Performing Arts Camp 2018

I've always told my kids that I would do the Performing Arts Camp for as long as my kids want to do it. We had a nice big group this year and Camille was my co-director.

Our rehearsal got really exciting when the kids found two snakes up by the bunnies right in the middle of the practice. Sydney had to come and take care of them. 

One of the kids' favorite parts of the camp is when we paint the sets.

The younger cast did the play "Little Quack." Bryce was the narrator.

The younger cast performed "The Rainbow Fish." Rachel was the Blue Fish.

Both casts and the program. 

We pulled this program together in one week. It was a little crazy to choreograph and learn all the lines, prepare sets and costumes and still have fun and learn performance-based techniques. But the kids are hard workers and we had a lot of fun pulling it all together.

Beauty and the Beast

Rachel has been working hard for many months as part of the ensemble for the school play, "Beauty and the Beast."

She had a solo/speaking part in the opening number "Belle". 

other child: I need six eggs.

RACHEL: That's too expensive!

It was so exciting to have a speaking part as the aristocratic lady and have her own head mic. :)

Rachel's neighbor and friend, Mylee, was also in the play with her. 

Rachel was born to be on the stage. She has great stage presence, loud voice, beautiful voice, good memory and happy attitude. I hope she continues to be involved in drama. She's a star!

Performing Arts Camp

As I mentioned earlier, my children convinced me to do  the Performing Arts Camp again. I didn't do it last year because we were so darn busy during June.  And I thought interest had died down.

But lo and behold, the children wanted to do it so was I to do but say yes, even though I only had a week to prepare.

I decided to do the same play we began with in 2011. We really had a lot of fun doing all the activities and learning about performing on stage. But one of my favorite parts were snack time and seeing the children gather in small groups and enjoy each others company.

Let's get a closer look.

If I were to guess, I'd say one of the kids favorite days was when we painted the set, which was a big, cardboard train.

Because I pulled this together so last minute, I wasn't able to find a co-director that was available for both weeks. So Camille stepped into that role and was a great helper. I couldn't have done it without her.

Unfortunately, we forgot to take very many pictures. At least we got some good cast pictures the night of the performance.

Before the show.

After the show.

I will forever be grateful to Diahan for helping me get started on this Performing Arts Camp adventure and for Jana for helping me keep it going. And now my kids, who like it enough to ask me to do it again. I'll do it as long as they want me to!

2011

2012

2013

2014 - seems like we did it this year but I have no evidence.

2015

2016 - too busy this year

May stuff

The middle of April, we got new chickens.

So we put our old chickens (3 yrs old) on the classifieds for free-

-to make room for 9 new chicks.

In May, we put the chicks out in the coop. They like it a lot better out there. But it is not even close to the joy I feel not having them in my house anymore!

In the chicken picture you may notice cousin Cooper! I was lucky enough to babysit Cooper, Milo and Coleman while Sarah and Dallin took an overnight trip. Saturday turned out to be quite eventful. 

Yes, the chickens went into the coop. 

Also, Sydney had MORP! 

And then, just as Sydney was coming home to get ready for her dinner date and the boys were ready to go to their home, I sliced my finger on a very dirty metal chicken feeder. 

I rushed to the Instacare and got 6 stitches, just in time to throw a messy dinner together and leave for a book signing. Whew!

So the book signing was fun. Mostly just us authors and a few family members who had already purchased books. So there were no sales. But it was fun to be together and read an excerpt from our stories.

I was first and I completely forgot to even introduce myself and went right into reading my story. All the authors after me introduced themselves, talked about the genesis of their story and read a longer excerpt. That was kind of embarrassing but I learned a lot so I guess that's good. (And thank you mom for coming to support me!)

Bryce left this note on my bed. It is soccer season right now and most of his friends are playing on teams. We usually don't start sports or lessons until 2nd grade. But he really wanted to play soccer. He informed me that he plays World Cup every recess and he knows all the rules and all the good plays.

For teacher appreciation week, I totally dropped the ball. I had an idea to make crochet bookmarks just for fun and thought, "Hey! Why don't I make them for the teachers?" They only take 15 minutes to make. So the morning of the last day of teacher appreciation week, we put together these little cards and they turned out awesome. I was pretty proud of myself for the pun. 

Book Mark my word. 

You are the GREATEST!

And then Rachel translated it for the spanish teachers. That makes me so proud!

LDS Storymakers Conference was May 11-13. I really enjoy going to this conference but oh my, I was on the biggest roller coaster. Thursday workshop I felt like the worst writer. Thursday afternoon I had some great ideas and knew how to fix everything. Friday, I decided I was finished writing. Saturday, I was totally motivated. I know I'm not the only one and most likely, every writer or the majority of writers feel this way. 

And every year I wish I had taken pictures. And I didn't. It was so fun to see Amy Wilson from CO again. We had the nicest dinner (with Tanya) on Friday night on Provo's center street. 

But this is the only picture I got. This is Nikki Trionfo, the ring-leader of the social side of Storymakers! 

She also published a book this year, "Shatter." I reviewed it on my Bookworm Wednesday blog. Its a great book and she's a great person. 

We had our end of year piano recital. It turned out great. Short and sweet at 30 minutes. 

Camille and Rachel talked me into doing Performing Arts Camp again this year. Yikes. One week to prepare! And notice the typo?!?!? 9:30am-11:00PM. What?!?!?!

We had some visitors on the front lawn. Ducks! They reside in the canal that runs through the subdivision and raise a family there every year. But they've never ventured this far from home before. 

Performing Arts Camp 2015

This year was the FIFTH year for the Performing Arts Camp! Let me just start off with a huge thank you to Jana. I couldn't do it without help and you are a great co-director!

So this was our cast. Thirteen adorable kids, 7 of which were mine and Jana's. 

We did two plays: "The Kingdom Without Music" with the younger kids, directed by me and "The Wolf Who Cried Boy," directed by Jana. We also sang "Clap Your Hands" from Dragon Tales and "Never Tell a Lie" by Janeen Brady.

The kids worked so hard and memorized all their lines in just a few short days. 

Camille took on the role of Little Wolf.

Rachel was the Princess in "The Kingdom Without Music."

We usually paint sets on the last day of rehearsal but we ran out of time so I just did it with my kids and the neighbors. They were a little young to participate in the actual play but watched us everyday. They were more than thrilled to help with the sets.

The kids were so well-behaved this year. They worked hard learning to project their voices, show emotion, action and reaction, songs and staging. Hash would sometimes entertain himself by sticking twigs in his socks. I'm not sure what that was about but he enjoyed it and it kept him busy.

Here we are, minutes away from our performance. We started it later in the day, hoping to beat the heat, but the sun was lower in the sky and right in our eyes. Not sure what to do about that. 

While the audience continued to grow, we took the kids to the front porch and took pictures and said a prayer together.

This is the cast for "The Kingdom Without Music."

This is the cast for "The Wolf Who Cried Boy."

These kids were a delight to work with this year and have inspired me to go another year.

And we can't forget Hash and a little lamb and his best friend. He did a great job too.