Comic Con

I don't usually win anything, but a couple weeks ago I won two tickets to the three days of Comic Con.  Comic Con is a huge convention for comic books and fantasy and science fiction, books, art and movies.  There is a huge convention floor filled with venders of all kinds, game rooms, artists, authors, old tv and movie stars, and panel discussions. This thing is huge!  Like 100,000 people in attendance.  And the funnest part, at least for me, was that about 20% of the people dress up in the costumes of their favorite fandom.

 We took turns with the tickets, Ruth and I went on Thursday, Chuck, Ruth and Kaitlin went on Friday and Chuck and I went on Saturday.   We saw panels put on by James Marsters, Warf and Troy from Star Trek, Data from Star Trek, Richard Paul Evens, Studio C, and some other voice actors and costume designers.   On Friday Ruth wore Kaitlin's Rapunzel dress and she got a lot of attention, and was asked to take many pictures, especially by little girls who were excited to see one of their favorite princesses. Overall we had a pretty good time.

 I don't know if I'd pay the full price of the tickets that we had, but I would maybe pay for the family to go for one day.  It did get us talking about what costumes we'd like to make.  There were so many wonderful costumes there!




Diving In

Last week we all went out to Cafe Rio to celebrate finishing reading the Book of Mormon again as a family.  Every night, without fail, we spend 15 minutes as a family reading a few verses together and having family prayer. We've done this for 15 years now, and it's worked out really well for us.  I've lost count on how many times we've read the Book of Mormon, maybe about 16 or so.  We've also read the New Testament, Pearl of Great Price and Doctrine and Covenants.   We've read the Book of Mormon a little bit differently every time to try to gain new insights from it. With this reboot we are reading it along with the seminary study guide.

This whole month  Jared has been taking a diving class. In just three classes he went from doing his first head first dive of the edge of the pool to diving, head first off of the high dive.  He doesn't like it, and we are basically forcing him to go, but  I'm proud of how brave he's been. He's done everything the teachers have asked him.  I don't know about you, but I've never dived off even the diving board head first, let alone the high dive.


Kaitlin finished a series of interviews and got a job at Baskin Robbins.  She starts on Monday and is "scared out of her mind".

Honk!

This week was Ruth's show Honk! The Ugly Ducking Musical. She had a really great time and the show was very cute.

Dot and Greylag in bandages at the end of the show. They are killed in the play but are revealed as only injure at the curtain call.

Ruth's monologue about flight safety. It was tricky for her because she had to time it to the music.

The dancing geese behind Ruth were hilarious. I thought this was one of the cutest numbers in the show.

Dot and Greylag come across the lost ugly duckling and agree to help him fine his 'mum'.

This is one of the chorus numbers Ruth was in. She is in yellow in the middle far right. 

After the show.

I secretly took this video. Videoing was not allowed so that is why the quality is so low. I had to hold the camera close to the vest, literally.


Lorenzo Family Reunion 

Our family sang a musical number at the opening devotional of the Lorenzo Family Reunion this week. We were celebrating the 200th anniversary of Lorenzo's birth, and Elder Holland was the key note speaker.  Even though all the members of my family are musical, this is the first time we have ever gotten together to sing like this.  The week before my sister (Hi! Donna) asked me to conduct. I got a kick out of conducting a choir in the Assembly Hall, though there were a few nervous moments when I thought I might end up fall off the stage into Elder Holland's lap. Luckily, that didn't happen, and our musical number came off very well.

Our family outside the Assembly Hall

We are missing Ruth because this performance was the same night as Ruth's opening night of Honk!  (which we sadly missed). 

Singing Adventures

Kaitlin had a concert this week where they performed all their festival pieces.

Honk has started full dress rehearsals which have kept Ruth late to school every night.  See my tall grass??

Here the the teacher is talking to the cast after the show. Ruth's show is this this week on Wed - Friday.

One advantage of living in Utah is that on choir tour Kaitlin got the chance to visit the San Diego Temple grounds.  Here she is with her friends.  The very tall girl on the left will be Kaitlin's college roommate.

Kaitlin also got a chance to make a very short visit to the Mormon Batalion monument.  They also had 150 youth show up to the Mormon Church on Sunday morning, shocking the local congregation.   Kaitlin's choirs won in every category, bringing home 5 very large trophies. They are really very very technically excellent.

More Normal Stuff

Life is clipping along at it's normal pace here at our house. Jared is off track so he and I have spent the week hanging out together, making minecraft videos and stuff.   Ruth has moved into dress rehearsals now for her play, so she is at school late every night.  Her show runs from the 9th-11th of April.   Kaitlin has been in San Diego this week on choir tour. I got a text from her last night saying that they had won their competition. Right before she left on tour, her friend, who is not a boyfriend because that is not allowed, got his mission call to Brazil.  She took it all very well.  Finally, Chuck was in charge of a church adult activity, and it was a success and had good attendance.  So all in all, things are good with us.

Ruth hit the 800 subscriber point this week on her youtube channel. She's been working on a few "how to" videos that some of her subscribers have requested. Here is here filming a video on how to draw a My Little Pony character.

A Normal Week

Not a whole lot was going on this week. So I thought I'd just mention a few things that would probably not normally make it into the blog.

• Jared did over 200 flips on the trampoline. No lie. The warmer weather has been calling, and to keep entertained Jared set a goal to do 100 flips both Friday and Saturday.
• I passed of two songs at my piano lessons. My teacher says that I'm "hard working." That's something. 
• Kaitlin is vice president over finance of her school choir and finally finished collecting an processing all the money for their choir tour.  
• Kaitlin got to sing at her choir teacher's grandmother's funeral. 
• Ruth's YouTube channel has over 700 followers now.
• I planted peas, pruned the trees, and our daffodils are almost open!
• For family home evening our activity was to go to the dollar store and each person could choose one thing to buy to do with the family. When we got home we had a plastic frog jumping contest, played punching games with blow up boxing gloves and played bible go-fish. 
• My guitar tab of "Let it Go" has over 800,000 views and is considered the standard tab for the song on the internet. 
• I discovered when I googled myself (how did I not know this???) that the article I wrote for the Children's Friend Magazine a few years ago had been picked up and published by the Liahona magazine. That means it was translated into over 20 languages and also dramatized into several additional languages.  Now I'm desperatly wanting 2011 March Liahona magazine. 
• Ruth's been staying after school every day to work on her play.  Last week my team of middle school students and I designed and cut out eight clumps of grass. This week we painted the grass.  Ruth and I stayed late and did all the detailing.

The taller ones are over 8 feet tall.

Prom

The biggest thing that has been going on around here is Prom preparations.  Much of the week has been spent on finishing "the dress".  Here are some pictures:

When we first started talking about this idea of making prom dress that wasn't just a dress, but was a Disney princess dress, we looked at lots of the classic dresses, Cinderella, Bell, Sleeping Beauty, but the one Kaitlin loved, was this one, from Tangled.

I found this dress at the thrift store for $6.  It was a long shot but for six bucks I thought even if I used the skirt as a petticoat, it was still a good deal.   Do you see the V waist, sweetheart neckline and puffy sleeves?  In construction is is basically the Tangled dress. And it fit Kaitlin pretty well, I only had to make a few adjustments to the bodice.  It was an amazing find.

I didn't take any pictures of the dying process, but first I dyed little scraps of the fabric in my kitchen until we got a color we liked.  Then I dyed the dress in a bucket in the bathtub. It was hard physical labor, but turned out really well.  I had a vest pattern and sewed the lining, and it just didn't fit right. So I bought another pattern and sewed this mock up. Again, it didn't have the right cut so (if you look close) I stapled additional fabric to it and cut it to fit Kaitlin the way I wanted, and then I unpicked the fabric and used that for my pattern.

There are over 17 feet of lace on this dress, and almost an entire spool of ribbon.  I looked hard at unpicking the sleeves to sew on the ribbon, but in the end basted it all by hand, and then sewed it on while the sleeve was intact. Next to building the vest, this was the hardest part of the dress.

Kaitlin loved the dress, and we had several "squee" moments as it came together.

Here she is, all ready, and waiting for her prince to arrive.

Ben was such a good sport, renting his Flynn costume from a local theater.  Kaitlin hid when he came and made Ruth and I announce her and blow pretend trumpets.  I wish I had a video of when they first saw each other, they were both so excited!

I haven't had enough time to talk to Kaitlin about how Prom went. When she got home she was glowing with happiness, but then went straight to bed. Maybe I'll add more to this post after I get a chance to talk to her.  I'm sure they were quite the sight mixed in with all the tuxes and formals.

Kaitlin said they had a great time at Prom. Once everyone got over the initial shock, all her friends, and many students she didn't even know complemented them.  Ben's parents hosted all of them for a mixed up dinner at there house complete with family members as waiters.  They made quite an impression walking into the dance at the capitol. She said most of the girls were excited or jealous, and that the boys were a little more judgmental of her date, but he took it all in stride. She said they couldn't get a slow dance to themselves without being interrupted by people complementing them on their outfits.  She said it was the "best date ever!" 

Scouting Adventures


Since turning 11 Jared has been working hard in Boy Scouts.  This week he earned his Tenderfoot rank advancement. He's also been put in as Patrol Leader of his little patrol of three boys.
On Friday, Chuck came home early from work and the boys packed up for Jared's first ever scout campout. It was cold and threatening rain, but undaunted they went.

The blown down tent the next morning.

They were able to set up tents and get a fire built and eat foil dinners before the rain hit.  The rain pounded and wind blew and at around 2 am Jared said the tent shuttered and blew down on him and his fellow scout. Wet and tentless, the boys were sent to spend the rest of night in the leaders van, while Chuck and the scout leader toughed it out in their tent that was still standing.   The next morning the sun came out and they were able to do some geocashing.


It's Thursday Night 
 What's happening at our house?

Chuck got the "Spot On" award at work for dealing with an expensive billing crisis last year in a professional and efficient way. We celebrated his award with a carrot cake.

Learning to read patterns is like learning a new language.  Kaitlin cut out all the pieces to her vest.

This is where you'll find Jared every morning and night.

Ruth got some engineering help on her cracker box car. Washers were the key to keeping the wheels from rubbing against the body. The next day the car rolled the required distance and she got an A.

Ruth is One of a Kind

It's a Mom's prerogative to think all her kids are special. Let me tell you a little about what Ruth's been up to.

I mentioned a month or two ago that she was working on a YouTube series. She writes, storyboards, animates, and voices My Little Pony cartoons.  Now she has over 600 subscribers. I tease her telling her that she needs to keep working on this so she can pay for college by being a YouTube star.

We went to our city talent show this weekend. This is the first time in two years that we haven't performed in the show.  At intermission they invited anyone who wanted to to go on the stage and sing "Let it Go."  Ruth volunteered and ran up on stage.  When the music started all the kids stood frozen while they sang, but then one little boy started dancing across the stage.  Not to be overshadowed, Ruth stepped out center stage and started to sing with much passion, and then many others joined her while she hammed it up for the audience.  Only six years ago this was the girl who clung to my skirts when we first went on stage for The Music Man. Now, look at her. Drama has given her amazing self confidence. 

Speaking of drama, Ruth is working hard on her school musical, Honk.  This week I went in and with a team of student helpers, designed and cut out several large panels of clumps of grass, some as tall as 7 or 8 feet.