It’s been a crazy month. So busy. I just don’t find myself home long enough to blog. There have been so many events of the past couple of week to catch up on.
First, Lilli and I opened and closed the production of Schoolhouse Rock Jr Live. This was a production class project. In this semester, we focus on the production process. Every student is assigned to a tech team and each team is assigned a tech lead. Students end up design and building all of the set, props, lights, costumes and sound for the production. This year we tried something new. We assigned a student choreographer. Lilli. She did a great job. She made it through creating and teaching the dances, as well as performing in many of them. It was hard work. I am super proud of the kids. They all stepped up and made the show happen. It turned out super cute. I sure wish more people had come to see it. Oh well. Maybe next time. (I will blog about the show later.
It really was kid approved. The grand kids came to watch. They seemed to really like it.
The cast party for this show was my favorite. We went bowling. I didn’t bowl. I watched and cheered. It was fun because it was just about friendship and having fun. Witt played. He kicked their butts. LOL. I wish we could do more parties like this one.
The following week we raced through, what I affectionately call the Wild Hair project, a joint production with Dallas High School and Redmond Proficiency Academy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Last year, at the State Thespian Festival, the three directors got together and hatched this little project. (I will blog more about it later). The first time the three schools got together they learned a dance in a tiny dance studio in Keizer.
The next day we met at Dallas High School to put it all together, tech, rehearse and preform. The following day we moved to Central. Before they all rehearsed at Central they all went to tour the Grand and Pentacle theatres in Salem. Then we rehearsed for a few hours before performing at Central. Finally, we all drove over to Redmond and had a short rehearsal before performing in Redmond. It was nuts. but it worked.
Every school had a different set, lighting and sound set ups. I was responsible for getting them all to work and gel. I know I’m not really a “hired” teacher at my school, but the other two school have zero tech instruction. I did a ton of work giving students from these schools a crash coarse in all things tech at their respective schools.
Lilli cut her hair. It’s cute, but I miss her long hair.
We went to the Rotary Awards. Lilli, Ethan and Jocie all got an award.
We had the final choir concert of the year. Oh, and the final high school band, and middle school band and choir concerts. I liked the set. It was really cool to see McKay and Kimber join Lilli for the old Irish blessing. I really hope it is possible for all of my kids to join her for that song for her senior concert. That would be cool.
Kimber’s family has been busy. They bought a house. They have been working on fixing it up a little. They wanted a taller fence and to paint before they move in. It will still be a few more weeks before that happens. They will be leaving this week for the sand castle competition. They will be gone for a week. Freya had her last week of pre-school. Next year Kimber is planning on home schooling the kids… so I guess it was her last day of school.
The weather can’t make up it’s mind. One day we have beautiful sunsets and the next it is raining so hard you can’t see in front of you.
McKay and family are hanging in there. They started fixing their yard. They are keeping busy. They went to visit Grandma and Grandpa Mabee. Poor little Tatum got sunburned sitting and chatting in Grandma’s yard. One of my favorite pictures form McKay was a picture of discovering she had a bowling ball in her bag at church and Beckett sound asleep on the floor wearing a dress.
Lilli danced in her dance recital, Alice in Wonderland. She was the Evil Queen. She was amazing! She was so funny in this comedy dance role. Her tap class were doorknobs? I not sure I get it, but there was story to how they got named that. Her little people she teaches were chipmunks. She also got to choreograph a modern piece – Trees. I am super proud of her. Her work is beautiful. I am hoping that she gets to teach more next year… and dance more. I need to work on that. Oh and Janey tried something new this, video projection for scenery. It worked pretty well. I might need to give that a shot one day.
This funny picture is of her teacher/boss. They were just getting ready to take a selfie backstage, when the cd skipped and went nuts with Lilli dancing her big number en pointe. The look on Janey’s face says it all. Panic. To Lilli’s credit, she kept dancing. I didn’t have a back up cd. All I could do was stop the music, wipe off the cd, and wait to the end of her dance, praying that the next track would play. It did. But still, I felt pretty bad about ruining Lilli’s big dance.
Ethan is a very supportive boyfriend. He joined me in the booth and helped run lights. He is good at it. If I didn’t like him on stage so much, I’d love to have him join me more often. But I need his talents on stage more, I think. After each show he would run down to the stage to hug her. He also helped her clean up the house and yard for a Thespian club party.
We had Thespian Inductions and awards. Lilli wrote a funny script for the officers to do using props from all the shows. It was great. Kids performed a number from each of the shows. And we said good-bye to one of my favorite group of seniors. I’m going to miss these guys. Lilli was a sobbing disaster. This coming Friday is most likely going to be an emotional day – graduation. Oh… and we announced our 2019-2020 season: 13 the Musical, World Theatre/One Acts featuring a one act called I Don’t Want to Talk About It, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and James and the Giant Peach. I am excited for this new season.
I took these too pictures over the past couple of weeks. Here is Lilli saving all the glasses from Holland in church… and in stage makeup we were doing bruises and Ethan was my model. I sent the picture to Lilli for a reaction. She didn’t really. She knew he was in makeup class and that I most likely had done that to him. LOL. One can try.
I also worked and elementary school concert. It was noisy! All about making music with all kinds of things. The best part was that it was Ben’s music concert. After the concert he made his teacher come up to the booth to meet me.
Witt was voted to go into the dunk tank for the yearbook party. He dressed up as a mermaid. He was wet… over and over. At least he was only assigned to be there for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, I did face painting again… and signed yearbooks. I have signed more yearbooks at these things than I ever did in high school. When I was in high school, no one really cared who I was. LOL.
Okay… I finally caught up a bit. Hopefully I will be able to keep up a little better now that we are coming to the end of the school year.
Resigning as the General Manager of the Universe 