Books Are a Girls Best Friend!

I've been sucked into the new trendy book series by Stephenie Meyer, and I must admit they are hard to put down. I started Twilight last week, skeptical at first, and ended up reading it in about 2 days. It took a while to get into the story, but once I did I just couldn't put it down. I'm a hopeless romantic, so anything with a male lead that can deliver a smooth line, has me hooked. I don't actually read "romance" novels though. Just novels with a good, creative plot, and some chance for love. I usually stick with the young adult section, because it's usually "safer" as far as keeping things clean, but interesting.

Naturally after I finished book one I wanted to dive into the second, but I had to exhibit some self control since I had three shows last weekend and wanted to spend some time with my family. I made myself promise not to open the second book until after church on Sunday. Needless to say the book was finished by Monday, although I might have been a little sleep deprived from staying up until 4 in the morning Sunday night.

Now that I'm finished, I'm embarrassed to admit that I started the first one over again. I usually read books so fast to catch the plot, that I don't actually get to savor them. Book three doesn't come out until August 7th, so I figure that gives me lots of time to re-read the first two. I just need to go buy them now, since the library will be expecting them back someday.

I'm very pleased that I've convinced Ben to start reading Twilight as well. It's so hard not to be able to talk to anyone about the book, since most of my friends haven't started reading them yet and don't want me to spoil it for them.

Books are such a wonderful thing! It's like breathing for me. I just can't live without it. I've always been a book nerd, just devouring everything I could get my hands on. I'm so thankful my mom was obsessed with books and reading and encouraged me when I was young. There's just something magical about a book. Books can take you to places you've never been, or adventures you'll probably never really go on, and you get to meet people so interesting and so real you would swear that you'd always been the best of friends. I can't think of anything else in life that has quite that effect on me, except for love of course!

Opening Night!

Friday night was opening night and I survived! My mic however, did not! Yes, for whatever reason my microphone was not turned on. I don't know if it just got bumped to stand by or what, but it wasn't on. Fortunately, my parents were smack in the front row and I did project the best I could since I could tell right away it wasn't on.

It was funny because no one in the cast wanted to tell me that my mic hadn't been on, because they knew how bummed I would be about it. I was really sad at first, but I'm over it now. Especially since the Saturday matinee went great! No mic problems, my voice was strong enough, and best of all my husband and son were there to see me. Saturday night my mic had a tiny bit of trouble at the beginning, but then they got the problem fixed. My voice wasn't as good Satuday night since I'd been singing all week, but no one ran screaming from the theater, so I count it as a success!

I have another show tonight and then Friday and two on Saturday. They are talking about doing an encore perfomance the end of July since the tickets have been selling out during the breakfast with princesses. I hope so, because this has been such a great cast and so much fun. It's so cute when little girls dressed like princesses ask you for your autograph. Plus I'd llike to see how the run goes when I'm actually well and not carrying tissue with me everywhere.

Sick Again!

Ironically enough, I came down with a terrible cold on Sunday. Now usually this would just be an inconvenience, but unfortunately I have to sing on Friday! So, needless to say I'm way stressing out. As of right now I still don't have a voice. If anyone has any great tips on how to quickly get over a cold I would greatly appreciate it. Any prayers on my behalf would be appreciated as well. Hopefully, two days will be enough to get well again.

Dancemares!

I noticed I haven't written for a while, and the reason would be that I have been at rehearsal every spare minute. Normally we rehearse 2-3 months for a show, but we only have 3 weeks of rehearsal and it's getting down to crunch time.

I am so sore from dancing! I never realize how out of shape I am until I have to get back on stage again. I've learned 5 dances in 2 weeks and it's been crazy trying to keep track of all of them. I've been hunting down any friends that ballroom dance to try and refresh my memory.

I will be performing a jazz/lindyish number in "A Friend Like Me" from Aladdin. Then I'm singing "I won't say I'm in Love" from Hercules and thank goodness I mainly just have to walk around with that little hip sway motion that Meg does in the movie. I'm dancing in 2 songs from Mary Poppins: "Supercalifragi.." (I can't spell it) which is kind of a jazz/polka kind of number and "Chim Chim Cheree" which is a Vienesse Waltz. Then the hardest of all is a lindy/mixed swing number "Under the Sea" . The dance is killing me. I've only had one day to learn it, and I'm a bit rusty on swing. Not only that but the dance step is in 3/4 but some of the music is in 4/4. It's so hard to stay on beat when you aren't actually dancing on the beat!

I know it's getting stressful when I start having dance nightmares or as I have started calling them, Dancemares. I dream that I can't find my costume, or my legs won't work, or I can't remember any of the steps. They just keep getting weirder and weirder with each new dance I learn. The other night I dreamed we had rehearsal in my old Middle School, and the choreographer was showing me the steps, but my body just couldn't do it. Then the director came around and said we all had to have our vaccinations updated. So I had to try and hunt down the school nurse, but the show was going to start any minute. It was so bizarre! I'm just hoping all this dancing is worth it and whips my sorry behind into shape!

Pirate Party

Hyrum's birthday isn't technically until this Sunday, but we had his party last Saturday. His birthday always falls on Memorial Weekend so it's hard to have a party then when everyone is out of town so we just decided to move it up a week.

As most of you know Hyrum is obsessed about being a pirate, so naturally we had a pirate birthday party. For our invitations we printed them on parchment paper, cut them with torn edge scissors and decorated the edges with a chestnut cat's eye. Then we rolled them up and tied them with twine and put the into glass root beer bottles to deliver.

When the kids arrived, we tied a red sash around them and gave them a pirate hat. Then we had them go downstairs and watch Peter Pan until everyone arrived. The house and yard looked so cute. We had a skeleton dressed like a pirate hanging on the front door. There were skeleton flags leading up to the front steps and in the back yard. We had a pirate birthday banner in the window and another flag banner across the swing set. All over the house we had black balloons for our cannon balls. We also had a table outside all decorated with jewels and a pirate ship.

Once all the kids arrived we played pin the pirate next to the treasure. It was a little hard to fit everyone upstairs, but it was the only place with a flat space for the map. Then the kids went outside to dig for gold coins in the sandbox. They were so excited they got to keep the gold coins. After that we went in the front yard and had half of the kids swab the deck (paint brushes and water on the sidewalk) and the other half fish in our little kiddy pool we filled with magnetic fish and seashells. Then we went on a color treasure hunt where the kids found a treasure box filled with their goody bags (white cardstock box with the pirate symbol on it, red tissue paper and in the inside was a pirate patch and telescope, pirates of the Caribbean fruit snacks, pirate candy and jewels).

Then we opened presents and had cake and ice cream. Ben was up until 3 in the morning decorating the 2 cakes and they looked amazing. When the party was all done we had a barbecue with some friends and just relaxed. We didn't even bother cleaning up the house until Monday, because we were so pooped, but the party was fun! You can see more pictures in the album I created on my facebook site. The link is on my blog.

The amazing cakes Ben made! The first one's a chocolate cake that's decorated to look like an island, and the other is a white cake decorated like a pirate map.

Our little fishing pond!

Here's some of the kids digging for buried treasure.

I'm Meg

I've taken a few months off from musical theater after doing Beauty and the Beast last December, but I started getting stage hungry again this month. I noticed auditions for Sound of Music were coming up, and although I've never really wanted to be in Sound of Music, I really missed being on stage. I began working on an audition when about a week and a half ago I got an email about auditions for the Best of Disney. I knew they were going to be doing the Best of Disney, but last year they didn't hold auditions, so I just figured it wasn't an open audition. I was much more excited about the Disney production, but I would only have 3 days to put an audition together.

After talking with Ben, he convinced me to go ahead and try. There were a lot of good things about doing the Disney show instead of Sound of Music. The rehearsals for the Disney show are only going to be 3 weeks vs. 3 months for Sound of Music and there are only 2 weeks of shows vs. 1 month of shows.

I decided to sing "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes". The directors liked the song and cast me right there as Cinderella. I was excited because this song was much different from the songs I usually chose to sing.

They told me they would email me a schedule and cast list in a few days. Imagine my surprise when I opened the email and it had me cast as Meg from Hercules. I emailed them to double check if I should be working on "I Won't Say I'm In Love" instead and they emailed me back that they had in fact changed me to Meg.

At first I was a little disappointed because the Cinderella song was so different for me, but now I'm really excited about the Meg song. Her song is a really fun song, and it is also pretty different from what I usually sing. I'm used to singing Rogers and Hammerstein kind of stuff, so this spunky song is really going to be fun. Plus I get to have some of my friends be the Muses with me.

In all honesty I really don't look like Cinderella and look much more like Meg (minus the size 0 waist). I'm relieved I don't have to figure out how I'm going to be blond and not look awful! Besides I hear glass slippers are a killer to dance in.

Ella

I decided to take some pictures of Ella yesterday, since she didn't have any food stains on her clothes, her hair was still done, and she didn't have too many scratches, bruises, ect from playing.