Is It Naptime Yet

Since it was so long ago that I posted the details of Day One and Day Two of our trip to Cathedral Gorge and the pictures for Day one, you can go back to the links I just provided to refresh your memory or  just enjoy Day two of our Memorial Weekend Trip.

Friday Morning: Our hike to the caves.

Zarina hand in hand with Lilah, which was very common the whole trip.

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Eden stayed back with us, though I think she’s running a little bit to catch up with the Parks and Lilah.

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The girls, Lilah, Zarina, and Eden.

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The Blake’s. (We were hiking, I’m not trying to look fashionable.)

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Entrance to one of the “caves”.

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The girls with Jon. The “caves” were really passage ways that had been created from the silt being worn down by water and wind after the prehistoric lake dried up. So they were open on the top and at least ten degrees cooler than outside in the open desert.

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There were a lot of narrow winding spaces.

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Eden had fun fitting in one…

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…so did Jon.

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This is the view from higher up. We went climbing after we hiked in the caves.

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Eden looking up at Mommy.

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I took a rest and Jon took the girls climbing. He had a lot of patience and was the perfect teacher.

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Lilah holding her Daddy’s hand after a hard climb down. Eden was just chilling at the bottom waiting for them, she had climbed down earlier.

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Jon offering his hand to a worried Eden. (I just loved the previous two pictures. I love seeing Jon helping his children, something he is always willing to do. )

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Friday Evening: On our way to dinner.

The sky in one direction. It was very ominous.

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180 degrees the other way it looked like this. (This was at a gazebo that had been built when it became a park in the 1930’s.)

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Lilah and Jon discovered the gazebo on their hike.

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Some antelope we encountered between Caliente and Lund on our drive home Saturday.

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We thought they were cool.

This concludes our camping trip with Andrea, Brien, and Zarina. It only took me over a month to post the pictures of our second half.  We plan on seeing them once more this summer and we can’t wait!

Saturday night was our last show. It was bittersweet to be performing for the last time, but oh what a relief. Saturday night there was a lot of ad lib going on. I guess since it’s the last show, and we’re all a little tired from performing, so the actor’s shake things up.

Kerri was the Wicked Witch of the East leg’s for the play. Friday she decided she was tired of playing it and said we should get a boy to play the legs and I suggested Jeremy. He has very skinny legs so they’d be perfect. He was game and amazingly even fit the shoes!

Here’s a picture of him with the striped thigh highs and shoes. It was a riot in the dressing room when he came in wearing these.

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One thing the leads decided to do was respond to the guard after he asked them to read the sign. You know, he says “Cant’ you read the notice?” and they say “What notice?” “The one that’s as plain as the nose on my face.” Instead they responded “Oz” very slowly, since the doors had OZ painted on them. Shawn, the guard was definitely caught off guard and had to recover from it but he did a pretty good job.

The main prank happened at the end of the Merry Old Land of Oz. We hear a loud noise and then the witches music plays. This is when we see the smoke sign written by the Wicked Witch of the West. We all look stage left towards one of the spotlights, but this night the spotlight person had made a sign that read ‘Dorothy’s #1’ and was waving it around. It was a little hard to keep in character while watching this through the whole scene, but I definitely laughed slightly when Dorothy decided to run with it, and instead of reading the  smoke as ‘Surrender Dorothy”, she said “Dorothy’s #1.” There was silence on the stage, except a chuckle from Kerri, but Tin Man chimed in “I think it says surrender Dorothy.” and we finished the scene.

Those are the two main things I knew about that changed besides adding a line here or there. Jon said it made for an entertaining night and the audience seemed to be just fine with it. Everything that was changed added to the show, not completely ruined it. I guess it’s a lesson that on closing night after a week and a half run it’s usually just a fun night for the actors.

Here are some pictures with cast members before my hair became extremely flat from my Winkie hat and some afterwards with the girls.

Me, Diana, Sara. We’re on the Oz set. Sara designed the flags and I sewed them and they added the fabric and embellished the trellis behind us. These girls are wonderful and they happen to live close by so I hope to see them before the next play.

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Me and Kerri. I love Kerri. We kidded around and had a lot of fun. I was next to her in the dressing room and since she wore fake eyelashes I decided to wear some also. I wanted to be just like Kerri because she’s wonderful.

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Lisa and me. Lisa and I sat next to one another during rehearsal’s. She’s a doll and a newlywed, like had only been married a month when rehearsals started, and still decided to do the play!

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Me, Lilah and Dena backstage. Dena was so nice and was always so helpful. She was one of the choreographers, as was Kerri, and she stood on the sidelines as we did the Jitterbug each night and always cheered us on and sang since we were always to breathless to sing while we danced.

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A tired Eden and Lilah with me and the Appletrees. (Kelsey, Sara, Diana, and Crystal.)

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Eden with Kerri, the head Winkie guard. Her staff was named Willie.

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Us with the witches. Jen, the wicked witch, did such a great job acting. Each night her death was the highlight of the play. Not because she died, but because of how well she died. There were many times I wanted to laugh because she did it with such comical grace, but I was able to keep face, or turn my head a little more away from the audience if I did crack a smile.

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Lion (Jerry), Tin Man (Josh), Eden, Me, Lilah, and Scare Crow (Steven.)

Jerry and Josh are brothers, though they’re so different, both in good ways, that you wouldn’t know they are brothers. (I know they look very similar in this picture, but they look different enough that you wouldn’t call them brothers right off either. )

I was in charge of helping Lion change every night to Zeke. His wife was always back there helping, which I’m not sure made it more or less awkward to be taking off and putting her husband’s clothes back on?  He was very modest though and it went so fast that it didn’t really matter.

Also, since I had a basket on stage for the Oz scene I was in charge of Steven’s patches that we took off during the sprucing up scene in Oz. He sometimes threw me off since some nights he wore three patches and other nights he wore four, and once a patch got left on stage so I was never certain if I lost one or if he wasn’t wearing all of them.

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Dorothy (Jessica) with the girls and me.

Jessica was so sweet and wrote a little personalized note to each cast member. Some of the things she wrote in my letter was what a hot mom I am (I know, I know, stop it.) and how darling my two daughters were. She told Lilah that she was the cutest lullaby girl and that she loved her curls for the play.

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Jon’s niece Shauntae with the girls and me.

Shauntae drove down from Logan just to see the play. Well, maybe not just for the play but luckily it was while the play was showing and she was able to see it! Jon came with her Saturday night since I had bought two tickets and he missed Friday’s performance.

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After the play and picture taking Jon took both girls home while I helped clean up the theater. Then some of the cast went to the Cheesecake Factory for food. I had also gone out Friday night with a few cast members so I just ordered a piece of Cheesecake on Saturday night. It was definitely fun to be with other cast members without the stress of getting ready or hurrying out the door to leave. (We had to be out of the theater by 9:45 pm every night, except closing night for take down, or their was a fine.)

I really loved being in the play and already miss some of the people I met. I hope to do it again and again.

On Monday night my family, friends, and some of my sister’s and mother’s co-workers came to the play. My mom bought 20 tickets, and I had one free ticket and every seat was filled, with a couple kids on laps too. I think we had a sold out theater this night too. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the play.

Terri, my sister’s co-worker, dragged her husband to the play because he knew he wasn’t going to enjoy it and would have rather stayed home to catch up on work. He then apologized to her Tuesday night and said he really did enjoy the play and was happy she had made him come. She of course told Carolyn and then Carolyn told me. I’m happy he enjoyed himself. We had some amazing lead actors which always makes or breaks the play, especially with such a well known play.

Monday night was a pretty normal night. The one hiccup I experienced was losing my shoe as a Winkie. The girl behind me stepped on my shoe right as we came out and I tried for a second to put it back on but I would have had to stop so I marched on and no one in my family noticed. I thought it was very obvious because it was my left foot, or the one facing the audience, but I guess the boot cover covered my foot well enough that it wasn’t so obvious. This teaches me that I should have character shoes, which have a buckle over the top of them, and not just any black shoe. I think I’ll invest in some next year.

I got pictures afterwards with my little family and Jon was a doll and brought flowers for us. Terri also brought Lilah a rose. Ever since opening night Lilah had wanted flowers, but Jon wasn’t coming till Monday, so she had to wait and I made sure he knew to buy some flowers for Lilah and of course he bought some for me as well.

A fuzzy picture of the munchkins. Most of the pictures Jon took were slightly fuzzy. Lilah has her head slightly down.

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Lullaby League: Lilah, Lexie, Allison, Bonnie, Whitney, and Elizabeth.

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The snow fairies.

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Pat pat here, pat pat there and a couple of brand new straws!

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That’s how we keep you young and fair in the merry old land of Oz!

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This is very fuzzy, I know, but if you look closely you can see me without my shoe. I’m the second from the last.

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My foot, without the shoe. Thank goodness for boot covers, though I think you can slightly see my pink toenails.

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My family.

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Lilah took this picture of me with my flowers.

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Then she had me take this picture of her with her flowers. She looks so grown-up to me.

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Jon’s mother and two younger siblings came on Friday night. Jon was going to be driving them all to the play but unfortunately around 4 am Friday morning Lilah got sick, as in throwing up in the hall way sick. Some stomach flu circulated between the cast this year and unfortunately it hit Lilah on the day Jon’s family was coming. She threw up again at 10 am, and I was so hoping she could pull through and feel better for that night. I was so sad that my MIL would miss Lilah’s performance and was in tears over it. I thought Lilah might just need some attention and was milking the sickness but she proved me wrong when she threw up at 4 pm, right before I left. I felt better about leaving her home after that and luckily she felt better and was able to perform closing night.

Friday’s performance went well and we had a sold out theater. We  also sold out for Saturday night on Friday night because we only had 4 seats to sell at the door for Friday’s performance and then only 6 seats left for Saturday’s too.

Jon’s mom loved the play and Dara and Jason thoroughly enjoyed it as well.

Dara, she made sure to hold up the program, me, Jason, and Mom Blake.

Tonight I had one of those proud parent moments. It’s one when you take pride in a decision your child makes, but know that it was completely them that made the decision and you’re just so happy to hear they did the right thing, or a nice thing.

There’s a little rivalry going on between the snow fairies and the poppies. (There are girls on stage dancing or sitting as poppies during the poppy scene and then snow fairies that sprinkle the stars with snow, instead of making it snow.) Anyways, some of the snow fairies decided to write mean notes to the poppies. Lilah told me she tried tried to tell them it wasn’t nice, but since they didn’t listen she wrote a nice note instead that said “I love poppies. Love Lilah.” she also tried to write ‘ignore them’ or ‘ignore the snow fairies’, but it was too hard so she scribbled it out.

When Lilah told me this in the car I admit I was very happy to hear that she was the one being nice, but she also knew that it might hurt other people’s feelings so that’s why she was nice. So many of the kids in the play like Lilah and are nice to her and I think it’s because she is nice to them.

Lilah is just such a sensitive spirit. Granted she’s not always the nicest sister, but hey, what sisters get along 24/7? Lilah is just so sensitive to other people and has always been empathetic beyond her years. This can be hard for me at times because her sweet spirit needs a lot of love and I know I don’t always give her all the love she needs. It’s not that I don’t show her love, it’s just hard when you think you’re giving someone enough love and attention, but when they need more love they show you in interesting ways and in Lilah’s case by showing me more love is how I know she needs more love and attention.

To tell the truth I’m happy I’m home schooling her because I think public school and the world of many impolite people would be hard on her. I don’t home school her only for this particular reason, but it’s definitely a benefit in keeping her sweet spirit sweet and I hope she always tries to be nice and makes other good choices as she gets older.  I know the notes were partially in fun and not just mean spirited, but I admire her ability to think about how others might feel and do the right thing and I learn so much from my precious daughter.

Jon got jealous that I did a five things centered around Lilah for her birthday but did not do that for his. Since it was Father’s Day yesterday, and since Jon is so low key and doesn’t expect anything too much from me, even though I like to be treated on Mother’s Day, I am centering today’s five things around Jon.

1. Jon is so patient with our children and I appreciate it, even though I’m not always patient with his patience. (As in I want him to be as impatient as I am.)
2. Jon wants to show and teach the girls everything he knows, and since he acts on this he gives them much of his time and the girls love this.
3. He takes each of his girls on a date every month. I know they will always appreciate this alone time with him and I appreciate the time I have with him too.
4. Since he’s been a home alone parent more often with the play practices Jon sympathizes with me and my role, and I finally feel he understands me and how I feel a little more because it’s been somewhat tough on him to be the only parent for the girls to turn to when I’m gone and even though he’ll be so happy when the play is over he is still happy to watch them because I’m enjoying the play so much.
5. Jon makes us his priority and tries to spend quality time with me and the girls. He has every Friday in June off to use some leave and he also has something planned for every Friday in June so we can do things as a family.

I love you Babe and I’m happy to have you as the father to my children.

Friday

After some morning hiking we all decided to hike to the caves not far from camp. Lilah at first stayed with Andrea and Brien, mostly to be with Zarina and Eden stayed back with Jon and I, or we stayed back with her. The gorge was a prehistoric lake that has dried and the caves are within silt hills. Jon had lots of fun squeezing into tight places and it was nice and cool within the caves and passage ways.

Lilah also became very adventurous and was mountain climbing. She saw Uncle Brien climb up high and wanted to climb also. Both Lilah and Eden did  great on climbing but were a little more nervous at coming down the hill side. Jon was a very patient daddy and helped the girls down through their many cries and pleas for help. I know I would have just grabbed them and taken them down, but he helped them slowly yet surely down the side of the hills, very slowly at times.

After lots of exploring Eden and I were getting tired, but Lilah and Jon wanted to hike some more, so we left them for camp and Jon and Lilah went on a much longer hike to a lookout at the top of the silt cliffs. Eden and I ate lunchand hung out with the Parks. Jon and Lilah eventually returned and we all took afternoon hikes.

For dinner we went to a restaurant in Panaca. It was delicious and nice to not cook. While there a storm developed so it was very windy as we sat around the fire Friday night. It looked like it might rain so I opted to sleep in the car. The storm died down for the night and it did not rain, but I’m still happy I choose the car, though I wouldn’t want to do it again anytime soon.

We packed up and went home Saturday morning. I immediately put the girls in a bath while Jon and I unpacked and put away our camping gear. I then took a shower to wash away all the dirt and sand.

It was a fun weekend and we loved camping with Andrea’s family. We hope they decided to go again before Zarina turns 4, we know Zarina can be a grumpy camper, really sleeper, but it’s so much fun during the day to let our girls explore and be together.

Summary of Day One
Pictures from Day One

Thursday

Our Explorers.

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What we did while they explored. He was reading I was relaxing.

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A sweaty, happy hiker.

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A happy Zarina with a happy Lilah.

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A beetle. They were our regular campground visitors and they were around 2 inches in length. The girls were fascinated with them.

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Cousins.  Zarina loved sitting on the bench next to Lilah and Eden.

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Friday Morning

Jon and the girls hiking. What you can’t see them?

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They made it to the top of that dirt hill, but not up the cliff wall obviously. For some reason I didn’t take a picture while they were sitting there overlooking their achievement.

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Zarina walking around with her blanket and Spock bear.

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Why are you following me strange lady? It was morning and she was grumpy, hence the blanket and bear.

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Happy she’s with her daddy, but still unsure of me.

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Still not sure of me.

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Yay! A smile. She does like me, even if I don’t have my children around.

Summary of Day One
Summary of Day Two

Thursday the 21st we packed our little family and all our camp gear into our large sedan and left for Cathedral Gorge State Park, outside of Panaca, at 9:30 am. Jon wanted to leave at 9 but I woke up 20 minutes late because I set my alarm for 6:45 pm, not am. Andrea was amazed we were leaving so early and I was a little too. However I did realize that I had forgotten to make and pack our tuna fish sandwiches so before we really left Las Vegas we stopped at the only fast food to the freeway, or Taco Bell, for our lunch that we would enjoy later on the road. The girls loved their chicken soft tacos so I can now go to my favorite restaurant while I was pregnant, or Del Taco, without too much whining or wasting of food. Sorry I got sidetracked.

We got to camp around 12:30, or sometime around then. I’m not sure exactly because we lost track of all time once we opened our car doors and began enjoying the outdoors. The campgrounds were mostly RV friendly but not very tent friendly. We did find a nice spot on the outside of the grounds that had the most space between it and the other sites on either side. I think it was the best one for the weekend. We got there so early and on a Thursday because they told Brien that it fills up over Memorial Day weekend and as the weekend progressed it did, so we were happy to be there early and secure a nice spot for our families.

Brien and Andrea showed up later a little later that afternoon. They stopped in for only a few minutes because they had to drop Andrea’s car off in Caliente while we camped. You paid per car per night, and so to save money they parked her car in Caliente at one of the offices Brien works out of. They needed two cars for the trip, Brien’s for camp stuff and Andrea’s for Vegas stuff since they were coming to Vegas after camping.

We let the girls explore while we sat and watched them from the camp site. We told them to stay together in case one of them got hurt and to stay within seeing distance of the camp. Lilah took both rules very much to heart, and Eden did at first, but as the weekend progressed Eden would leave Lilah to go do her own thing and sometimes go farther than she should have. From camp you could hear Lilah has she pleaded/whined to Eden about staying together so they didn’t get hurt or following her since Eden wanted to do her own thing. At one point Eden went off on her own and Lilah was very distraught with us in camp. We told Lilah that it was OK to split up if she she stayed close since we could see and hear her. She stomped off saying she wasn’t going to help Eden even if she got hurt. Only a few minutes later we saw them holding hands as they hiked up a hill together. Sisters.

Once the Parks arrived and settled in a little Zarina was giddy with joy following her cousins around. While they were exploring she was just giggling and falling over every few steps. Zarina immediately feel in love with the girls, especially Lilah, and followed them around as much as she could, except when she was grumpy. Lilah loved Zarina and doted on her. Eden was a little more reserved with Zarina, but still loved sitting next to her and hiking together when they explored.

The girls explored and Andrea, Brien and I took turns taking Zarina out with them. They found a dried up wash that went to the road and they followed it many times while we were there, showing each adult the path when we went out with them. Lilah also loved looking at the tracks and trying to figure out what animals had passed through.

That night Brien made a delicious dinner for us in his dutch oven and we enjoyed smores over a fire after dark with our roasting sticks that Andrea bought for us. It was a beautiful evening but cloudy so we didn’t see many stars.

The next morning was a breakfast of egg burritos and oatmeal. I bought a table top stove and since I hadn’t found the right fuel here in Vegas Andrea brought us some from Ely. Granted I haven’t looked tremendously hard, but I have checked 4 different stores.
Jon and the girls went hiking after breakfast and hiked as far as they could up one of the neighboring hills.

Once they returned we got ready for hiking to the caves….which I will write more about at a later date.

Summary of Day Two
Pictures from Day One

Our little family met up with my sister Andrea’s little family and went camping at Cathedral Gorge outside of Panaca Nevada on Thursday and we came home today, Saturday.
It was so much fun and Lilah did not want to leave. She thought it was so beautiful and I know she loved having Zarina follow her everywhere, as long as Zarina wasn’t busy following her parents. I was so happy to come home and put my children in the bath and then wash the last two and a half days of dirt off once I got my long awaited shower. I like camping but I do not love camping.

Can I also note that I grew up in Las Vegas, but until my sister moved to  Ely, Nevada  I didn’t have a clue where Ely was, or Panaca,  or Caliente, or even where Alamo was. I’ve learned so much with our travels with the Parks.

Also Jon says we should visit all the state parks and I told him we’d need to buy a camper. I slept in the car last night for fear of rain. It’s didn’t rain, but he was woken up at 6 am by our camping neighbors chopping wood and I didn’t hear a thing.

Pictures to come later, after I’ve sewn at least three costumes.

Jon had just put some olive oil on his food, I forget what, but the important thing was our olive oil bottle was on the table during dinner.

Lilah: That bottle is half empty.

Jon: You must be a pessimist to say the bottle is half empty.

Eden interrupts: No, it’s half full.

Lilah argues a little that it’s half empty and Eden repeats it’s half full.

I guess we’ll see if Lilah truly is a pessimist and if Eden is an optimist as they get older.