Annie Jr.

Kyle moving from Joseph City to Holbrook has been so good for both Kyle's career and the Holbrook Schools. If you know much about Kyle you'll know that he loves musicals. He did quite a few in her 4 years in Joseph City and brought the tradition with him in Holbrook. He started at the High School with Bye, Bye Birdie and then moved on to doing Annie Jr. at the Junior High. They did an amazing job and the community and administration really supported them. It was great for the community to see what these Jr. High kids could do and they really pulled it off. 

We had lots of make-up to do this year with making all the orphans look like orphans. It was super fun. This year I'll be sure to smile in pictures like Kylie :)

 Kylie (one of Kyle's High School Swing Things students) helping with make-up

Look how good they look! I actually thing we added more dirt so you could see it off stage. This is one of the orphans and Miss Hannigan.

 Getting prettied up. This was Lily and an "extra".

 These were the maids in Mr. Warbucks house and some extras.

 Maids and some Orphans

 Orphans and Lily

 Daddy and London

 Tucker, Mariah, and Kyle. 3 of Kyle's Swing Thing Seniors. He pulled out these three to help the Jr High. They did choreographer and some Assistant Director work. These three are awesome!

 Some pictures of the performance.

 They used a REAL dog for Sandy... and it worked! And the dogs REAL NAME is Sandy!

 The whole cast- they did so great!

Just a bunch of sickies

This winter has been full of doctors appointments and sickies. At the beginning of February Macy's preschool had a dental hygienist come in give the kids a fluoride treatment. It was a grant that Navajo County got, so it was for all kids 0-5. I took London in because we haven't taken them to the dentist yet (bad mom award) and they gave me a little sheet that said she had "questionable" areas in her mouth that needed to be seen by a dentist. I already knew that she might have two cavities, but I was hoping it was just staining. I took her into Around the Mountain Pediatric Dentistry and they confirmed that she had 6 cavities. She needs two crowns and 4 fillings. We got all the paperwork ready and a  month later she had a follow-up visit to see if anything had gotten worse, and yay for me, it hadn't. He even said he was very impressed, so I earned back a couple mom points. She has an appointment on May 8th to get all the work done. She has to go under general anesthesia so it will be at an outpatient surgical center. I'll update on that next week.

About two weeks ago Bentley started getting really crabby and clingy again, which is not like our Bentley at all. Once he started a fever I knew something was wrong so we took him into the doctor. We came out with a prescription for a double ear infection. The next day he had gotten hives, so I called the doctor and they said he was probably allergic to the amoxicillian and gave us a different prescription  10 days later, the doctor wanted to see him again to make sure the ear infection was gone- and it wasn't and he was still crabby. This time we left with two prescriptions for thrush, a different prescription for the ear infection, and some breathing treatment tube things for bronchiolitis  again. The bronchiolitis has really calmed down and he sounds much better when he breaths so I'm super happy about that. The thrush seems less, but I don't think it'll fully recover until we can get him off the antibiotic. Dr. Peterson wants to see us again when he's off the antibiotic to make sure the ear infection is gone, and if it's not we are going to have to go see a specialist.

Bentley wasn't very happy when he found out he needed more breathing treatments and another round of antibiotics.

Macy is doing great though! :) She has her first dentist appointment this Friday, but I'm not worried about her teeth in the least. I can't see between all her teeth, but to the naked eye they look pretty good. Cross your fingers for us! She is loving preschool and is getting to be sure a smart kid. You gotta be on your toes with this one or she'll figure out how to get what she wants without you even knowing it. We met with her preschool teacher in March for Parent Teacher Conferences and she just kept saying "she's just so smart". Sometimes it's not so good though- Santa brought them bikes for Christmas and she is scared to go fast because she's afraid she'll get hurt. She told me yesterday that getting her come knee pads and "arm thingies" would help her ride fast. Once London started passing her she got over that real quick. :)

It's just been every day life around here lately. Nothing too exciting, but when I find the computer cord I'll add some pictures :)

Swing Thing Tour 2013

When I moved over to Holbrook from Joseph City the first big thing I decided to change about how I run my music program was to do a tour one year and a musical the next. Well this year was a tour year :) We had originally planned on going to Hawaii but we were unable to get that approved so we "settled :)" for California. It was a great tour thanks to Alli and all of her planning/organizational skills.

Before we left Loni Hatch and Margret McClellan made the choir Mickey Mouse shaped cookies which got everyone very excited.

Savana Shumway offered to do Alli's nails this year.  I learned that this year themed nails are a must :)

We loaded the suburbans early on the Monday of Spring Break (March 25th)

We had quite the caravan as we took 4 suburbans instead of a bus in order to save money. We were a little nervous at first as each Suburban had 7 kids and a driver in them. But it turned out to be a great way to travel and I didn't hear the kids complain once. Except for on the way home when Alli wouldn't stop in Joseph City for a kid to pee :)

Who said it wasn't educational?

If you haven't traveled with High School kids you are missing out. It is always a party. Here they are playing ninjas in the parking lot of Jack in the Box where we stopped for lunch.

We made it to California early that evening and so we decided to head to the beach. We couldn't have asked for better beach time and it was so much fun to see the kids who had never been to the beach before fall in love.

After a long day of traveling and beach time we headed to one of the fanciest malls I have ever been to where we ate at California Pizza Kitchen. The manager there was awesome and extremely accommodating.  3 kids partnered up and then ordered 2 pizzas among them. When the manager found out we were on a budget and touring music group he gave us almost a 50% discount including tip.

The next morning we headed off for Disneyland. Alli did a great job of finding us a hotel within walking distance. The kids did fine waling to Disneyland coming home wasn't always as fun :)

Again one of the perks of going to Disneyland with teenagers is they are able to make anything fun. Even waiting for me to pick up the tickets.

 One of the first things Alli has to do when we get to Disneyland is find the Churros :)

Here is the stage we were able to perform on. This year we actually performed in California Adventure. The stage was so much better for a Show Choir. And I had to eat my words, I told the kids to expect a small crowd for the show but we performed for a full house with people standing all around the outside. Our host said it was the largest crowd she had ever seen at a performance.

Needless to stay the kids absolutely rocked this performance. The energy was through the roof and they all had so much fun you couldn't help but have fun watching.

Such a good looking group of students!

After the performance we surprised the group with Breakfast with Minnie the next morning. They were ecstatic! It was such a fun surprise and an experience I am sure they won't soon forget.

Don't worry we got our fair share of rides in. I love this picture because you can see all of our choir t-shirts.

 It was so busy that day you could hardly ride and rides with out a fast pass or go in the single rider line. We did it right :)

We even got to check out the new cars land or Holbrook as we call it.

The next day we went back to Disneyland for some more Fun and our clinic. We did the Show Choir clinic again this year after our great experience with it last time and it did not disappoint.  We are not allowed to take pictures back stage but this is the lady who worked with our group this year. She really connected with the kids and made them better performers in just an hour. If we only did this clinic it would have been worth the whole trip.

Then it was off to more rides :)

The last day there we went to Universal Studios and Medieval Times. Once again we had huge crowds but still had a ton of fun. It was really fun to hear the kids say stuff like I can't believe that's how they do that in the movies. It was quite educational.

Side note: When we were coming down the big escalator one of the workers saw our shirt and said "Are you guys a fight club?" You win Alli ;P

When we went on the tram tour there were so many of us that we got our own car to ourselves.

 After Universal we went to Medieval Times which is a dinner show where you get to pretend to be Spanish royalty for a night, watch some jousting, and eat with your hands. Most of the kids really liked it but Kevin is ready to work there.

We were the Black and White team.

The next morning we once again loaded the suburbans and headed for home. Exhausted but happy.

 Let's do it again in 2015!