Better Late than Never

Happy 28th Birthday Matt!!



This year we went out to lunch with some friends on his actual birthday, the 27th. After lunch at On the Border (it was ok) we went and saw WALL-E and Wanted. Both are very good, WALL-E was hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then, on Sunday we went to Grandmas and had dinner their with my parents and aunt and uncle and a few cousins. Good food and yummy pie!!! I think its safe to say he enjoyed himself! Happy 28th baby, I love you!!!!

Joseph Smith The Prophet

Saturday was a LONG day. We started at 9 setting up for the institute choirs and orchestra so they could come and perforn Joseph Smith the Prophet by Rob Gardner. It was good show but very frustrating for me. I took it upon myself to stage manage, which I do often so it was nothing new. But, the institute had a much bigger caliber of show than we had expected. Lots and Lots of lighting cues which I as stage manager is in charge of calling to the light board and spotlight operators. The girl who wrote the lighting cues had big plans... some of which just weren't going to happen, but I did what I could and I think she ended up happy in the end. We started their dress rehearsal at 1:30 and literally had an hour to rehearse the entire show and try to get the timing right for all these cues. This also was the first time rehearsing with the actual composer who was conducting the show. After rehearsal I went through my script and score furiously writing cues and highlighting and trying to figure how I am going to pull this off. We literally went through the first show blind..... oh, and they added 4 starting numbers... yeah, that wasn't in the script!!! :) the first couple of cues were way off but we pulled it together and did better after that. The only thing that went wrong during the second show was the guy who was playing Joseph lost his mic a few times during the narration of the First Vision... GAHH!!
When we have shows like this we set up our orchestra shell and the stage manager calls from the side BEHIND the shell. I could barely see the composer through this tiny little crack in the wall. It made it WAY hard to even know what is going on. It is a dang good thing that I asked to stage manage because I A. can read music and B. even knew most of the music... I can only imagine how it would have gone with one of our others capable of doing this job. It was a beautiful show though, very well composed. If you haven't heard it I highly suggest you do. Gorgeous.... I had a hard time getting through listening to the narration about the prophets last few minutes and then going into a guy singing A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief. How am I supposed to call cues during that!!! At any rate, we lived through it but next time... please give us a heads up, I will be more than happy to come to a rehearsal and work this stuff out!!

Oh on an ending note during the first show, we had the opening prayer and what not and then I was told by the director that the end of the show was the end... no closing prayer. Okay, I thought it was weird we were having an opening but no closing, but we did it. Everyone did their bows, applause applause, and then everyone sat down and waited for the closing prayer!! I totally knew it was going to happen. They did end up figuring it out and leaving but we changed it for the second show, evidently we just can't function well without ending with a closing prayer!!

Gene Harris Jazz Festival

Friday brought the main concert for the Gene Harris Jazz Festival featuring Roy Haynes. He is a drummer/bandleader with over 60 years experience. He has played with so many awesome names. Everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Sarah Vaughn and everyone in between. It was an awesome concert!!! Afterwards him and his band gave all the girls the roses they had recieved. It was sweet.

Pictures from the river

Matt at the "helm"



Piper in her Life Jacket

All in a days work... or lack there of

I had the day off and literally did nothing until we went to float the river around 1. It was gorgeous outside but part way through the sun decided to hide behind some clouds making it a bit more chilly that I would have liked. Piper had a lot of fun though. Andy has a water proof camera so as soon as I get copies I will through them on here. It took almost three hours, longer than expected, but fun none the less. A nice cheap way to have a relaxing afternoon. We then came home and made dinner and made some strawberry rhubarb jam with rhubarb from our garden.... yummy. We only made a small batch tonight and are finishing the rest tomorrow morning before work. I can't wait to try it out on some homemade bread!!

Take me out to the ball game!!

I haven't been to a baseball game since I was about 8 but we decided to meet up with a bunch of friends including one of my best friends, Andy, who is in town for a few weeks, and we all went to the season opener for the Boise Hawks.The weather was beautiful! The only downside is that you can't even bring water bottles in. We had a blast! They did end up winning in the ninth inning by one point but hey, they won!! The had a big fireworks show afterwards that was pretty fun to watch. We had fun taking pictures in the parking lot while we were waiting for the lot to clear a bit.
Us after the game



Andy and I after the game



THE GROUP




Yay!!!!



Mike, Andy, Rick and Katie

Somewhere Over the Rainbow....

We came out of the movies the other day to a crazy rainstorm and this showed up shortly there after. The picture doesn't give it justice!!!!

Back in the Swing of things

It was a crazy week and we totally felt like we lived at work the entire time. I do have to say I absolutly loved almost every minute of it. The Miss Idaho contestants were such a nice group of girls I had NO complaints whatsoever. Then we had the little sisters, each Miss Idaho contestant has a "little sister" that they work with and the littles get to walk out with them during evening wear. Its stinkin cute!!

Every year we " the crew" have our favorites. Unfortunatly "our girl" didn't win but it was a tough year. Out of the 21 contestants we might have been able to immediatly cut 3 or 4, after that it would be a HARD job. This was a transition year for the programs staff going from a local high school auditorium to a real performing arts hall and a professional crew and they thought they had died and gone to heaven. I loved it!!!! They were all awesome... they had fun, we had fun, and can't wait to see them next year.

Me on the last day at probably 65 hours, no makeup and on the verge of a migraine with teens spraying perfume all over in the hallway. This has "happy" written all over it.




Evening Wear Prodution number. I do have to say that 80 percent of the girls were LDS and it was very interesting to see the different levels of modesty portrayed. I am def not one to judge but I was dissapointed at a few of the choices of swimwear and evening gowns.

And the Winner is Elise Davis... Miss Idaho Falls

The New Miss Idaho and her Little Sister

Its not a Beauty Pageant... its a scholarship program!!

Be prepared for...... Lights..... Glitter...... BIG HAIR..... Corny Dances.

The time has come again for the Miss Idaho Scholarship program. 20 Girls from around the state of Idaho are all competing for that coveted title and the opportunity to compete in the Miss America Pageant. Matt and I have participated, technically speaking of course, for the past couple of years and this year is the first year it is at the Morrison Center. In the past it has been held in a local high school auditorium with us donating all of our lights and things which just made it a huge pain in the butt. The girls are excited to actually have a real stage and a real set and *gasp* real dressing rooms!!! It should be fun. And I don't mean that sarcastically. I actually take a lot of pride in what I do with this show. I myself could never put myself through what these girls do. It would pretty much just suck. I will post more later but for now here is this past years Miss Idaho, the one who we are saying goodbye to, Sadie Quigley.

Thanks Jenn!!

Our roomate Jenn was taking pictures at a wedding with her parents camera and needed someone to ttake pictures ot to familiarize herself with the camera before she dove head first into a wedding so Matt and I offered. Here are a few of what she took at Albertsons Park.

Is it vacation time yet....

Its been a hectic couple of weeks and I apologize for the delay in posting. After my in laws left Boise I was fortunate enough to have some other family and some friends in town. It was nice to be able to find time to see people, although I was rather upset that I didn't get to see Shelley, Mikah and Kasen. We had STOMP at the center for 3 days and then we helped some family move and had a friends daughters high school graduation, and we just couldn't make out schedules work... poopy, I know! I did however get to see one of my best friends, Jared for a couple of hours. He lives in New Jersey now and I Never get to see him and we are both horrible at staying in touch. I have very few friends from back in high school and jr. high that I am still close to and Jared is one of them. We didn't do much but hang out and play Rockband for a few hours but it was good just to be together. I am very blessed to have such good friends still in my life.

The very talented, better than Elton John, budding new drummer, Jared.


Goofing off while playing. We don't play video games EVEr, but when we do, we like to have fun :)
Speaking of work, like I mentioned earlier we had the show STOMP. If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it. I actually was able to watch from the audience one show. Oh my gosh do these guys have energy! It is literally non stop craziness for almost 2 hours. The only thing that bugged me is I was watching their feet, and they were wearing boots but the sound coming out was most definatly tapping. It really bugged me because I knew that they didn't have taps on their boots.... so I snuck backstage and sure enough..... there was a tapper in the wings on both sides of stage.... I don't know how I feel about that. After that I kind of lost interest. its kind of like watching Riverdance or whatever with recorded tapping sounds that obviously doesn't match their feet. Grrr, argg...... Anyway, it was still a fun show with an awesome crew and cast. They were really nice just to have around. Anywho... go see it anyway. Here is a picture of the set while we were loading in.... or setting up.