Piano

Last fall I found a piano for an awesome price on a group I belong to on Facebook. The people bought the house with the piano in it and just wanted it gone. No one in their family played. The problem was the piano was in the basement and was very old and very big. We got my Uncle Dan and his son George and George has some big friends so they came and got the piano from the basement. It took basically 8 guys to move the bugger. I paid 150.00 for the piano, bought the guys some beer (oops) to move it for me and then we paid another 125.00 to have it tuned and some of the keys fixed. The piano was made in 1906 and needs some work but I love it. The piano tuner said it will never sound really great because it is too old but it works great for my family and girls to learn on. We want to refinish it. Hope and Tymber are taking piano lessons from a girl in our ward. I will need to find someone else this summer because she is graduating. Tymber picked up some notes right off because she plays flute and was able to teach Hope a few simple songs before  I ever got them in lessons.

painting set for Oklahoma

My neighbor Michelle was in charge of painting most of the set of Oklahoma. The school director, Sharon, believes in going all out for the set. One of the guys have a mill machine and he milled 12 sheets of corn. It was a HUGE amount of painting. We spent hour upon hour painting. I think Michelle put in over 80 hours and I put in close to 60 in two weeks. We also had a paint party where one Saturday some of the kids in the play helped us.  We were both so beyond sick of seeing green and corn but I have to admit it looked way cool up on stage.

The day before the play opens they do two dress rehearsal performances for the grade schools. The morning performance went pretty well the afternoon not so much. The corn was bolted together five pieces three different sections. Two of the sections were on stage at all times the other section had cables and they would "fly it" in and out between scenes. So the corn ended up 20 ft in the air. For some reason they decided to use different cables and during intermission they were flying the corn and the cable broke. Thank goodness the curtains were closed and there were not many kids on stage. The thing is Michelle's daughter was on stage and had just moved a saw horse under the corn to get out of the way. The cable broke and corn came down, hit the saw horse, broke it in two and then hit KassaDee in the back. She got knocked down and hit the stage face first breaking her nose. Her mom and I were both in the audience and Michelle's other daughter KennaDee ran out to get us. There was blood everywhere. Mr Hames was on stage and carried Kass to the dressing room. Because we were using real guns on stage it was required a police officer be with the students at all times. He would check the guns, hand them to the students and as soon as they were off stage they were required to give them back to him for the students safety. He called an ambulance and they showed up. Because Kass hit her head and really didn't remember much they recommended she go to the hospital. She never lost consciousnesses so her mom decided to drive her instead of ride in the ambulance. I went with them because I knew Michelle was upset. Kass was a champ and didn't cry or hardly complain. Sure enough she fractured her nose but luckily it didn't make it crooked so she didn't have to have it set. Just ended up with slightly bruised eyes and swollen nose and missed the first two performances of the play. According to Kass the best part (and totally worth it) was the kid she really likes carried her out to her moms car for the hospital and then came to see her while she was at the hospital. He felt horrible because he was standing by her and saw the corn come down and dived out of the way but didn't know she was right there so he felt like he should have seen her and saved her (awwww). Two days later he was playing rugby and tore his foot all up and had to be in a walking boot so he was all gimpy on the stage, poor guy. Honestly Kass was very blessed if the saw horse wouldn't of broken the fall and the corn would have hit her full force it probably would have killed her. It weighed several hundred pounds and coming from a 20 ft drop is just a disaster. The men behind the scenes felt horrible. They work out at the INL and are all about safety so to think people got hurt. A few adults got minor scrapes and cuts from breaking pieces of the corn. Amazingly they were able to put the corn back together and it looked pretty decent from the audience. All the kids still had to finish the dress rehearsal performance and from what i understand did quite well with the stress they were under worried about Kass.

Oklahoma

Curly (Beano) and Aunt Eller(Machelle)

Laurey (Miranda)

Ado Annie (KennaDee)

Autumn

Mr Hames

Curley and Judd (Kaden)

Autumn and Mickell

Autumn and Gabe

Closing Call Mr Hames and Mrs Hodge

Autumn and Grandpa

Autumn and Zoey

Grandpa Grandma and Autumn

Ali Hakim (Sam) and Autumn

Kira, her dad is set director her mom costume designer, she loves Autumn

Cameron (one of Autumns best friends)

Autumn and Hope

Autumn and Grandma

Autumn was in the school play Oklahoma. The play was a lot of fun. I thought last years was better, but it had more to do with the story line not the students. I love our school and all of the talented students we have there. Our neighbor KennaDee played Ado Annie and Miranda played Laurie. Autumn was more in the ensemble but played a farm girl Aggie. I think she will really miss performing and wishes she would have done it all four high school years. I volunteered quite a bit painting the set the last two weeks before opening so it was a lot of fun watching rehearsals and getting to know the kids. Our director Sharon really goes all out with the sets. Our music teacher is really amazing also. He is super fun. On one or two nights he is always in one of the scenes. They did a pyramid and the bottom row moved to the left while the pyramid was stacked, it was really cool to watch. One of the kids tore the ligaments in his foot and so Mr Hames took his place for two nights in the pyramid. Also on the last night the kids always get a little crazy and add lib some lines a little. They had a dance they performed during the Farmer and the Cowman should be friends. Closing night the first 8 beats curtains opened and they danced to Gundam Style it was great. The kid who played Judd is named kaden he is a big boy. He is a junior and 6'5. He has an amazing voice. I am so glad Autumn was involved with the play.

Easter 2013

 Yum candy

 Hope got her ears pierced a few weeks before, so she received an earring holder with some earrings.

 i Tune gift card for Autumn and Tymber

 coloring book.

 nail polish.

 headbands

 balloons

 owl necklace

 thrilled to get new shoes.

 shovel, she loves digging for worms

 sidewalk chalk

Easter is pretty low key at our house. Obviously we don't want to focus much on the bunny but the real reason we celebrate Easter. Our Savior Jesus Christ. We do a small basket for the girls and usually hide eggs around the house for them as well. Hope is still young enough she believes but that won't last much longer I'm afraid. After church my parents came down for dinner. it was a nice relaxing day.