My Adventures in 2013

Another year has come and gone...

Wow. That was probably the most cliché thing I have ever written.

But anyway, here's a look back at what I did this year.


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January

We started the year off with a bang with auditions for our eighth musical with Journey Theater Arts Group... SNOOPY!!! I was cast as Frieda (a lead) and Emma was cast as Naomi.

Let's see, what else happened this month... oh yeah. Downton Abbey. We threw a Downton Abbey themed fancy dinner the night that season three premiered. I love that show so much, even if they did kill Matthew...

I swear, if they kill off Isis (the dog) this year, I'm going to punch something...

February

With only five weekends of great rehearsals for SNOOPY!!!, we were performing at the end of February! Frieda has been one of my most favorite characters to play on stage!

Hey, it's a short month. Not much happened...





March

This was the month that we found out that I had hyperparathyroidism. (now you try spelling that... proves that I had it, right?)

Let me explain. In your neck is a butterfly shaped thing called a thyroid. On that are four jellybean shaped things called parathyroids. They control the level of calcium in your blood. Well, my top left one was going crazy, hence the word "hyper" stuck to the front of its name. It was taking a lot of calcium and putting it into my blood, so much that it was having to take it out of my bones to get all it wanted.

You thought I was just being a lazy teenager? Really, it wasn't my fault! This thing made me exhausted... I couldn't even walk up the stairs without having to sit down at the top for a while.

How we found out about this was kind of miraculous. See, hyperparathyroidism is something that usually only happens to women over 40. Near the beginning of March, right after show week ended actually, we all get really sick. Like, fever and throwing up sick. Mine happened to last a bit longer than anyone else's so my mom took me to the doctor. I had been having some pain in the stomach area-ish, and the doctor thought I might have a kidney infection, so he sent us down to have some of my blood drawn.

 

...I may have yelled at him for suggesting that...

When the blood sample came back, the calcium was super high. Generally the level should be around 8 or 9... mine was 14. We had to go back in so I could give up a bit more of my blood... after that, I said. "Never again... never!"

Famous last words.




April.

April 6, about three weeks later, I was work at an all-day event at my church. While I was sitting with some little kids watching a movie, my dad came up to the door. He said that we had to go to the hospital so they could run some tests... on me.

Gosh, my heart is racing just thinking about that moment. I might have looked around for hidden cameras as we walked out to the car... it seemed so unreal, it had to be a joke or something.

Out to Randall's Children's Hospital I went. Ta-da, my mom produced a bag of clothes for me and I was informed that I'd been staying 24 hours, hooked up to an IV.

By request from me, nothing was said to family or friends, nothing was posted on Facebook, no one knew where I was except for the four of us and my boss at work (because I left in the middle of the day).

After surviving 24 hours with a needle stuck in my arm, I was allowed to go home. Now we knew it as hyperparathyroidism, and a few weeks later confirmed that it would need surgery sometime in my life.

Which brings me too...

Auditions for our next show, The Legend of Pocahontas, were coming up. My mom told the directors about my condition because since it made me so tired, I couldn't dance a ton all at once (but not for lack of trying...). I was cast as the Narrator and Emma was cast as Lady Gabrielle along with other parts.

After a few weeks of rehearsals, the day of the surgery came. April 29. I got up at 5:30am and we drove out to the hospital. We checked in in the basement and went into the pre-surgery room. That's when they had to put the IV in.

Oh, that was such fun...

See, I wasn't allowed to eat or drink 12 hours before the surgery. Which meant I was dehydrated. Which meant all my veins were tiny.

They stuck me five times.

FIVE!!!

I had a huge bruise in each spot for at least a week after.

They finally hit a vein on the inside of my left arm. That bruise was as big as my hand and lasted for at least two weeks with all shades of brown, purple, blue, and yellow.

Someone gave me a little drink that would "help keep me calm." What happened was I drank it and then bit my tongue so I wouldn't say anything stupid or embarrassing. That's one of my biggest fears... not being able to control what I say. After a while they wheeled me into the operating room. I moved over to a table with four huge lights above it. They reminded me of those umbrella lights that photographers use, except bigger. 

The first thing I heard when I woke up after was two people talk off to the side.

"She's only 17?" one said.

"Yeah," the other replied. "I still can't believe they found it."

Hm, I thought to myself. So this is what it feels like to be famous...

When I got back to the pre (or now post) surgery room, I chugged a few tiny things of apple juice and we used the fancy touch screen thing to watch the Avengers. I'd seen it before, so I fell asleep in the middle.

The next few days at home were lazy days. Sitting on the couch, trying to find my voice before rehearsal, and watching Mythbusters. A few people visited and made me feel very loved!

May

After all that lovely month... life continued as usual. At rehearsals, I had to explain why I had a scar and four pieces of tape on my neck. Someone asked me three times in one day and I ended up saying that Ursula took my voice... it's just easier to make theater jokes sometimes :)

We're getting close to show week and that's when I discovered.... Psych!

I love that show.

So much.

But Netflix doesn't have season seven yet, so no spoilers!!




June

The Legend of Pocahontas performances!! Wonderful show, wonderful cast, wonderful times!

Emma and I also got into making videos to put on YouTube. They're based abound theater and how you can get better at it :)

Oh, showcase also happened!! At the end of every term of Journey classes, we put on a showcase of stuff we learned. I was in Voice 2 this term and I sang a little group bit with Emma, Meagan, and Hailee and then a full class number. The full class did "What is This Feeling?" from Wicked and I got to choreographe most of it :)




July

Camp NaNoWriMo dominated this month. Writing, writing, writing... and I finished my book! Major accomplishment.. :)

VBS was also the last weekend of this month! For a few years I helped with an age group, the last two years I was in crafts, but this year I got to do something different. Everyday I wandered around and took pictures and videos of all the kids doing what they do best... having fun! Then at night I would create a montage of the footage and we'd play it for the kids the next morning! Best. Job. Yet. :D




August

Let's see, what happened in August... oh, I started this blog :)

Besides that, we went camping a lot! Our first time at our church's family camp and it was a blast!

Oh, I forgot about Star Trek! So, we have this group of friends where we're all pretty much obsessed with the same things. We all go to the same church so we see each other a lot and, you guessed it, we all like to act.

So this summer, we decided to start filming our own Star Trek series.

We have a 1/4 Klingon 3/4 human, a half Vulcan half human, a Betazoid, and two humans on the show. So far we've filmed six episodes, averaging about 8 minutes long each. The latest I'm editing right now! The Vulcan's the script writer, I'm the producer, and we all work the camera which often runs out of power before we're done. We love what we do :)



September

The start of my last year of high school and Journey.

This month I turned 18, I took the ACT, Journey shared my blog post about auditions... (!!!!!)

I started volunteering at the AWANA clubs at my church. I work with the fourth grade girls most of the time, but during game time I'm with all the girls.

Auditions for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer came at the end of the month. I was cast as the Widow Douglas, my biggest role yet, and Emma was cast as Faith Harper and a painter boy, both ensemble roles with plenty to do!

I was also in the Dancing through the Decades class at Journey. Through the next few months, we learned everything from the Charleston to... whatever it is you call dancing today :D



October

Rehearsals all through out the month.

This might just be my favorite show of all time :) Not just because of the show itself, but since the cast was small I got to spend a lot more time with everyone, not just a small group of friends. I hung out with people that I sometimes don't get to hang out with at rehearsal because our parts don't require us to be together a lot.

Also at Journey, I joined the teen leadership team, TREK, which stands for Teens Reaching out to Expand the Kingdom. I was elected president and we started on our fall fundraiser: collecting socks, underwear, and diapers for Northwest Children's Outreach.

We also took a day trip on Amtrak to Seattle!! It was through our homeschool group, but some of our homeschooled theater friends came along! It was fun to wander around town in the pouring rain with them :D




November

NaNoWriMo started back up again and I started working on the sequel to the book I wrote back in July. I managed to meet my word goal of 50k too! :D

The month also started off with show week for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Probably the best show week ever :) The week after that was showcase where we rocked the dancing and the day after that was the Director's Event.

The next week I spent at my computer editing the footage of the showcase that we TREK students had recorded. We sold DVDs of the showcase and I needed to get them ready to mail out before I left on vacation. The day before Thanksgiving, I finished, packed, and the next day we were on the road to Disneyland!




December

DISNEYLAND. There. Enough said.

It was amazing, as usual :) We only had five days in the park this time, but we packed it out! Shows, rides, and more shows... I'll never get tired of that place :)

The drive home was interesting though... You probably read about it in one of my other blog posts. The snow that you all enjoyed trapped us in the small town of Corning, CA for a whole day, and then trapped us again in Ashland, OR! We missed Emma's piano recital and took four days to get home... but we finally made it.

In the days leading up to Christmas, we decorated the house, I wrote some more scripts for videos, and Emma and I went to a few events for TREK: A Christmas party and a dance planning meeting.

On Christmas, we celebrated by lounging around and doing absolutely nothing. There's another blog post about that if you want to read it.

Well, we're almost up to the present... Yesterday we filmed another episode of our Star Trek series and I'm editing that now. I need to cut my audition song for my next show with Journey, Godspell. And... that's pretty much it.



~~



That may or may not be the long blog post I will EVER write.

And it took me like three hours... because I got distracted editing :)

Sorry about all the typos... I'm sure they're up there but I really don't feel like going to look for them right now.

[Actually my mom made me go back and edit it... :)]

Have a happy new year :)

Those were my adventures in 2013.

 

2014? Bring it on.

Our Christmas Day Traditions

People have been asking me what we'll be doing on Christmas day.

"Opening presents and eating dinner..." I answer.

"Yeah," they say, "but what about after that?"

"Uhh..."

See, we Lindleys don't plan out our holidays hour by hour. We don't like too. So on Christmas day, instead of getting up early, opening presents for an hour, eating, then moving on to the next planned activity, we stay flexible!

Take this morning for instance. We got up whenever we all woke up, which happened to be around 8am. The stockings were cut down from the banister and we pulled everything out!

After our yearly dose of chocolate and candy was revealed, Dad passed out everything from under the tree. We came out good this year! To name a few things - Mom got a couple new scarves, Dad got his traditional boxes of chocolate, Emma got the Guinness Book of World Records 2014 and an iPod Nano, and I got a cover for my Nook and a few new picture frames.

Oh yeah, and for movies... Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, Iron Man 2, and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. WHAT!!! :D

After we open presents, there's no big plan. Lunch will be at about 1pm, but Mom doesn't want us all in the kitchen in her way, so we get to decide what we want to do. 

It always depends on what we just got. If we got a game, we'd play that. If it was a book, reading session! This year, we watched Percy Jackson since Dad hadn't seen it yet.

Did you catch the Firefly reference in that movie? Yes, it's in there :)

Lunch was DELICIOUS! And after we figured out and used our new Sodastream machine (thank you Gramma!), we all split off to our different areas for a few hours. I claimed a spot on the couch with my nook and a bag of Gardetto's and chilled for a few hours.

And here I sit! Watching Alaska: The Last Frontier with Mom and enjoying our vacation.

Day 30 of our vacation to be exact....

Merry Christmas :)

What are your Christmas day traditions?

Stripping a Pre-Lighted Tree

My hands are white from dust.

I have bits of fake pine needles in my hair.

The garbage can is FULL.

Yes. We took the lights off our pre-lighted Christmas tree.

 

Why?

Because we plugged it in today and three feet of the colored lights came on and two feet of white lights came on. Total.


Why not buy a new tree?

It's cheaper to just buy new lights? And we'd already dug this one out of the garage and set it up... It's a perfect tree accept for the lights.


Well it couldn't have taken you that long...

56 minutes. Thank you for asking!


You just had to pull on them, right? They couldn't have been on there that hard.

Almost every single little branch had the light strand wrapped three times around it. Have you ever counted the branches on a Christmas tree? There's a ton! And there was almost no pattern of where the string of lights would go next... it always went in a circle but sometimes it decided to move up two levels.


What are you going to do for lights now?

We'll get some LED ones tomorrow and CAREFULLY lay them on the tree...

Now you don't ever have strip your pre-lighted tree of lights.

 

I've done it for you.

Stuck with a Bunch of Truckers

This past week, my family and I were on vacation at Disneyland Resort. After five days of utter bliss, we set out for home yesterday.

We were trying to beat the storm moving down from the north.

...we lost the race.

Now here I am, sitting in a hotel in Corning, California. We spent the night here last night, thinking that the roads home would be clear of snow in the morning and we'd be able to get home.

Well, no such luck.


Have you ever spent a whole day at a hotel in the middle of nowhere?


You haven't? Well, I don't recommend it. 

At least I have internet connection, right? Even if it's spotty at best, it's something...

This morning I spent four hours downstairs in the breakfast area eating biscuits, drinking apple juice, and going to every social media site I'm on while listening to the football game and the truckers in the background.

It turns out that our path home AND the grapevine (the main road to LA) are both snowed out and closed. Which is ironic because out my window is a perfectly blue sky with not a single cloud... but I digress.

What else is there to do though? There's a Subway in the truck stop across the street... nah. I could always upload some pictures or videos from our trip, or watch videos here, or watch videos there, or...

Or listen to Emma and Mom have a debate on what kind of coffee is better.

Wait... now they're on to which fast food restaurant has the best soda.

ANYWAY, while we and a bunch of truckers are stuck here in Corning, ya'll are stuck back at home with an early white Christmas.

Take a picture for me. :)

So How's Your Week Been?

A week has passed since the show closed.

A WEEK.

Weird, huh? One of the busiest weeks of the year and then after... nothing.

But I have to admit, for the showing being over, my week was still pretty awesome and "Journey-filled" :)


The court scene in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

At this time last week, I had just closed the show, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. With ten shows under my belt, it's hard to just pick one but... I think this might be my favorite show I've done :) Everything about it was great; rehearsals were a blast, the show turned out amazing, and I became much better friends with my cast mates than I was before.


 Then last Thursday was the end of term showcase for our Journey classes. The drama and musical theater classes were really good, Improv class was hilarious, and dance (my class) rocked it!

Friday was the pirate themed Director's Event. About 18 kids from cast, plus almost our whole Artistic Team got together to eat a BBQ dinner, play a hilarious round of Mad Libs, and watch the show. I can't stop thinking about how fun that night was :D

Saturday, the TREK (Teens Reaching out to Expand the Kingdom) leadership team went bowling to celebrate the end of a sucessful term of serving the community. We had led a diaper/underwear/sock drive to help out Northwest Children's Outreach, a local organization that provides clothes and toiletries to the needy.


And now, I am getting ready to leave for Disneyland on Thanksgiving. It seems crazy that I'll be out of state just two weeks after I closed my latest show... sounds like a packed out schedule! But I guess it's not as crazy sounding as leaving the country after just a week (like someone I know... :P)

Well, enough blogging. Time to get back to... packing? Nah... burning DVDs of showcase for people that bought them last Thursday.

I've always got Journey on the brain.

And I like it that way :)

It's Go Time!

If you were to see me right now -- listening to Taylor Swift, writing for NaNoWriMo, and waiting for Agents of SHIELD to come on -- you'd never think that the next week will be the busiest week of the year for me and my family.

Well... it is. :)

Tomorrow starts 13 days of Journey in a row. Journey being Journey Theater Arts Group.

Every day for the next 13 days, I will be doing something relating to Journey; whether it be going to a show, visiting a school for a docent speech, performing my own show, and working with my fellow TREK members to donate items to Northwest Children's Outreach.

Here's an overview of what I'll be doing over the next 13 days.

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Day 1: Wednesday, November 6th. Mom, Emma, and I will be going to see the 11:45am showing of The Phantom Tollbooth performed by Journey Vancouver in Fort Vancouver High School. I read the book a while ago and enjoyed it and it's also  one of Emma's favorite books. I can't wait to see it performed on stage! After that, we're coming back down here to Hillsboro and we're going to go around to fast food restaurants and nail down what the artistic team of our show will be eating for their dinners every day of show week. I love behind the scene work like that!!

Day 2: Thursday, November 7th. Emma and I will be taking an early step into character by donning our costumes and makeup and going to Life Christian School with our mom to tell the 3rd grade class about The Adventures of Tom Sawyer! Whenever we visit schools in costume, we show the class(es) that we visit a little sneak peak of a song or dance from the show. This time, we've decided to sing the very opening of the show... 20 seconds of "Ain't Life Fine" in harmony! We've had this job for seven shows, including this one. Oh, also Thursday night we have our Journey classes... Emma's in Improv and I'm in Dancing Through the Decades!

Day 3: Friday, November 8th. Before rehearsal, I have a TREK meeting with Rachel and Andee to put together our schedule for the next day's meeting with everyone. After that... Full Show Run Through! The show is coming along GREAT!

Day 4: Saturday, November 9th. Our last rehearsal! Exciting, yet... sad. That means that we only have one week left, then Journey will practically be over and we won't get to see each other again until the new year.

Day 5: Sunday, November 10th. MOVE IN!!!! The day we finally get to see everything put together! Sets, props, costumes, lighting, and of course the actors all come together on one stage at the same time. This is when we start noticing the little things that we didn't know were a problem until we get in the theater. Long skirts and lots of stairs... hope no one trips this week!

Day 6: Monday, November 11th. Our first official dress rehearsal, even though we should have gotten through most of the show yesterday. Should be a clean-ish run with minimal stopping to fix anything.

Day 7: Tuesday, November 12th. Running the show again; trying to get all the light changes and music cues perfect. There's a ton of background music in this show!

Day 8: Wednesday, November 13th. Hopefully, this day will feel like just a formality because we'll have the show down perfectly! And when we leave rehearsal, it's straight to bed for....

Day 9: Thursday, November 14th. School shows!! We have two; one at 9:30 and the other at 11:45. Hopefully, since the show is only 90 minutes, we won't have to cut anything for school day shows. That's always stressful, trying to remember what we did and didn't cut. After that is group pictures and then home to rest.

Day 10: Friday, November 15th. It's Opening Night!! The day has finally come! All the hard work that we've put in for the past six weeks has all come down to this... our performance weekend! After the show at seven, we'll head to Burgerville for our opening night party. Always a blast!

Day 11: Saturday, November 16th. Two shows today. Two!! One at three o'clock then we have a dinner break until our next show at seven p.m. that night. Only one more to go!

Day 12: Sunday, November 17th. A happy, yet very depressing day. It's our last show. It's about time to say good bye to the people we almost call family. At least, good bye for now. There's always the next show... which I am definitely auditioning for! But it doesn't matter how many shows there are in the future... this is the last time you'll perform this show with these people. So even though it's almost time for the strike party, don't forget to be the best you can be in this last performance. You don't want to look back later and think, "if only I'd done a little better. Then I'd be happy with it." Our last event with cast and crew is the Strike Party, following the show and cleanup of the theater.

Day 13: Monday, November 18th. Usually the day after a show closes, I crash on the couch and sleep for 24 hours. This time though, I have the opportunity to serve alongside my fellow TREK members (or TREKkies, if you're that kind of awesome person). We will be taking the new packages of underwear, socks, and diapers that we collected last Thursday to Northwest Children's Outreach. I bet we'll have a lot to give them!!

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So that's what's happening to me in the next week.

And I gotta say... I'm pretty darn excited!

November is a Month without Weekends

Usually on the weekends you get to chill at home, go to church, maybe clean the house, and relax after a packed and stressful week.

But for me, November will be a month without relaxation on the weekends.

And (contrary to popular belief) I'm not complaining!

--

This month I have two major things going on. And one awesome thing that leads into December :)


1. National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

November is National Novel Writing Month (as well as no-shave-November and NaBloPoMo, but I won't go into those...)

Starting November 1st (today!!), people all over the world write as fast as they can and try to reach the 50k words goal before the end of the month.

I tried it last year... and failed miserably. Then this past July (for CampNaNoWriMo) I teamed up with my sister and friend and we acted as each other accountability partners. We checked in with and encouraged each other everyday. Whenever one of us got stuck in our story, the other two gave suggestions until we were back on our feet and writing again. By July 31st, we had all completed our novels!

There are some little prizes you can win for reaching 50k in November, but the real prize is setting a big goal for yourself and knowing that YOU finished it!

This November, I'll be writing a sequel (Stranger Tides) to the book I wrote in July (The Quest). I have a rough outline of the plot, a little head start on the story, and all the twists and dramatic changes mapped out. I'm good to go! :)


2. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

This is a big deal guys! Even though this is my tenth show with Journey, the commitment is still just as big. By November 10th, the day we move into the theater, we've had six week of preparation.

4 hours Friday nights, 4 hours Saturday mornings... that's only 48 hours of rehearsal before we get to the theater!

This may seem crazy, but we do it! Like everyone on cast, I spend a lot of time at home practicing songs, memorizing lines, and running dances. We all have to work as a team to make this show the best it can be.

Even though there are only kids on stage, parents put a LOT of work into this as well. Props, sets, costumes... all of these things have been in making (or finding) since the first rehearsal. Parents are assigned to committees and they find everything we need for the show! So when you come to see it (which you will! Buy tickets here.) remember that you're not only applauding for the cast and crew, but for all the parents that made this amazing show possible.


3. Disneyland - Trip Six!
Yep :)

Ok, maybe this isn't an after-school or extra-curricular activity, but it's spending time with family which is just as important.

Here's a recap of our first five trips to Disneyland, in case you were wondering :)

--

So as you can see, in November I don't have a lot of time to relax.

But gosh, now that I look it... this IS how I relax! I write, I perform, I create, and I spend time with my awesome family :)


Have a great November!!

Seattle Trip with the Theater Peeps!

I've only been to Seattle a few times, once to head on a cruise to Alaska, once on our way to Victotia, Canada, and several times as part of the Schools on Trains program with Amtrack. 

We usually go up and hang out with some of our homeschool friends, but this time was a little different...

 

Photo cred: Andee Zomerman

Theater geeks/homeschoolers unite! Here you see about one forth of the cast of Journey Theater's upcoming production of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer! :)

From left to right: Mrs. Sprague, Johnny Miller, Faith Harper, Widow Douglas (me!), Ben Rogers, and Mrs. Harper (and Narrator).



The train left at 8:00am for the four and a bit hour trip up to Seattle. We managed to grab the cool seats on the train: instead of four rows of two chairs all facing the same way, two of our rows faced the back of the train so we could sit in groups of four facing each other and talk.

We talked about Journey, Disney, Comic Con, and what we would do in Seattle that day.  The Lindleys, Hardmans, and Zomermans decided to hang as a group. We finally chose to walk down to Pike Place Market, find some lunch, then on the way back to the train we'd stop by the library.

Or course, as soon as we got to Seattle and started walking through town, it started to sprinkle.

Then rain.

Then POUR.

It felt like we walked for miles! It was really just about half a mile, but you try walking through the pouring rain in a town you don't know well.


Anyway, we hid under our hoods, stuck together, and managed to survive the down pour :)







We finally made it to Pike Place Market, but we decided to eat lunch at a sit down restaurant rather than walk around the market and try to find random things to eat.

I wanted to go to Red Robin, but everyone kept shouting me down. Can't imagine why... something about there being one in Oregon so it's not as cool? :)

We ran once more through the rain over to Hard Rock Café. All of us kids order off the kids menu because it was just easier to read then the adult one. I ordered the fried chicken wings with fries and ranch for dipping sauce.

By the time we finished lunch, it had finally stopped raining! We walked back over to Pike Place Market. We browsed the different stands, watched them throw fish across the room, and generally tried not to lose each other in the crowds.

Around 2:30 we popped out by the original Starbucks. You can't go to Seattle without visiting it, so we stopped by and each order a drink. I got a small Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino. Mmmm, so good!



By the way, did you know that the Starbucks logo is actually a mermaid with two tails?

Yeah, I didn't know that either until this trip...

I also didn't know why it's called Pike Place Market. But, you know, that's just me being me.


We wander around the market area for while. We found this guy that could play the accordion really well and it made me want to dance! Oh, we also went to see the gum wall.

I'm sorry, but that place is just disgusting...

And the smell? Yeah, ok... let's just not talk about it.


We started to head back for the train station at 3:30. On our way back, we stopped by the library for something I was really looking forward to! The four of us (Lindley girls and Zomerman girls) ran around the children's section and found all the books that go with all the Journey shows we've been in!



Photo cred: Andee Zomerman

It was awesome! Charlotte's Web through Tom Sawyer... we found them all! We even found a stuffed Cat in the Hat and Horton to go along with our Seuss books!

We made it back to the train station with half an hour to spare before we left! We passed the time by singing the cup song and making up harmonies on the spot. I guess that's what happens when you get theater geeks together :)

We boarded the Amtrak train at five and were soon on our way home. It was a long four hours, but we passed the time by visiting the dining car, keeping the younger ones of the party awake, and talking about Journey (or course!!).


The train pulled in early at 8:30pm, we said goodbye to our friends, and we were home by nine!

Definitely a wonderful, action packed day! :D

Pre-Audition Jitters?

[Note: All my facts about the audition experience come from Journey Theater Arts Group since that's the only theater group I've ever been with.]

~~

If you're a theater person, you know exactly what I mean.

You've been practicing your intro and audition song for weeks (hopefully), asking your friends if they're auditioning, reading up on the show, and trying to think of anything but that minute and a half when you'll stand in front of a room full of people by yourself and try to earn a spot in the show. In a word, terrifying.

That being said, I have my tenth audition coming up this Friday.


Oh, and in case your wondering, the sixty seconds right before you walk up to sing are just as terrifying the tenth time as they are the first time.


I have heard people say countless times, "Wow, I could never perform in front of four hundred people! No way!" But in reality, we find it a lot easier singing solo in front for four hundred strangers rather than forty friends.

This is the way I used to explain it: "If I mess up in front of strangers, odds are I'll never see them again so it doesn't matter. If I mess up in front of friends, I'll have to live with it forever."


Of course, now I realize that whole idea is kind of ridiculous. You should strive to never mess up, no matter who you're performing in front of.


And if we can't sing, act, or dance well in front of someone we know, how can we be told ways to improve? Face the audience here, pronounce this word this way, you're doing a dance step backwards... all these things we can't figure out by ourselves. We need our parents, our friends, and our directors to help us out and make our performance the best that it can be!

Ok, mostly just our directors at JTAG... but you get the idea.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we shouldn't be afraid to sing solo for a minute in front of people that love us, support us, and want to see us do our best.

How Much Do You Smile?

This morning when I fell out of bed and stumbled downstairs, my mom had Good Morning America on. Just as I plopped down on the couch it went to commercial.

Not that I really cared that much... I was still half asleep and who likes the news anyway? But then the commercial caught my attention:

"The average person smiles 100 hundred times a day. Keep your smile clean with our new mouth wash!"

100 times, huh? I thought. 100 separate smiles... Well, I seem like an overly happy person sometimes. I wonder how many times I smile in day.

So I decided to count.

~~~

[Here's a word of advice. If you're trying to count how many times you smile naturally, don't think about smiling. It makes you want to smile.]

So I got up at eight o'clock this morning. (stop laughing! that's early for me!) We started school around nine with history, physics, literature, grammar, and vocabulary. I was up to about 55 smiles by this point.

Then I went upstairs to watch a video about personal finance by Dave Ramsey.

Needless to say, I'm now up to 79 smiles :) whoops, make that 80.

Dum de da de dum, now lunch time is done. Hot dogs and hamburger buns... that was fun to figure out! 93 smiles so far.

Continuing with school: Some art talk and I read a chapter from Chad Eastham book "The Truth about Dating..." et cetera. Gosh that book has a long name... it makes me smile just thinking about it! Speaking of smiling, I'm up to 107 smiles!

~~~

Wait a second... 107? I've already smiled 100 times today!! And it's only... 2:50 in the afternoon!

Well, I'd have to say I'm not the average person then... and really, who is? You can't generalize people that way. We're all unique. Some people may smile 300 times a day, some only 50 times, maybe some don't smile at all.

And there are different kinds of smiles: Big smiles, small smiles, shy smiles, happy smiles, rude smirks, and the polite I'm-smiling-but-I-don't-really-mean-it smile. It depends on who the person is and what they are feeling.

Then again, you can choose to smile... you can choose to be happy, right?


I really hope you're agreeing with me right now...


Say YES!!! Because you CAN choose to be happy! I don't understand how people can be grumpy or mad about nothing and say "Well it's not my fault that I'm mad!"

Sorry, but yes. It is your fault. Because you chose to feel that way.

Ok, example time... Say someone cuts in line ahead of you to check out at the store. You have three options:

1) Tap them on the shoulder, explain that you were already in line and that they cut in front of you, and ask them to move behind you in line. You'll probably be slightly annoyed all day.
2) Stare at them for a moment, sigh heavily, slouch against your cart and face-palm, and keep sighing heavily as they take forever checking out, trying to make it obvious how annoyed you are. Now for the rest of the day you'll notice every little thing that could every possibly annoy you.
3) Either you wait patiently for your turn to check out or you shrug and move over to the empty line next door where you have a nice chat with the friendly cashier about nothing in particular, and it leaves you in a happy mood.

Everyone should fit into one of those categories. Personal, I consider myself an option 3 kind of person and I know plenty of people that would be right there with me. I have known some that would be option 1 and just a couple that would definitely be option 2... but that doesn't matter right now.

What matters is, you have the power to decide what you feel about anything that happens to you.



Even if you have to be this guy, the only happy person in a room of rude, depressed, and angry people, be the one that starts the happy party!!




Now I'd like to challenge you. How many times do you smile?

Seriously, count. It's just one day. Make dashes on a paper if you have to.

When you're done, it'll makes you think about how many times you've been happy and how my times you could have been happy but you chose to feel differently.

Good luck :)

SMILE!!!

10 Things You Didn't Know About Disneyland

I LOVE Disneyland!

You have no idea. How. Much.

There pretty much isn't a day that goes by that we don't talk about Disneyland. We've been to Disneyland five times over the past eight years, and every trip has been different!

Sometimes I think we know everything there is to know about it because we love it so much, but there's actually a lot of hidden secrets we didn't know about!

And I bet you don't know these things either.

(Unless you're a Zomerman) :)

 
1) High up in the Matterhorn is a basketball court for cast members to shoot some hoops during their breaks.
 

2) Disneyland is home to feral cats!

I know this is true because I've seen some: one trying to get food from guests at the Hungry Bear Restaurant and one sleeping in between the tiny houses on the Storybook Land Canal Boats. But there are many rumors as to why the cats are there...

At the Hungry Bear Restaurant!

--Years ago, more than 100 were discovered living inside Sleeping Beauty Castle.
--They first showed up at Disneyland shortly after it opened in 1955, and rather than spend time chasing them away, park officials decided to put the cats to work.
--Park officials decided in 1955 that feral lurkers from Orange County wouldn't be treated as nuisances; they made them employees. Renovation of the Sleeping Beauty castle two years later quantified the problem: more than 100 cats were found living in the unused portion. Evil fleas then riddled the area, as well.

Well, whatever the story, I do know one thing for sure about those cats. They are very friendly!


3) At least three babies have been born at Disneyland.

You had better LOVE Disney if you were one of these luck three... and you have a good excuse to go to Disneyland of your birthday each year :)

 

4) The buildings on Main Street U.S.A. are decorated to look like they have three floors, but it’s just an optical illusion!

The buildings aren’t nearly tall enough for three stories, but the designers wanted them to appear bigger. The ground-floors are nine-tenth scales, the second floors are seventh-eighths, and the third floors are five-eighths.

 

5) If you buy a Mickey balloon in the park and later in the day it pops or flies away, you can get a replacement for free.

Well, as long as you have the receipt. How nice is that, though? You don’t have to spend another ten dollars!

 

6) George Lucus was on the old version of Star Tours

This is a very popular rumor which I’m not sure is actually true... At the end of the ride, just as the Starspeeder is about to crash into a fuel truck, a nan in the control booth ducks down, then stands up and picks up the phone. He really does look like George Lucas... but is it actually him, or just a man in costume?

 

7) The telegraph in New Orleans Square isn’t tapping out gibberish.

When you’re waiting for the Disneyland Railroad in New Orleans Square, there is a telegraph on the other side of the tracks. It continually taps out parts of Walt Disney’s opening day speech in a variant of Morse code used by railroads

 

8) George Lucas is mentioned in the Star Tours waiting line.

When you enter the line, you can hear the loudspeaker ask of an “Egroeg Sacul” to come to the booth. That’s “George Lucas” spelled backwards.

 

9) Opening day as a disaster.

Disneyland was built in only 365 days. Maybe they should have took a little more time...

-Asphalt that was poured just hours before opening hadn’t fully dried so women’s spike heels were sinking in Main Street U.S.A.

-VIP passes were counterfeited
-Double the expected number of people showed up
-Rides broke down.
-There was a plumbers’ strike so Walk Disney had to choose between drinking fountains or bathrooms (He chose bathrooms, thank goodness...)
-There were bare patches of dirt around the park, so Walt had his gardeners replant weeds from the parking lot and label them with long, horticultural-sounding names.

 

10) Real animals on the Jungle Cruise?

Originally, Walt wanted to put real animals on the Jungle Cruise, but (thankfully) zoologists convinced him that they would all be asleep during park hours.

Walt did win in one aspect, though. In the early days of the park, live alligators were kept in a pen near the turnstiles. They were removed after a while though, because they occasionally escaped into the lagoon. I would NOT want to be around when that happened!!



There you have it! Ten things you didn't know about Disneyland.

What's that? You want a bonus? Well, this one isn't true any more, but it's still really cool... :)

11) For short time, if you yelled "Andy's coming!" When around Toy Story characters, they would stop what they were doing, hit the ground, and act like toys.

I know! That would be awesome!! However, they don't do this anymore. People have come up with all sorts of different reasons for this like they can't do it because it scares little kids or several character actors got hurt falling.

However, I have a theory of my own and snopes.com confirmed it. Since this meme went viral, at least fifty people shout out "Andy's coming" within an hour and a half, opposed to when the characters would only hear it one or twice a day. Can you imagine if they still had to fall? They wouldn't be able to do meet and great!