Romeo and Juliet

Ruth put on three performances of Romeo and Juliet this week. Two for her school and one for parents. She played the part of Mother Mary Lawrence.  For those of you rusty on your Romeo and Juliet, Fryer Lawrence is the fellow that married Romeo and Juliet and set up the plan with the poison that looked like death.  Because this was a production of Ruth's theater class, their number of boys was limited, so they switched her to be Mother Lawrence.

I'm posting a short highlight video here for the sake of grandparents. If you get my blog by email you'll need to visit the site to see it.

Sister Lawrence scolds the Capulets for being such horrible people after they discovered Juliet "dead".

Sister Lawrence tells Romeo to 'man up' after he is banished.

A posed picture in front of the Capulet's family tomb.

Back to Nauvoo

It's been two years since we first went to Nauvoo and they already want us back. We will be on the stage from July 20-25th.

Family Photos

We got back our family photos and were generally pleased with them.  The place we went just sold us a CD so we own all the digital files (about 40 total) for the pictures and can print them at will.

Here is a sampling:

Romeo and Juliet

Ruth's play Romeo and Juliet plays this Wednesday at 6pm.  This is put on by her advanced drama class as their final project.   Ruth has been working many days after school to finish set and props, and has been having a great time.   She auditions for the school musical next month which will play in May.

Happy 2015!

We celebrated a quiet New Years. Ruth went to a party at a friends, and Jared and I went over to our friends and neighbors, but I only stayed a couple hours because Chuck was home sick on the couch.  When New Years rolled around Jared represented all of us in his celebrations.

2014 was a very good year to us.  It's felt to me that the last few years have been a golden age for our family.  We are all happy, growing, learning, and well.  The kids are progressing as they should. Chuck's job is solid. We haven't had to worry about any major crisis. Our only stress has been found in life achievements. We love each other and like to be together. We have a good time.  Chuck and I are better than ever. We are the family on the cereal box or in the laundry detergent commercial. Life is good.

2015 will bring some major changes for us.  Kaitlin is starting the process of putting in her mission papers.  She is planing on graduating with her AA in August and then leaving on a proselyting mission for our church.   This fall, Ruth will start high school, dating and driving.  Jared will be going to middle school.  Chuck and I should remain about the same, though I'll be looking for a new job over the summer. Life will still be good, but will be changing, as life does.

We enjoyed a quiet week.  We didn't do a lot, watched some movies, went to have some family pictures done, that's about it.  Kaitlin headed back to college today, Ruth is procrastinating reading a book that is due when she starts school, and Jared is just bored because he is off track and doesn't go back until the end of the month.  We'll get our family pictures back next week and I'll post some here.

Christmas Time

On Christmas eve we drove downtown to Temple Square to see the beautiful lights and nativity there. We've sure enjoyed having Kaitlin home for the holidays. These kids aren't just smiling for the photo, they really do get along well.

It was cold, but not unbearably so, and the lights were very nice.

Whenever I walk around the Salt Lake Temple I remember that five generations of my family have walked these paths.

On Christmas eve we also reenacted the nativity.  This year we tried more of a free-for-all approach. We all gathered random costume supplies and put on a narration of the Christmas story. When a character was named then someone threw on some sort of costume and acted out the part.  Here, Kaitlin is Mary and Ruth is playing Elizabeth. Jared wanted to be baby Jesus so he rolled himself up in a white sheet. Chuck played a convincing sheep with a white towel over his back.

We got a lot of presents on Christmas morning. We also got a Christmas snow!  Here is Chuck wearing an "ugly" Christmas sweater I made for him.

Christmas Day was a quiet and casual affair for us.  Kaitlin got a chance to visit with her missionary and the rest of us played with our new toys or played wii games together.  We had a fancy Christmas dinner complete with Christmas crackers.

On Friday when Chuck went out to shovel the driveway  he discovered a six point buck sitting under Ruth's window.

On Saturday we hosted the family Christmas party. All my Utah siblings, their families, and my mother were there.

We had a good time visiting and playing games. Ruth won the Mario Cart competition.

The evening ended with a re-gifting exchange. Here my niece, Stacy, is modeling the onesie she was given.

On the left is a cake from Jared's Sunday school teachers, on the right is the bacon cake.

Happy Birthday, Jared!

Our big man turned 12 this week.  He didn't want me to come to the birthday lunch at school but he did want me to bring him a chicken sandwich from Wendy's, which I did. He also didn't want a birthday cake, or any kind of dessert, just bacon, which he got.  For his birthday presents he got the gaming headset he wanted, a gaming mouse that lights up like Tron and has more buttons than I know what to do with, and some clothes (Dad: "which present do you want next?" Jared: "Hand me the jeans one"). 

He was most excited about all the new subscribers he got on his YouTube channel, he went from 7 to 32! For the dinner we ate homemade chicken soup and tater-tots, and then we watched some SpongeBob and played wii together.  All in all it was a pretty great day.

Today at church Jared was made a Deacon and he got trained in all his new responsibilities. He also played the highest bell in a children's bell choir. He didn't get to play very often (and he made faces and looked bored when he wasn't playing) but when he did play, he did a great job.

Ruth's Driving

Ruth took her written test on Monday and got her driving permit.  Kaitlin was brave enough to take her out to a parking lot to give driving a try and said that Ruth was able to drive circles around the parking lot really well by the end of her lesson.


Christmas is Coming

Holiday fun is in full swing at our house.  We've been making Christmas treats, watching bad Christmas movies, and have been finishing up our shopping.

We got a good deal on a used drum set and have been playing in our "basement band".  I play guitar, drums or bass, Kaitlin is learning bass and is doing pretty well, Ruth plays guitar, sings and plays drums, and surprisingly Chuck is a decent drummer as well.  We are really bad but have a good time.

Today was my choir's Christmas program and it went really well.  We sang four numbers and had three solos.  Ruth sang one of the solos and did a great job.  Our choir was really strong and I was proud of them.  The only mistake we made was my fault, but I'm learning and getting better and better as a director. But truly, as far as ward choirs go, ours was one of the best I've heard.

Anticipating

This has been a week of anticipating.

• Jared turns 12 next week. He is anxiously awaiting his birthday and is counting presents as they appear under the tree and in the birthday present spot.   He met with our Bishop today and will be made a Deacon (like an alter boy) in our church next Sunday.  This means he will start helping with the passing of the sacrament and collections of offerings, among other things. 
• Ruth is working hard on Romeo and Juliet. Her performance will be January 14th.   All are welcome, but Ruth says that she'd rather you all come to the musical she'll be doing in a few months instead because it will be much better.
• Chuck has been anticipating his release from being High Priest Leader for over a month now and last Sunday it finally happened.  He's been given a new job as Boy Scout Committee Chair, and secretary in the Young Men's program.
• Becky is anticipating the holidays by buying gifts, making treats and working on the choir program.  She held a dress rehearsal with the choir today and it went pretty well.
• We've been excitingly anticipating the release of the YouTube video that we took part in!  Here it is.  You can see us at the 4:00 minute mark. We are on the outer ring under the manger. 

We Set the World Record!

Getting costumes

On Monday we got this crazy idea that we'd drive down and participate in trying to set the world record for the largest Nativity, and participate in a YouTube video.  I took Jared out of school and as soon as Ruth got out we were off on our adventure.  When we got to this park we checked in and they gave us wrist bands with coordinates on them then they directed us to this huge field.

Waiting while people practice on the field.

On this field was a grid.  We found our spots on the grid and then went through a short training on how we were to stand and what we needed to do.  Then we went into line to be issued our angel bell costumes.  These were like white body bags with head holes and LED lights around the bottom.  Then we had to just wait.  Now it's winter here, but it wasn't super cold, maybe in the 30's.  We still were chasing the sun as it began to set, trying to stay as warm as we could. 

Famous people getting the World Record Plaque.

After an hour or so we went to set the world record.  This consisted of standing on a hillside, all crammed together, while they brought in some animals and costumed nativity actors.  There were several "famous" youtube stars there.  Some bloggers I've never heard of, Kid History, Alex Boye, some Studio C folks, and Sherri Dew. We stood there and sang a couple carols and got our picture taken.   Then we waited some more.  The sun set and it got a little nippy.

Setting the World Record in our costumes.

 After another hour or more we took our places on the field.  With our bell/body bag costumes, we looked like thousands of ethereal white jelly fish floating around in the dark.   So our instruction was to point our flashlights up at a camera, that was suspended by big balloons over our head, and then we had to turn off our flashlights and scatter up towards the hills.  It took quite a while for them to get us all organized, as you can imagine, and then the wind kept buffering the balloons around. The camera bobbed like crazy and I thought whoever watched our video would get sea sickness. 

Standing in our grid formation.

Over an hour we did the shot only 2 times.  It was really starting to get cold now, and we were getting tired.   Finally, they asked us to all pray that the wind would die down so we could get the shot.  It was quiet for a moment and then we tried a 3rd take.  The wind died down and they were able to soar the camera up above us high and steady.  We shown our flashlights, turned off our flashlights and ran for the hills.  It was a wrap!   By this time we had been there five hours and the kids were grumpy, cold and tired. We were supposed to then go to the hillside to be angels for the manger scene but the family wanted to just go home, so we left.  We heard that the shoot went on for another 3 hours that night.   

Selfie

I'll link the YouTube video from our event when it comes out next week.  Because we left early we will only be in about 5 seconds of the video.  But at least we experienced it.

I borrowed this from a news site. Here we are in our formation. Our lights aren't on yet, so you can't really see how cool it looked. You can see the balloon/camera high over our heads.

Here we are setting the world record and this is the big picture that was picked up by all the newspapers and TV stations.  Our family is in the upper left hand corner of this picture. Roughly 5 heads down from the top, and 5 heads in from the left.