On July 9th Tina invited Faith to see a movie with her and Zach and ended up talking me into taking the little buddy, too. We went to "Wall-e" and I thought it was really cute! .
Even though this was Christian's first movie at the theater, I don't think it really counts because he actually saw less than two minutes of it. I must say, though, that he was happy and quiet through most of it.
He wandered all around the nearly empty theater (no huge crowd turnout for the 3:30 pm shows, I guess) climbing up and down the stairs and walking along rows of empty seats. Bonus--he didn't come back chewing found gum, which is more than we can say of my brother Eric's first theater experience!!! Christian finally became interested in what was going on on the huge screen about a minute and a half before the end, so the timing was perfect because that's about his attention span for movies.
After the movie, the kids had a blast in the play area at the Newgate Mall that features squishy foam things to climb, slide down & play on. When the kids were thoroughly worn out, we ate some dinner at Chic-fil-A, "home of Faith's favorite nuggets".
I hadn't included a pet picture for awhile, so here is a picture of Crumpet alertly guarding our property. What a watchdog!
And another pic of Christian's favorite activity-water squirting.
Another favorite activity at our house is the game of "Spank Bum" invented by Tony & Faith. It's basically tag with a little bit of hide-and-seek sometimes thrown in. If you're "it" you have to tag the others with a spank.
It tends to involve a lot of screaming, or maybe more acurately, shrieking. It's one of the main things Faith looks forward to the weekends for!
Here Christian has made tongs out of a popsicle stick and is using them to put grapes into, and then out of, a tupperware bowl. What an inventive little smarty pants!
Now, on to my trip to the Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City!!! We left at 8 am on July 15th and pulled into Cedar City just after noon. My mom took the kids that day and
they met up with Sarah, Joy & their kids at the Treehouse Museum. We ate lunch at Sizzler and then headed to our first play, a matinee of Moliere's The School for Wives (click the play titles for a two minute clip of short scences from the play). Though the theme was quite sexist and it was a little slow during the first half, I enjoyed this play overall and it had some good comedic moments.Afterward, we did a little shopping on Main street. Our favorite spot is Bulloch Drug which is connected to
two home decor/gift shops. Right in the front they have an old fashioned soda fountain which is where, acording to Tammy, you can get the best chocolate Coke ever. Not being a huge fan of either chocolate or Coke, I still decided I'd better get a small one, just to try it out. Not my favorite thing, but it was pretty good and a lot of fun to taste!
That evening, we saw The Two Gentlemen of Verona in the outdoor theater built to resemble Shakespeare's Globe theater. We were a little worried because the sky was pretty cloudy, but when we got to our seats we found that we were under the balcony. Normally, I would have been disappointed to be so far back, but when it did rain for about ten minutes during the performance, I was glad to be sheltered! It didn't rain extremely hard, and it looked like the majority of the patrons out in the open were veterans to the festival and had come prepared with ponchos or umbrellas. The actors who ventured to the front of the stage did get a little wet and stagehands had to come out with towels during intermission to dry the floor!
I loved this one! An early Shakespearean comedy, it had lots of sillyness and double entendres and love won out in the end. The actors were amazing, and I especially loved this one-->, a cutie named Jake who played "Crab".
Back at home, Tina got the kids that night and did a great job of putting Christian down for bed. She took them to Jungle Jim's and Texas Roadhouse the next day!
Back at home, Tina got the kids that night and did a great job of putting Christian down for bed. She took them to Jungle Jim's and Texas Roadhouse the next day!
.
The next morning (Wednesday, the 16th) we woke up early, got ready, ate our free Holiday Inn complementary breakfast and headed for St. George. We did some speed shopping at the mall and outlet stores and left ourselves time to eat lunch at Red Lobster. Their snow crab legs are my favorite food on Earth!!! We had to be back to Cedar for our next matinee at 2 pm, so luckily it's less than an hour away.
Just before we took our seats for Taming of the Shrew, we saw Festival founder Fred Adams!! He was just greeting people in the foyer of the auditorium and asking how they were enjoying their experience this year. Tammy & I had gotten our pictures taken with his statue when I was last there in 2006, and now we got to pose with the real thing!! He is such a sweet guy, I'm so glad I finally got to meet him face to face!
I had seen a couple of versions of Shrew (including my uncle Gary's favorite--the Moonlighting episode version!), but this one was the best! It used all the original Shakepeare dialog except for three or four words, but it was set in 1946 Italy, during the final days of the U.S. occupation. Petruchio was an American G.I. whose grandfather was from the region and looking to marry into money.
The set and costumes were gorgeous and I loved the inclusion of some music, especially when they ended the show singing, "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore!" Seeing it in the different setting, I understood new things from the same old time-tested words. This ended up being my favorite show of the trip!!
Afterward, we did a little more shopping--this time at the gift shop. I didn't end up getting anything, but Tammy got a Tshirt and Lana got a hoodie. I usually get some postcards of pictures from the plays I've seen, but they didn't do them this year! So I think it's their fault that I stooped to swiping the ones I've posted here from their website ;D
The first evening we were there, the greenshow was rained out, but we did go to it on Wednesday. First, we caught the end of the play orientation for Cyrano (by Fred Adams) which made us a few minutes late, so we ended up on the far side of the stage. Still, not a terrible view and the performers put on a great show filled with music, song, dance and comedy. 
Here are Tammy and Lana as we get ready to enter the outdoor Adams Shakespearean Theater. One of the fun parts of the festival are the people in Olde English dress and accent who carry around baskets of tarts and sweets for sale. They try to push people into buying a treat and really get into their characters! Part of our tradition is enjoying a tart at intermission, they have several fruit kinds and cream cheese--yum!
Our last play was Cyrano de Bergerac which, although not Shakespeare, was also outside. It looked a little cloudy, but did not rain that night and made for a perfectly enjoyable temperature.
Our favorite Festival actor, Brian Vaughn, played Cyrano and did a fantastic job. Interestingly, his wife in real life played Roxanne and our other favorite actor (who has been away from the Festival for a couple of years), David Ivers, directed. They were all brilliant!
I had seen the subtitled French movie with Gerard Depardieu many moons ago (loved it!) and was familliar with the ending. I won't completely spoil it for you, but I think it's sad--so sad that I was bawling and kept having to
rewind so that I could read the subtitles of what they were saying. But the ending was a surprise for Tammy and she was upset by it, more angry than sad. Lana & I loved it, and Tammy loved it except for the ending :) It was a long play, it started at 8 and we didn't get out until 11:30!
I had seen the subtitled French movie with Gerard Depardieu many moons ago (loved it!) and was familliar with the ending. I won't completely spoil it for you, but I think it's sad--so sad that I was bawling and kept having to
rewind so that I could read the subtitles of what they were saying. But the ending was a surprise for Tammy and she was upset by it, more angry than sad. Lana & I loved it, and Tammy loved it except for the ending :) It was a long play, it started at 8 and we didn't get out until 11:30!About this time, I started to get some pretty bad pain in my, um, chest (translation: my boobs hurt!). You see, one of the reasons for my trip was to wean my itty, bitty, teeny, tiny little 22 & 1/2 month old baby suckling. I did the same thing (Shakespeare '03 with Lana & Tammy) to Faith when she was 20 & 1/2 mos, and it seemed to work pretty well, so Christian got the same treatment. I figure that it's easier to wean them when I'm far away and they can't plead with me for a "bub". It's still a rough go for a few weeks after returning home, but at least the initial shock is over.
.
That night, I didn't sleep very well because of the pain, but it did start to taper off the next day. The emotional rollercoaster, however, is another story. I swear, everywhere we went (except the plays where noone under 6 is allowed) I saw little, blonde toddler boys who reminded me of my Buddy!!
.
Tony picked up the kids from Tina's that evening and had taken the next two days off from work. On Thursday he took them to the Living Planet Aquarium (which he said was too small to be impressive), a Chic-fil-A in Salt Lake that had a playland (hey, we need one of those here in Kaysville!!!) and the Taffy Town factory. The kids sure had a packed-full-o-fun couple of days while I was gone!
.
Thursday morning we slept a little bit later, ate our free breakfast and then went to the 10 am literary seminar which they hold in a grove of trees on a hill on the scenic grounds. It's a discussion led by a professor, but mainly made up of comments and questions from the audience. It was interesting to hear other people's feelings about the plays.
Here, Lana poses with one of the elaborate costumes. We usually go to the costume seminar, but missed out this year due to it being a short trip. We did get to go to the props seminar, which I also love. I hope I'm not scaring anyone away from trying the Festival with all my talk of "Shakespeare", "orientations" and "seminars", it is soooooo fun!!!! I've been six times since I first came for a youth conference in 1988 ("Shakespearean Fate of '88"--thanks Liz for putting up with me that trip! And, funny note, my sister Sarah's husband Brad was there, too since he was in 
our stake. I don't think I met him, though, since I mostly hung out with kids from our ward who went to Ogden High and his ward went to Bonneville High. Sarah didn't meet him until she started going to the singles ward!)We said our final goodbyes to the theater, this shot is from the front gate looking sideways at the stage, and headed homeward bound.
On the way home, we stopped to check out the Young Living Lavender Farm in Mona, Utah (by Santaquin). It's hard to tell from this picture, looking straight across the field, but they have over 120 acres of lavender! We had fun walking through the herb gardens and around the grounds. They have lots of fun things at their farm, but they only have activities going on there the last week of June for Lavender Days and in the fall, unless you rent the facility. Some of what they have are: an old west village, rock climbing wall, jousting arena, giant gazebo, pond, and aceres of manicured lawn. We stopped after that to get some lunch at the Cracker Barrel and do a little extra shopping in American Fork. Can you ever do enough shopping?? Well, I can, actually. Sorry, Lana & Tammy, I'm just a novice here!
.
That evening, just after we got to Braegger's, Tony pulled in with the kids to pick me up. I ran up to the car, opened the door and exclaimed, "I missed you so much, babies!!!" to which Christian, looking past me and up at the house yelled, "Pa!!!!!" And I just have to keep trying to convince myself that they missed me, too.
The very next day, we took off for Park City. Dad, being the wonderful dad that he is, took us out to dinner at Ruby Tuesdays again. I LOVE their parmesan chicken pasta! Sierra, Christian & Lily got to sit at the end of our table,
and the rest of the kids were so excited to be sitting at their very own table! That's Faith, Alaura & Celeste on the left and Noah & Brendon on the right. The kids love the penne with alfredo sauce and Faith nearly finished her whole bowl. Tony just had salad bar since he'd filled up on Samak beef jerky (made in Kamas) that they sell at the Park City Albertson's. It's really good stuff, but not quite as good as when it was "Prince's" and we'd pick it up when we went camping & fishing in the Uintahs.
We did a bunch of swimming, both Friday & Saturday. Faith loved helping Christian "swim" (note the multitude of flotation devices).
The next moring, the girls put on their matching outfits (which they coordinated the week before) and treated us to a performance by The Pink Cupcakes (the new band they have formed.) They had an original song with matching choreography and were just fantastic! My dad and Christian went on a walk to 7-eleven (just under a mile from the condo) to get a newspaper and stopped in at the Park City Fire Department on the way back. Buddy got to sit in an engine and they even gave him a little firefighter hat!
We shopped the outlet stores for awhile and then headed home that evening. It was a fun trip, but after that week, I was glad to get home!! I was in charge of a special sharing time at primary the next day and had to do my last minute preparations. It turned out so cute! When the kids came in, I had them sit on quilts on the floor around a fake campfire. I, and a couple of the primary counselors, each told pioneer stories (in costume!) and the kids sang pioneer songs in between. They took turns shaking jars of whipping cream all the while and we spread their homemade butter on slices of bread for a treat at the end.
We shopped the outlet stores for awhile and then headed home that evening. It was a fun trip, but after that week, I was glad to get home!! I was in charge of a special sharing time at primary the next day and had to do my last minute preparations. It turned out so cute! When the kids came in, I had them sit on quilts on the floor around a fake campfire. I, and a couple of the primary counselors, each told pioneer stories (in costume!) and the kids sang pioneer songs in between. They took turns shaking jars of whipping cream all the while and we spread their homemade butter on slices of bread for a treat at the end.
I forgot to mention what we were busy doing on Friday, July 11th--putting in sod! It arrived at 6 am (12 hours earlier than we had asked for and expected it) so Tony wasn't quite ready for it and all the Elder's quorum guys who were going to help were at work. I had just had some major stomach flu the day before (thank you, Christian) and wasn't much help, but luckily our
outrageously awesome neighbor Bob Durtschi took the day off work to help Tony lay it!!! His oldest daughter even came over and helped! My mom & dad also pitched in and about halfway through we figured out that it was Tyler's Friday off, so we called him and he put in some major work. Even Faith somehow managed to pull some rolls off the pallets and lay them!So now we have a huge backyard full of GRASS! And lucky Tony gets to mow it while the kids run around all crazy!
I love how The Pioneer Woman always has some picture of her overloaded laundry room, messy kitchen, herself with no makeup, or her kids or animals doing something crazy under the title "keepin' it real", so here is my reality: my back patio that hasn't been cleaned off since the sod installation!
These cuties are sure happy to have a back yard with lawn!
Christian just got this Thomas set and all we've been hearing around the house is "Choo, choo!!!"
Faith still loves to take crazy pictures of her own self when she gets ahold of my camera. Good one, Faith!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
And here is Buddy enjoying a sugar snap pea pod at mom & dad's on Thursday.
They are petsitting Sparky while Sarah & family are at Bear Lake. Granted, he is a few years older than Crumpet, but me thinks he hasn't aged well!!!! Poor Spooky--blind, deaf and balding! At least he's wearing a fashion forward leopard print diaper :D.
Well, that's finally it!! If anyone even made it this far and is still reading, I hope you enjoyed my novel! It took me hours to write, but remember, this is my journal and it is for posterity (he, he, we just watched The Princess Bride the other day and this line reminded me of it. Maybe that's just because it's 2:52 am!!! "No more rhyming now, I mean it!" "Anybody want a peanut?") Okay, the end. And make sure you go to the Shakespearean Festival soon!!
