Lion King Jr.

Well, I can't mention Peter Pan and not mention The Lion King Jr! Yep, my little man jumped onboard the musical bandwagon and tried out for Taylor Jr High's musical! He got in! Yep, I am just as surprised!!!
 But really, he is very dramatic, squeals like a girl, and has facial expressions even Norman Rockwell would envy! But he only made it in the ensemble. And let me let you, that is where he needed to be! Acting in front of a lot of people really isn't his thing, Shell shock comes to mind. Sometimes I wasn't sure if he knew the songs or the dance moves but he did and he was cute! He was a cheetah, a blade of grass (one of my favorite songs, actually) and a wildebeest.
They were only in production for three nights and I got to help strike the stage Friday night and the drama behind the scenes would rival any showing they had! The girls were crying, carrying on as if they would never see each other again, ( the cast pool party was the next night!) Even Joey was getting misty eyed (his glasses were fogging up, geez, mom!)  In all my years of band and winning 1st, and not winning 1st, I have never seen so much tears!!! Gotta love Jr. High!

 

this was Zazu! She was the entertainment before the show! The Hyenas would chase her and the kids would growl at them and they would run! So cute!!!

Times, they are a changin'

I think the hardest thing about getting older is that the kids do too. Ashley is contemplating moving out within the next few months, Britt has made a few bad decisions that lead to consequences beyond her control, and Cortney is struggling as well. Zach is finishing up his junior year and getting serous about saving for his mission this summer. This leaves me with Joey and Mackenzie. Mackenzie just turned 12 and recently had her ears pierced. That was so fun and also hard to watch as well. She is moving on to Young Womens!! So proud of my girl!

Joey also has some fun times ahead! He is officially a staff member for Camp Raymond! He reports the first week of June for training and then three weeks later he gets to spend three weeks helping boys pass of merit badges and overall helping the camp to run smoothly! I am so excited for this opportunity for him. Normally I would be all sad hat he will be gone so long but my little man needs to learn the value of serving and what better way than serving in this capacity. I think I will be visiting every weekend, though. I will tell him I am extremely hot and needed to cool off but really I will be going to check on him. In the meantime, I need to help him brush up on doing his own laundry and cleaning up after himself! Yep, a harder task I will not have for the next 5 weeks!

Exciting bit of news! Cameron Farr, Debi Farr's oldest son, is the camp director at Camp Raymond! I am so excited!!! I love Debi! She has been a dear friend for the past 20 years and knowing that her family will be up there helping to take care of Joey is such a relief!!! And maybe I will get a chance visit with her at the end of it all! It is so hard for her to travel back and forth from Connecticut so who knows? Carly and Cheyenne will be there too so it will be pretty cool!!!

Peter Pan

Zach tried out for the musical and he made it! He was so excited! He was a pirate.

 He has decided he is done with band. He was never a strong sax player and he never really fit in so he has moved on to other things, drama!

Drama students are so different than band kids. They are loud. obnoxious, and not afraid to be different. And that is a perfect place for Zach. I think it was brave of him to stay with it as long as he did and also brave to know when to walk away. He is much happier and is having a lot more fun! Mrs. Stones is keeping him very busy and I think he is looking forward to next year and continuing on with the class!!!

I had a lot of fun helping with costumes. It was weird making them look different as opposed to being the same as with band uniforms. I think I could get used to this!!!

Anyway, Peter Pan was wonderful! The kids all did a great job! There were little Schneblys running everywhere! Okay, just Sadona and Sarah, although Landon was in it and Judy was Wendy! So much fun! Danni was an Indian! I did not see it as many times as Tami but it was great when I did and I am stinkin proud of my boy!!! And, as always, thanks to Tami for taking the pictures!!!

Our weekend in St George

 Ashley's convert, Brant McDormant , went through the temple for the first time on Saturday. We were able to go as well! We had originally planned for Ashley to go away for her graduation but things didn't go as planned so we went up to St George instead. We took Mackenzie with us. She had just turned 12 and wanted to go do baptisms so where better than the St George temple!

We also received a call from the first counselor in the bishopric and thy wanted her to give the youth speaker talk on Sunday. She could prepare it on the temple grounds!!!

The ride up was very nice! We found our hotel and had dinner! It was Mongolian BBQ! A lot of fun! Ashley went on her mission and wanted to share it with us! We loved it!!! The people were so nice and made origami birds for Mackenzie!!!

It was weird being there without the rest of the family but we still had a lot of fun!

The temple was beautiful! The roses were in bloom and it smelled heavenly! The Baptismal font was so pretty! I had never seen it before! While we were doing the confirmations they said they had extra and I got to help with that! We left our family names and in Mesa endowed members need to bring them. I just assumed it was the same there.

It was so cool watching her experience that for the first time. He little feet would hop up and the priesthood had to catch her before the next one. It was fun to watch. And then while getting dressed she made a friend. And it was fun watching her become independent, although I did have a hard time at first!!!