Suns vs. Celtics

Back in January my parents came to visit from Oregon.   Sadly, I got a terrible cold that weekend and we couldn't do much.   But, we had already purchased tickets to the Suns vs. Celtics game so we did go to that.

 My dad is a huge Celtics fan and has been since ever I can remember.  I remember everything when I was little that if there was a Celtics game on, everything else in the house stopped for the night (that was back before nearly every game was on TV!).   This was the first time he had been able to go see them and their visit here coincided with the Celtics being here so of course we had to go!

And again, trying desperately to get Adam to smile for a picture, story of my life!

Thanks mom and papa for coming to visit!  We sure enjoyed having you, even if all we did was sit around at home all weekend.

And the winner is....

Ok, not me!  But, it was still way fun!

Saturday I took part in the first Cupcake Contest at the AZ State Fair.  It was also their very first live competition.  The contest was modeled after the tv Show Cupcake Wars, only modified since there aren't a plethora of kitchens at the fair!

Instead, the contestants had to bring 1 dozen unfrosted, unfilled and undecorated cupcakes.  Then we were given 1 hour to complete the cupcakes.

All our cupcakes had to be Citrus themed; everything had to be citrus: the cupcake, filling and frosting.

 

Here I am at my station working on my cupcakes

Time out to smile at the Camera!

. Almost done!!!

The whole time we were working, there were people walking around checking out what we were doing; both spectators and judges.  It was kind of fun telling people what I was making and then hearing them declare MMM and want to try them!

Here they are on the judging table ready to go!   I was contestant number 3.

 Very blurry side view

 Yep, thats a Popsicle stick in my cupcake.... My cupcake was an Orange Dreamsicle cupcake, so it works!

 Here I am describing to the judges and the audience what my cupcake is. 

And the judges tasting my cupcakes!

And ta da!   I get a big red ribbon!!

I was so please with second place!  I couldn't believe it!  Now I just have to wait to get my ribbon and my $50 check in the mail! (The fair kept my cupcakes and the ribbon to display through the rest of the fair)

All the winners! 

Yep, both 1st and 2nd went to men!  So funny, their wives also competed and at least one of them was SOOOOO mad her husband placed and she didn't.  Hilarious!

The contest was a lot of fun and I might just have to do it again next year!

When Sadie comes to Play!

When Sadie found out just how much fun Brycen had at Encanto Park, she came all the way from North Carolina to check it out for herself!

Firs stop, Carousel!

Yep, its fun alright!

Then the train:

Driving the spinning car!

We sure were glad we weren't in Uncle Adam and Uncle Daniel's Car!  They were spinning like crazy!

Then we watched Mom and Uncle Daniel ride the Parachute ride..

Sadie and Aunt Abbey both agreed it looked scary!

Splash Pad!!   Can it get any better?!

Sadie was so brave, she even rode a ride all by herself!

I think we can all agree that Encanto park is a super fun time!  And I think Adam and I have found a new tradition... Lets hope Encanto Park stays around for a long time so we can take all our Nieces and Nephews!

No words necessary.. just pure fun!

Africa, Lion King, Oliver, Wicked, Wizard and Les Mis!

You may have noticed a serious lack of posts earlier this year, well it was because I had a third job... Ok, not really but it felt like it! Between my 2nd job teaching for Scottsdale Community College and my real job, don't ask me how I ever thought I had time to be in a musical! But since its something I love I just had to do it! Our stake has wonderful cultural arts programs and the musical was no exception! Imagine my excitement when I found out I could not only be part of 1 musical but of 4! And not only that, I would be able to sing, dance, act and even play my saxophone! Here are a bunch of pictures of our production; some are taken from dress rehearsals so the lighting isn't the best, but you will get the idea!

We had a pit orchestra/band for the performances that includes 3 keyboards, a clarinet, trumpet, guitar, bass guitar, drums and yours truly on Sax! It was sooo fun! It definitely took a lot of work though as I had to transpose all my music from the original scores as we didn't have full band parts. I spend MANY hours pulling out the parts I should play and the transposing them into the right key.

For a church production, this thing was intense! We had a full sound board, overhead microphones and 12 wireless microphones!

We had all the special lights on stage and a couple spotlights. Our director even got permission from Salt Lake to paint the walls on the stage black. They looked so good but she had to promise to paint them back white.

Serious sound equipment!

Our opening number was an acapello version of Africa (originally performed by the group Toto). It was sooo cool! We started out by making a thunderstorm that actually sounded like rain!

There you can see my up close in our sweet Calftans!

Don't we look good!

From Africa we went into Lion King. The basic idea of our production was to do a musical review of several musicals. We performed the songs from the songs with very little to no speaking parts. Lion King, Oliver and Wizard of Oz were each about 15 mintues long.

This is where I was, in the pit, during Lion King, as well as most of Oliver.

We had costume changes for every musical and they looked so good! I don't know how the seamstresses were able to come up with all the costumes we had. Our cast was around 80 people and almost all the adults where in every musical with lots of the kids in 2 or 3 of them. Thats a lot of costumes!

I did come up on stage for about 15 seconds of Oliver to do a little tap number. So fun!

For Wicked, we had 3 people perform a highlight of songs from the Musical while the rest of the cast changed clothes. Notice anything familiar from this picture? Yep, thats my wedding dress that Glinda is wearing! I was glad I was able to find at least one more use for it!

The main characters of Wizard of Oz, sweet costumes!

Wizard of Oz had lots of glittery green!

Our Final number was Les Mis. This one was amazing. We stretched Les Mis out to about 35 minutes worth of music with lots of movement between the soloist and cast.

Thats me on the end again!

Here I am a "serving wench". I think I am telling someone sorry I am out of drinks!

The picture below is of the full cast of all the musicals. It was so amazing the talent that was in our stake. As we got closer and closer to performances I was just amazed by the quality of the sound from the Soloist and the Choir.

The musical was tons of fun, but I was definitely ready for a break when it was over! Luckily, I think they only do them every 2 years....and I'll probably be crazy enough to participate again!

SUNS!

Last Friday night we got a surprise phone call from a member of our Stake Presidency offering us tickets to the Suns game that night. Of course we said YES!!!! We were in the middle of dinner and had to eat pretty quick to make it out the door in time, but it was so worth it!

We were in the upper level, but who is going to complain when they are free? Plus they were second row on the top, so still pretty decent seats!

We had soo much fun and it was a great game! Amare was unstoppable that night and we even saw the Jazz Coach, Jerry Sloan get ejected from the game for shoving the ref. It was hilarious!

Bowling!

Broncos Take The field

A sea of ORANGE

Loving the game!

About to score! (We had the best seats, both touchdowns scored right in front of us!)

Oh yes they do! Video of the winning touchdown! (Yes that's me screaming, sorry couldn't help it! I left the game with a massive headache and a sore throat, but it was worth it!)

Thanks for a SWEET Christmas present Adam!

P.s. in case you didn't know (WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?), the BRONCOS won 17-10!! WHOOHOOO!!!!