The Land of Oz: August

The Albion Youth Theater decided to perform a middle school play this summer with Kendall in mind for a specific role. It was called C-rhyme and Pun-ishment and was a hilarious musical detective story. They had wanted Kendall to play the role of the detective. We told them right from the start though that our summer, and especially Kendall's schedule was going to be nearly impossible to work around. They insisted he come to audition though and had us bring our calendar to see what they could do. So we went but sure enough, it just wasn't possible for them to give that role to Kendall since he wouldn't be able to make it to hardly any of the practices and actually would miss opening night because he wouldn't be done at band camp yet. So they decided to cut out one day of the performances so that he could still be in it but with a much lesser role: Humpty Dumpty (whose murder the detectives are actually trying to solve) who comes in at the very end of the play and only says a few words. Lynnsey also got a role as one of the Old Woman who Lives in a Shoe's children.

It has been awhile since they did anything other than a Missoula Children's Theater play where they come with all the costumes and backdrops and the whole thing is over and done with in a week. This one had lots of practices and extras like set building, etc. Kendall missed most of that and pretty much just had to show up the night of the performances but Lynnsey spent many hours at rehearsal. She did have a lot of fun and enjoyed spending some time with friends too.

Our branch did a summertime family activity that the Relief Society was in charge of. Unfortunately the opening night of the play was the same night as the party so we had to split up. We would have just skipped the party so we could see the play, but since I'm in the Relief Society presidency I didn't have a choice. So Kalen went to opening night and I brought Taylor, Spencer and Kaya with me. It was a circus themed party so we all had to dress up in our clowniest attire. It was fun piecing together costumes. Somehow I didn't get a picture of mine, but the kids looked great.

It was an unusual summer weather-wise. We had a few really hot days but most of the time it was really mild and even a bit cool some days. Still, the kids managed to take advantage of any high-temp days to cool off in the sprinklers!

As a part of the library's summer reading program, they had a fun performance to end it. We don't know where everyone was because there wasn't a big crowd, but our kids had a great time and we all laughed a lot and learned at the same time.

The Bramhall's decided that our visit together in Utah wasn't enough and so they came for a few days in August. It is always so much fun to have them! We did lots of visiting and made sure to do the favorites like Turkeyville and Swain's Lake.

We had to do our traditional dutch oven potato and roasted hot dog dinner. So delicious! And Kalen made a phenomenal bean salad that we couldn't get enough of and was nutritious enough to take away some of the guilt about the s'mores we ate for dessert!