile.
Here are the kids in the back yard.
Derrick and Veronica were having fun shaking all the pompus grass seed heads and making it "snow." And when I have pompus grass growing all over my yard I'm going to pretend this had nothing to do with that.
Here's a video of them making it snow.
By the way, this is my compost ring. It's been this full all winter. We put stuff in it and it settles down and then we add more to it.
Eggs had been $30 for 60 and $6 for 18. UGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH. So I made sure to take a picture of the chickens because we are so grateful for them. They aren't producing a lot of eggs since it's winter. But we get at least one egg a day and that is helpful.
Here are the good chicken care takers.
They are so good at taking care of those chickens.
When we came back inside Charlotte showed me the dragon arms she'd crafted out of foam.
And here's a picture of the drywall progress. Brandon had been putting one piece up after work each day.
That night we had rehearsal again. Rehearsal started at 7:00, but Brandon wouldn't be home until about 8:30. Thankfully Derrick and Veronica are old enough to chill out at home for 90 minutes.
At rehearsal we blocked out some of the end scenes. One of the scenes was where all the women try on the shoe. Jarod had us all in a long line so we could try on the shoe. He was trying to figure out who should be some of the main people in that scene. I said, "Um do you want some creepy twin stuff?" He was like, "OH YES!" He had Charlotte and Lydia come up and be the second people in line. They walked up in perfect sync. Jarod said, "That's a SHINING example of why it's good to have identical twins in your production."
No one quite got the joke so Nate said, "I think we need to AX that joke." That got the bigger laugh.
There were a lot of little jokes and silly things happening while we blocked the scenes. It was really fun to see something got from just a funny suggestion to being, "Okay that is now part of the show and we will all be sad if it doesn't happen!"
Rehearsal ended at 9:00. Jarod had suggested a cast get together that evening so we all went out to Idaho Joes for dinner. Charlotte, Lydia and I ordered pie. We sat with Marriane and her daughter Laney.
It was fun, but it was also a Thursday night and we all had real life the next day. So the three of us left at 10:00 and came home.
Friday was the 100th day of school. None of my kids participated in anything to celebrate, but it was still an important milestone.
Work was a struggle. I just wanted to go home, but I pushed through and made it through all three hours. Then I went home and did about another hour of work just doing home computer stuff like paying our mortgage and signing a document for Derrick's insurance stuff.
When Brandon came home from work he made hamburgers. We'd been saying we'd have hamburgers when he got paid. The kids were so excited to finally do that. It's going to be a few paychecks before I feel on top of our finances again, but it's so nice to have income coming in again.
We were so tired, but we were determined to go on a date. Brandon had free tickets to a piano concert at CSI. So we went to that. I was like, "Oh all we have to do is sit here and listen? That's so easy?"
And honestly there were probably points that both Brandon and I were drifting off to sleep. But it was still a lovely concert. It was two pianists playing duets. They were so in sync with each other. Their third number was the Sorcerers Apprentice. That was probably our favorite part because it was familiar.
We got home around 9:00. I'd bought Ice cream and we had that with the kids.
Then I went to bed and read the last 50 or so pages of the Fourth Stormlight book. There were a lot of things at the end there that I'd forgot about.
And now I have to wait for the 5th book to come in at the library. I'm hold number 42 for the whole interlibrary system for western Idaho. So it might be a while before that comes in, but there also doesn't seem to be a lot of logic to how the holds are distributed in the system. I've jumped to the top of the line pretty quickly before. So I really don't know when this book is going to be available for me.
And really it's probably better if the book doesn't come in until the play is done anyway.
Saturday was a really good Saturday. It was probably our first "normal" Saturday since before Christmas. Brandon was finally feeling well and so we worked really hard on a lot of things.
We all worked hard to get the basement cleaned up. Brandon helped me move the deep freezer so we could make room for some more shelves. A lot of the boxes that were in our kitchen storage cupboard will go on the new shelves.
The kids cleaned up their craft projects that were taking over the family room. I cleaned off a lot of surfaces. I was in a purge mood so I threw away a lot of junk. I think I took like three garbage bags out to the garbage. (Which was no small feat because we'd had rain that turned to ice and it was really slick on our patio.)
At 1:00 Kerri and Marriane came over to practice the Prince if Giving a Ball Dance. Kerri's daughter Payton came too. Payton played the page to Lord Pinkerton. He's started calling her Pinky-toe and that's what everyone is now calling her.
We went into the basement and watched the recording of the dance while following along. Then we tried to do it with just listening to the song on Spotify. That was hard, but good. We still need a lot of work, but it's coming along really well.
While we were doing that Brandon was putting our pots and pan rack back up in the kitchen. Oh it's so nice to have this rack back. We temporarily had them in a cupboard and I HATED having them stacked on top of each other.
After my friends left Brandon and I went to the DI so he could get more clothes for work. He wears business casual clothes now and he wanted lots of options. So he bought 4 more pants and 3 more collared shirts.
I've been wanted a mug rack for a while and so I was really happy to find one for three dollars. The kids LOVE hot chocolate in the winter and so I wanted their mugs more accessible. It's also really cute.
I also found new mugs for each of the kids to be a Valentine's Day present. All of our mugs are Christmas themed and we've talked about getting new ones that aren't just Christmasy.
When we came home Brandon went back to work on the wall. He and Derrick had made a platform to go over the stairs so that he could put the ladder on top. It made going down the stairs feel like going below deck on a ship. And Brandon smacked his head on it really bad at one point while he was trying to hurry up the stairs - but overall it was a great plan because he could reach the boards on our 9 foot high ceilings.
Here he is pulling down the boards. We were pretty certain none of this was load bearing, but that became really apparent when he was pulling down boards that were connected to the ceiling by one nail. He was like, "What's the point of this board? It's just adding weight."
When all the boards were down he started putting in more drywall to patch the holes.
I made pizza for dinner while Brandon was working.
At 6:30 I took Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica to the Orpheum. We were going to see a performance by one of the Ovation groups. Ovation is the kid theatre that happens at the Orpheum. Veronica is in the younger group of 7-10 year olds. The group we went to see was the older group of 10-18 year olds. They were doing Descendants. There were three different casts. Each cast did three performances on different weekends. This was the third cast. We went to this one because our neighbor Abby was in it.
At first I was just going to take Veronica. I wanted her to see another kid group before her play in April. But Charlotte and Lydia wanted to come to because they were curious about the play. The tech rehearsals had been happening on stage while our rehearsals were in the classroom on the third floor. There was always a lot of screaming happening on stage and we were super curious about it.
Well we never did figure out what all the screaming was about because I guess that isn't a scene in the play. But it was fun to see. The kids did great.
But it was also very much a kid production. We've been spoiled by the high quality plays that the grown ups are putting on. The kids were good, but not quite at the level that the adults in Magic Valley Rep are capable of. Still this program is the incubator that leads to the phenomenal adults. So I'll support it all the way.
When we came home we saw all the progress Brandon made on the wall. He'd patched all the drywall and had everything taped. He'd been able to mud most of it before he ran out of mud. Instead of going to the store he'd just cleaned up for the night. It will be easy to put the platform down again and finish it another night.
With everything all patched the room was suddenly really echoey. It's so open. I love it!
Today was a good day too. At church they had Derrick stand up in Sacrament meeting and the First counselor said, "It is proposed that Derrick Illguth be ordained to the office of a Deacon in the Aaronic priesthood." They'd realized they forgot to do that last week so they wanted to do it this week even though Derrick was already ordained last week.
Later the Bishop was like, "I'm sorry we forgot to have Derrick sustained last week." I was like, "Um you guys actually did it last January with all the other deacons his age. So really you didn't forget at all." Then the bishop was like, "Oh you're right. We should have talked to you first."
Charlotte has decided that we have to get out of the house for a hike every weekend. She says that if we don't do it on Saturday we have to do it on Sunday. So that meant today was a hike day.
It was rainy so we didn't want to go on any dirt trails. That meant it was a good day for the canyon rim trail. We started at Federation Point which is about a mile and a half from the Perrine Bridge. Here's a picture of the bridge from where we started.
We walked to the overlook for the Perrine Coulee. It had big stalactite looking icicles all around it.
We didn't really have a destination in mind, and I thought we'd turn around soon after the waterfall. But we actually kept going and made it all the way to the bridge.
Then we went back the way we came. Derrick and Veronica picked up a bunch of tumble weeds and threw them over the waterfall overlook.
Here's a shaky and probably over long video of those tumble weeds going over the side. We were trying to reach the lower levels, but they kept landing on a rock shelf.
We came home and had orange chicken for dinner. Then we watched the Wild Robot. It was really good.
And that gets us caught up. This week is my birthday and I'm having a pajama party on Friday. I'm really excited for that. And for the rehearsals this week.
What a WEEK! Last week the most exciting thing going on in my life was the fake plant I put in my bathroom window.
This week there were lots and lots of exciting things. The main thing was that Charlotte, Lydia, and I started Cinderella rehearsals. And I started thinking about the quote that says, "Be Brave Enough to be Bad at Something New." Because I feel very very very inadequate to be in this play. There are so many talented people in the play and I'm just kind of there like, "hey this sounded fun." And it is fun, but I'm also like, "What did I get myself into. The only musical I've ever been a part of was when I was in the orchestra for Once Upon a Mattress in High School."
But then I remember that I'm Being Brave Enough to be Bad at Something New. I'll tell you more about it as we go over the week.
Actually, Monday was the inauguration and I'm pretty certain you don't want to hear my thoughts on THAT so let's just skip over that topic and the boring stuff about work and the kids going to school and start with the rehearsal.
First of all we have to talk about the Orpheum Building. Most of the building is the theatre, but the are some classrooms in the front of the building. The building is three stories tall. The first story is the lobby of the theatre. The second story isn't easily accessible from the lobby. You actually reach it via a staircase outside the building. That staircase takes you to the second floor. The second floor has Jarod's office where he does meetings and voice lessons. There are also some small classrooms. One of these small rooms is where the auditions happened.
From the second floor you go up another staircase to the third floor. The third floor has a long narrow room. It has a wood floor and some big mirrors that can be moved around. This room is where Veronica has her theatre class. It's also where every play starts rehearsals. They spend weeks doing rehearsals up in this room while other plays have their sets on the main stage. It's only in the last few weeks that the rehearsals move to the main stage.
So on Monday we arrived at the theatre and waited on the second floor while the teenage theatre group did their rehearsal for Descendants. They finished at 7:30 and we moved up stairs. Everyone set up chairs in a circle.
We were welcomed by a man named Chris. Fun back story about Chris - remember when my family went to see "The Play that Goes Wrong" out in Rupert and the family in front of us turned around and said they loved hearing our kids laugh? Well that was Chris, his wife Karin (pronounced like Corrine), and their son Kaden. Kaden and Chris had been in the Twin Falls version of that play and Karin and Chris had helped with set design. Anyway, that's Chris.
He explained he'd be operating as the stage manager and be something of a go between for Jarod who was directing. We were told that if we had a question we should go to Chris and he would take it to Jarod. That way Jarod didn't get asked the same question by 7 people. Apparently, that is a new way of doing things.
Chris had us go around and introduce ourselves really fast. Then Jarod talked about some director things. And he introduced the creative team who would be helping with music and choreography.
When all that was done they handed out scripts and music books and we started with the read through. Everyone was just kind of sitting where ever and we'd pause every so often so Jarod could assign out little lines. When we came to songs everyone sang along to the Broadway recordings.
Even in it's rough shape it was exciting to see the play taking shape. This version of Cinderella has all the original music from the Rodger's and Hammerstein production, but the story and dialog was rewritten in 2000. All the characters have a little more depth.
And honestly, the story felt very timely with the backdrop of the inauguration. There is injustice in the land that the prince doesn't know about. The whole reason his advisor wants to have a wedding is to distract the people from their problems. The "Prince is Giving a Ball" scene literally has the people listening to a revolutionary character and then getting distracted by the announcement of the ball. And when Cinderella meets the Prince she talks to him about the injustice.
I was like, "Oh THIS is what I need to be a part of right now. I can really get behind some subversive art." I don't know if anyone else thinks its subversive. But I do.
My friend Rachel is Cinderella. She was Brandon's dance partner in Spamalot. Kaden is Prince Topher. A lot of the other principal characters were new to me or people I don't know quite yet. But they are all super talented. It was fun to hear them reading their lines and singing.
As the night went on we had to kind of hurry things along. We skipped a lot of songs in Act II and at 10:10 Jarod said that we'd call it a night. We didn't quite get to the end of the play. I was like, "Wait, what happens at the end?"
But I was also excited to get home. I figured we'd find out the end soon enough.
When we got home I walked in through the back door and immedately saw that Brandon had replaced the light over the stairs. It used to be just a globe fixture over the back door. Now it's a fancy hangy down light that is centered with the other lights. It looks so good and gives off a lot of light.
The big event on Tuesday was the kids dentist appointment after school at 4:00. But it literally dominated my day. I had to work backward from that 4:00 appointment and figure out when and where I needed to pick everyone up. And that determined what time I went to work.
So I started out the morning at Castle Therapy at 11:00 and I worked there for about 30 minutes. Then I drove over to Aspen Grove and worked there until 2:15. Then I drove to Derrick's school and picked him up around 2:30. We were at the house by 3:00 and Veronica came home from school a little after tht.. At 3:40 we went to the middle school and picked up Charlotte and Lydia. I'd already emailed my friend (and cast-mate) Kerri who is the Attendance Secretary so that she could sent the notices to have the girls waiting for me in the office.
And then we drove to the dentist and were there in time for the appointment at 4:00. Whew!
But that wasn't all. Veronica had theatre at 4:15. I knew we'd never make it by that time, but the dentist is really quick so there was a good chance she could make it to most of her class. And yes, the dentist was quick. They had everyone done by 4:30.
So then we rushed over to the Orpheum. We hit EVERY red light so we weren't there until 4:45. I dropped off Veronica and then took the kids home. Then it was basically time to turn around and pick up Veronica again at 5:15.
WHAT A DAY! Thankfully, no one had cavities and Brandon made dinner.
I took a nap after dinner so I could actually have a personality at rehearsal. Rehearsal started at 7:00 this time because Descendants didn't have their rehearsal. Ensemble was upstairs on the third floor working on music while the principals were downstairs on the second floor working on blocking scenes.
My friend Cami is the music director. As soon as I got there she said, "Valerie, I have you and your girls singing Alto." I was like, "Wait what?"
Here's the thing. My range is probably in the Alto range. But try telling that to my brain. My brain can only hear melody, it can only follow melody, and it only wants to sing melody. And that means that the majority of the time I'm a soprano.
So then I spent the rest of the night trying to sit really close to Karin and and Carol who were strong Altos and trying to follow them. But two little altos were nothing compared to the like 10 sopranos. I'd sing the alto part just fine when we were singing along with the piano, but as soon as the sopranos were added in I found myself singing the higher notes.
Yep, I was definitely being brave to be bad at something new.
In the end I came to a kind of understanding with myself. I was like, "Well I'm going to try my hardest here. But Cami never actually asked me what part I'd feel comfortable singing so she is just going to get what she gets here."
It was still fun to learn the songs. We are allowed to mark up our books and I'd brought a high lighter. I showed Charlotte and Lydia how to mark our parts and they had fun marking things. We all shared a book and they took care of turning the pages. I was really happy that they both play instruments because it means they can read the music notations like rests and quarter notes and stuff like that.
We were done with our rehearsal around 8:45 when the Principals came upstairs to work on their songs with Cami. It was nice to get home rather early.
While we'd been at rehearsal Brandon had taken Derrick and Veronica over to the church. He showed Derrick the sacrament trays and talked to him about passing the sacrament. Up to this point Derrick had been refusing to pass the sacrament. On Sunday's he and Brandon always sit behind the boys who are passing the sacrament. They always invite him and he always says no. But last week he'd seemed more interested than before.
So Brandon talked him through the process and Derrick was like, "I know how to do it all." He'd been watching and paying close attention to those boys for the last year. But he still didn't seem like he was interested in doing it yet.
On Wednesday morning Derrick was reading over the calendar. He was saying something about each day of the week and then he said, "And on Sunday I'll pass the Sacrament." And I was like, "Really! You want to do that?" And he was like, "Yes."
So then I was like, "Okay there are a few things we need to do." I immediately texted the contact who scheduled youth interviews with the bishop. I asked, "Is there a way we can get Derrick interviewed this week and ordained on Sunday morning?" The guy texted back that Derrick could meet with a member of the bishopric that night before young mens.
That morning we had my second ladies scripture study group of the year. We were on Chapter 2 of the Book Restoration. This chapter talks about how we are called to restore Israel. The author, Patrick Mason, has a lot of really good points in this chapter. The final point is that part of restoring Israel is reaching out to people who are marginalized. He quoted from Luke Chapter 4 verses 18-19 where Jesus reads the words of Isaiah.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”
This scripture tied in perfectly with a post my friend had written for the Exponent on Inauguration Day. It was titled, "This Inauguration Day We Need a Little Christmas." In the post she quoted the poem The Work of Christmas by Howard Thurman.
When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the people, to make music in the heart.
Jori was the only one who was at scripture study this week. And that was probably good because we were processing A LOT of emotions from the inauguration. We talked for a long time.
That evening Brandon took Derrick and Veronica to the church and I took Charlotte and Lydia to rehearsal. Derrick was able to meet with Brother Rollins. He has an autistic song too. So he's really good with Derrick. (All Derrick's leaders are good with him, but I'm always glad that a member of the bishopric gets it.) Brandon said that Derrick kept trying to talk about Godzilla all through the interview. But despite that he was deemed ready to be ordained.
Brandon was supposed to text the executive secretary about getting a time set up for the ordination on Sunday. But he forgot and I'm the better texter anyway. So I got that all set up for 11:00 on Sunday.
That night at rehearsal we mostly worked on "The Prince is Giving a Ball." That was so fun! All the men were working on a few scenes downstairs so all the women were upstairs. I sat by the lady playing the evil step mother - in this play her name is Madame. She was fun to sit with.
By the time we were done working on that song a lot of the men had made it upstairs. So we ran through the song with most of the principal characters. It was great to hear it come together.
For some reason on Thursday I felt like my phone was constantly giving me notifications. It was like every single person in my world needed to tell me something. I was at work and trying to get stuff done, but a lot of people kept interrupting me. They were good interruptions because they were people that had insurance change at the beginning of the year but they'd only just figured out who their new insurance companies were. So I was getting things updated, but I wasn't able to do the things I'd actually planned to do that day.
I left work feeling really frazzled. I was home in time for Veronica to get home. She brough home her recorder. Now most people say that listening to a 5th grader play the recorder is not a great experience, but I found it oddly relaxing.
She was playing little songs that she made up. She sounded really good. Then she wanted me to play the recorder and she'd guess the name of the note. And that's how I found out that Veronica can recognize notes. She was like, "Oh that's a B" and I was like, "What the heck?"
She's been talking about wanted to play either the viola or bass next year. I've been kind of like, "Um maybe that's not for you." I worried that she wouldn't be able to learn to read the music since she struggles with reading already, But after listening to her play the recorder and talk about music notes I was like, "Oh maybe you would be good at that." The girl already has a really decent sense of rhythm - more than I EVER had as a bass player so I guess she should try.
After Charlotte and Lydia came home I went and took a nap. My phone was still having lots of interruptions so I turned on Do not Disturb. I've never done that before.
That night we were back on the 3rd floor for rehearsal. I kept having the lines of the song "At The Ballet" go through my head.
Up a steep and very narrow stairway
To the voice like a metronome
Up a steep and very narrow stairway
It wasn't paradise
It wasn't paradise
It wasn't paradise
But it was home
The stairs up to the third floor aren't exactly steep or narrow, but there are a lot of them. And the room at the top was beginning to feel like home. I thought it was kind of funny that I'm the fifth person in the family to practice for a play up here. Brandon was first, then Charlotte and Lydia, then Veronica, and now me.
Rehearsal went well, but I was getting very tired. Nothing was really sticking in my brain. I was really glad when we were done around 9:00. But I was also proud. We'd made it through our first week!
At home we came home to a big empty space in our kitchen. Brandon had pulled down the odd cupboard that was over the stairs. We hadn't come up with a good plan for it so we'd decided to just take it all down so we didn't have to worry about it in 3-5 years when we move the stairs and turn this area into the dinning room.
Here it is looking all open.
And for fun, here's a throwback to what it used to look like less than a month ago.
On Sunday Lydia's sunday school teachers had given her an old green sheet to use for dress making. She'd worked with it all week and had nearly finished it by the time we left for rehearsals. So as soon as we got home she put it on and let me take a picture. I sent it to her Sunday School teachers. They were so impressed.
I slept really well on Thursday night and so when I woke up on Friday I was like, "I'm going to get so much stuff done at work!"
And I did.
I went there as soon as I dropped the girls off at the middle school. So that was about 8:45. I was at work nearly 5 hours. Which I know doesn't sound like much when most people work an 8 hour day. But I usually work 3 hour days and consider 4 hours to be a long day. So 5 hours was definitely a lot. I got so much done. It was really nice.
Back at home I had a little break and then went to the school for a big-ish meeting. Veronica has been really struggling at school since the break. So last week I emailed her teacher and asked if we could meet to go over a few things.
She set up the meeting for Friday after school. Veronica and I were both at the meeting. So was Veronica's main teacher, and her SPED teacher. We also had the new 5th grade teacher come too. The 5th graders rotate to different teachers for Math, Reading, and Social Studies. The Reading teacher had quit or been fired or resigned or something right before Christmas. So this new teacher was trying to learn like 60+ kids. Veronica had been really struggling in his class and I was like, "Does he even know you have an IEP?"
That was one of the things I'd emailed her teacher about. She'd made sure to let that teacher know about Veronica's IEP and he read over it. So things got better for Veronica. But we still wanted him in the meeting just so he could get up to speed.
It was a really good meeting. Veronica's teacher was Derrick's 5th grade teacher. The SPED teacher was Derrick's 4th grade teacher. So I have a lot of history with these two teachers. They are great to work with.
Then we came home and I went straight to my room for a nap. I was mentally tapped out.
Brandon came home and he and the kids made pizza for dinner.
I really wanted to do nothing all evening. But we had plans to go to Sun Valley the next day. So I spent a lot of time getting things ready for that. I found the snow pants and had the kids try them on to see which ones fit who. I think all our snow pants might be hand-me-downs from Kaymie's teenage boys.
Then I asked the kids, "Who want's to wear wool socks tomorrow?" They all said they did. Then I said, "Okay you all need to help find the wool socks because I only have one pair right now." For context we should have had at least 12 pairs in the house - somewhere.
We figured out that Derrick had worn a pair that day and Charlotte was currently wearing a pair. So that brough us up to 3 pairs. Then Brandon found another pair in his emergency stuff he'd packed in the car in case we got stuck driving to or from Utah for Christmas. So that brough us up to 4.
I told Brandon he needed to do a shake down of the kids rooms. The kids swore they didn't have any socks in their rooms. But he went into the twins rooms and went through the blankets on the beds and then crawled under the bed. This is what the laundry basket was looking like after he was done with the twins room. And then he went into Veronica's room and found like 12 more socks.
We washed all the socks and had tons and tons of regular pairs and like 9 pairs of the wool socks.
After all that I spent most of the evening reading the 4th stormlight book. I'm going though this one a lot slower because I rehearsals are cutting into my evening reading time. And because I actually don't really like this one as much as the others. This will mean nothing to most of you, but I really hate the Venli chapters. I'm always disappointed when I come to a Venli chapter and I often fall asleep during them when I'm reading after rehearsals.
On Saturday we got up around 8:00. Brandon had already taken care of finding the sleds in the garage and getting the food packed. So really we just had to get dressed and eat breakfast.
Everyone was really excited to go to Sun Valley. The first time we'd been to Sun Valley was exactly 5 years ago on Saturday January 25th 2020. (I didn't know it was exactly 5 years, but later in the day the first trip popped up in the Facebook Memories.) On that trip we'd gone sledding on Penny Hill and then gone skating at Christina Potter's Ice Pond in Ketchum. This was all in the "before times" before Covid disrupted everything.
We'd come back the next year in January of 2021. Thanks to Covid the free skates hadn't been available at the ice pond. But we'd still had fun playing in the snow.
And then we didn't come back. The winters of 2022, 2023, and 2024 had lots of snow. So we had plenty of fun with snow at home in Twin Falls and didn't really feel the need to go up to Sun Valley for more snow.
This winter has been mild and we haven't had much snow at all. In fact, my friends in Alabama lived through a once in a hundred year snow storm that week and had like 4 inches of snow. It was way more snow than we've had all winter. Even my sister in Houston had snow at her house. But no snow for us.
So we decided we needed to go up to Sun Valley to "Visit Winter." And we invited Jori's family to come with us.
At 9:00 we drove over to Jori's house. Her kids were all waiting in the car and so I went to talk to them for a second while Jori and Tim got the last of their things together. The kids were so excited. They told me, "We are going ICE SKATING. This will be our first time!"
Jori's family followed our car up to Sun Valley. It was about an hour and 45 minutes away. When we got there Jori said we were the easiest people she'd ever followed.
My kids and Jori's kids were so excited. I took them over to the racks of ice skates that were by the ice rink. They were just out there on the honors system for anyone to borrow and skate with. It was quite the production to get all 8 kids in the correct size skates and laced up. But eventually everyone was on the ice.
Charlotte and Lydia and Derrick are really comfortable skating because they all went roller skating weekly during the summer they spent in daycare. They were far across the ice as I tried to take some pictures.
But soon they came closer. I was just out there in my boots. My days of balancing on skates ended when my foot tendon decided to freak out several years ago. I held Jori's kids hands as they got comfortable on their skates.
Derrick is like my skating savant. He's so good at balancing and skating fast.
Veronica on the other hand . . . . balance isn't her strong suit in regular situations. She was really struggling with skates. She ended up sitting in a chair and I pushed her around.
And then we decided to just have her in boots like me. I walked around on the ice with her to help her practice. Here's another selfie. And then I took off my glasses so we could be twinners. She's such a mini me.
Here's Derrick playing on the ice with Veronica. He was holding her hand to help her feel stable. But later she was just fine and running around.
We'd brough everything for a picnic lunch and had hoped to eat in the building next to the pond. But it was locked. So instead we moved a picnic bench into the sun and ate there. I'd been warm on the ice, but I got cold sitting there and had to get my coat.
Then we were back on the ice. The kids had fun playing. Here I am taking yet another selfie. I was really loving my hat. My ministering sister Jennifer MADE it for me for my birthday last year. But I didn't get a lot of opportunities to wear it after my birthday. So I was really loving it today.
Most of the kids had moved over to playing at a playground. One of Jori's was still out on the ice loving life with skates. I had fun just talking with Jori and Tim.
After about three hours the kids seemed like they were done. Mine were asking about sledding and some of Jori's were getting tired.
So we split up. They went home and we drove over to Penny Hill. I'd invited Jori to this as well, but I'd also cautioned her that it was incredibly steep. I wasn't sure if her little kids could handle it. So they didn't do it this time.
We parked and the kids and Brandon all put on their snow pants. Then we walked over to the hill with our sleds.
There are two parts to Penny Hill. The low front hill and the HIGHER hill in the back. We were just planning to do the front hill, but there were a few other people who braved the big hill.
Veronica went down the face of the low hill and had quite the wipe out followed by a tumble. It looked bad and knocked the wind out of her. I was really worried that the trip was ruined for her. But she kept sledding - from the less steep face.
Derrick kept saying, "I've missed sledding. I'm so happy!"
Here's a video of the kids sliding down. And I FINALLY remembered to film it in landscape so it would upload as a regular video and not a short.
Here I am. I was NOT sledding because I value my spine.
Brandon wasn't going to sled. But the kids talked him into it. He went down on his stomach and that helped him not injure his spine.
I hiked up to the top of the little hill. Here's the view. You can see Dollar Mountain back there. There's a ski lift up to the top of that.
Here are the girls taking a break with Brandon.
We'd left a few hats halfway down the hill. Derrick aimed his sled for them and slid down. He grabbed one as he slid past. It was such a fluid motion.
Here's another video I took from the top.
In that video Veronica went down on Brandon's back. She rolled off and then didn't get up for bit. When she did get up she didn't come back up the hill. She went and sat in the snow with Brandon. I hiked back down to her and she was saying she was dizzy. So she and I started heading back to the car. There had also been an off camera crash with Derrick and Lydia. And it was seeming like it was able time to go before anything super dangerous happened. So Brandon stayed with the other kids while they did one or two more runs and then they followed me and Veronica to the car.
I handed everyone ibuprofen as they gave me their wet gloves. I was like, "You are going to need this."
Then we had oreos in the car as we drove away from Sun Valley. Before everyone fell asleep I asked them which they liked more, ice skating or sledding. Derrick liked sledding the most. Charlotte and Lydia liked them both the same. And Veronica was silent which we interpreted as she disliked them both equally.
Brandon drove for about 40 minutes, but then was super tired. So I took over for the rest of the way home.
At home we had a fend for yourself night for dinner. That meant Derrick had corn dogs and the rest of us had burritos. Then I crawled in bed with the book and had a lovely night reading.
My mom emailed me about how much she liked Veronica's rock display case. That reminded me that I never took a picture of what Veronica had done to it. She's added many rocks to each little square. So I took a picture of that.
Veronica said she was still hurting on her head her neck and her tail bone. So I gave her more ibuprofen before bed. I also rubbed her neck with my lidocaine stuff. She said that helped.
On Sunday morning Jori and I had plans to hang out yet again. Earlier in the week we'd both been super impressed by Bishop Mariann Budde's sermon at the Inaugural Pray Service at the National Cathedral. She'd concluded the sermon with these words.
Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you and, as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and Independent families, some who fear for their lives. And the people, the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They, they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, wadara and temples. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands, to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honour the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people. The good of all people in this nation and the world.
I'd read that to the kids on Tuesday night. And an idea started percolating in my brain. Bishop Budde is an Episcopal Bishop. And for the past several months I'd been thinking about attending an Episcopal service. The idea came partly from the At Last She Said It podcast. One of the hosts had started attending an Episcopal church as an experiment and had been very moved by the fact that women could be ordained. She made me want to see it for myself. And now that my ward meets at 12:00 there was time for me to attend their 9:00 AM service.
At first I was just going to go by myself. But I decided to invite Jori along. Inviting Jori is basically my default mode at this point and she'd gone to Mass with me last year so I figured she'd want to come to this too.
So she picked me up at 8:35 and drove us over there. I told her, "I have no idea what the political leanings of this particular church might be. They might not fully agree with Bishop Budde. But I want to see if they say anything.
The service was really lovely. The Episcopal church is very close to the Catholic church so the service was laid out a lot like catholic mass. There was a reading from the Old Testament. And later there was a reading from the New Testament. And what do you know the assigned reading - in a cycle of reading that is centuries old - was Luke 4:14-21.
And so for the second time in a week I read:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”
So that scripture is following me now.
Right after that the Reverend gave his sermon. And in the sermon he praised Bishop Budde. I was like, "YES!!!!!!!"
When it was all over I shook his hand at the end and quickly thanked him for talking about Bishop Budde. I said, "We were so impressed by what she said. We wanted to come see what this church was like."
I came home from that feeling so good and light. It had been a beautiful experience. But it wasn't the only good experience of the day. Because about 30 minutes later we all went to the church for Derrick to be ordained a deacon.
Someone had texted the deacon's quorum presidency and invited them to come. So three of Derrick friends were there. Two of the adult leaders were there too. Brother Rollins from the bishopric was there. (the bishop was out of town.) Brandon and Brother Rollins were the only ones who did the ordination. Brandon was the one who did it.
When he was done Derrick said, "I'm a grown man now!"
We had about 30 minutes before we would be there for church so there really wasn't a point to going back home. So we just went to the stage and hung out. Derrick let me take his picture.
When it was time for Sacrament Meeting he went and sat with the other Deacons. Brandon sat on the row behind him. When they got up to pass the sacrament Brandon followed Derrick and walked right with him so Derrick wouldn't be nervous. Derrick did really well. We had lots of people come up to us and congratulate him and say he did such a good job.
He was so happy to have finally done it. And I was really happy for him to have done it on his own timeline.
And then as if all that wasn't enough we also had a fabulous Relief Society lesson. The teacher got really venerable and it was beautiful.
I came home from church and had to take a nap because I was just so spiritually worn out.
And that gets us caught up again.
Next week we start choreography rehearsals so I get to be brave and be bad at another new thing.
Just what is a girl to do when she is a college graduate in economics; a wife to an aviation enthusiast; and the mother of four children age nine and under? I'm not sure, but I am trying to figure it out. Read along as I find out where I fit in the world.
