Eagle Scout Service Project #1--Day 1

Dallin spent a few really good days this summer on his Eagle Scout Service Project and June 30th and July 1st. And what a project it turned out to be! It was a lot of work, but when I looked at the walls of the school today it warmed my heart to think we were able to help do that for our fabulous teachers and classmates. 

Dallin organized and headed up the painting of the East Wing of Ross Elementary School. Ross is where Dallin went to 5th and 6th grade. It is a 4th, 5th, and 6th grade school plus preschool (Head Start and Developmental). This year Luke and Hunter are at Ross. So all the boys will have spent plenty of time there. 


Here are the before shots. Thankfully, all the desks were back in the classrooms before the project started. Dallin must have taken these on a day when the carpets in the classrooms were being cleaned.

The walls were really childish. We are guessing they were done when this wing of the school was used for kindergarten and preschool. Probably in the 1990's. The primary colors were really popular then too. 

The paint and most materials were provided by the school district. Dallin and the volunteers brought plenty of rollers, mops for washing the walls down, putty and putty knives and ground covers. Over the two days there were 39 volunteers that worked 375.65 hours. At minimum wage that would be a value of  $2724.00.

It took two days. The first day in the morning everyone washed walls, took off the plug covers, wall corner protectors, and cork board strips and taped off the walls. Then we all spent the afternoon painting the first coat. That hallway was much longer than I have ever thought of it!

A few of the supplies

Hunter removing the teacher's decorations.

Alex S. getting ready to scrub.

Thayne scrubbing away. I think he's blurry because he's moving!

Emily S., Luke, and Emily R prepping the wall by pealing off old tape and mopping the wall clean.

Abby J. Rhonda J. and Dallin

Emily S. using GooGone to get tape off the wall. This part of the wall was really covered with a lot of tape.

Dallin and Lance

Dallin showing Andi R., Jalia M. and Emily R. what to do

 

 

Part of the group that cleaned in the morning left and a new group of people showed up to paint in the afternoon. For lunch pizza was donated along with water and sugar cookie bars. Yum!

Luke vacuuming the messes off the floor from cleaning the walls.

Pretty sure Thayne had the camera and was being artist with this cute picture of Andrea J.

Demonstrating the proper painting techniques.

Protecting the carpet! Yikes! We spilled a lot!

Melissa and Sara Williams had fun painting together!

Andrea concentrating on making sure those colored lines got covered.

I like the pattern Cambria F painted on the wall on the left side. It worked better to brush in the grooves rather than just depending on the rollers to fill them.

Emily F and Libby F are super good workers!

Ethyn W and Jacob F--we really need to help them with their Eagle Projects in the future!

Levi F and Ian W--more boys that will need help with Eagle Projects. It worked really well to get the younger kids to cover up the stripes.

Lance! What a stud. He really doesn't enjoy painting. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The end of first day everything had one coat.

The YEAR of the MUSICALS

Tonight we counted up how many musicals Hunter has seen (or been in) during the past year. TEN!! That's almost one a month!! Eleven if we stretch it to the last 18 months. It started for Hunter with trying out for Missoula Children's Theater in March 2013 for the play The Secret Garden (#1). Hunter played Goose #4. Fun stuff! He thought the costumes would be more majestic. They were a lot more generic than that, but I thought they were cleaver costumes made to fit a variety of children. He wanted to be an amazing white goose--more like a swan goose. But he was a grey, honking, doughnut loving Canada Goose.

That was a fun week of practices everyday and then a couple performances on Saturday. Gave us all a taste of some theater. Hunter was quite a natural on stage and really enjoyed the social part--especially with the older kids.

At the end of the summer, Hunter, Luke and I went to go see our neighbor girls perform in a Sleeping Beauty musical (#2) put on by DreamWeavers Musical Theatre. Hunter and I had kind of tricked Luke into coming. He was a bit miffed at us, but he secretly liked watching it and he got a huge kick out of the funny parts. We loved seeing Olivia and Julia all dressed up. Candice, their mom, was the music director and she kind of started putting it out there that Hunter should do it the next summer.

Candice, who has a degree in music theater, then ventured off to the Knock 'em Dead Dinner Theater for a run in Les Miserables (#3) as Cosette along with her girls playing young Cosette and Ephonine. So Hunter, Thayne and I went to go see that on October 10, 2013. I wish we could have taken Dallin along too, because he really would have liked it. But he was busy, busy, busy with football.

I couldn't believe how much Thayne and Hunter knew the story of Les Mis. We've had the music around our house their whole lives. Lance had been introduced to it in college and then was able to see the production live in Chicago while on his mission. He loves it. He played the soundtrack for me in the truck when we'd drive around together and he taught me the story. I bought us tickets to go see it finally (we'd tried when it can to Salt Lake when we were in college, but it was sold out) for the anniversary tour in 2012. It was so good. I had read half the book before going and I can't believe how much more depth there was to my understanding of the lyrics. Masterfully constructed lines which convey chapters of character development with just a few words. What art!

So taking my youngsters to the local theater company performance was such a treat. It was a bit more family friendly in certain scenes than the Broadway company's too, which was an added bonus.
We did the "student rush" for tickets. So we got lower priced tickets 10 minutes right before the show started and we ended up right on the front row. The girls told us it's known as "the spray zone" because sometimes you might get a little spit from some exuberant actor's lines! It was intimate sitting so close. Olivia was right up in front of us for one of her scenes and she looked up and caught our eyes and her eyes lit right up when she saw us. She worked really hard to suppress her smile, because it was the scene where young Cosette is being "abused" verbally by Theanardier.

An added bonus that night was that Lauren was there too to watch the musical. Lauren, Olivia, and Hunter are a little bit like the neighborhood Three Musketeers. 

the kids from the left: Lauren, Olivia, and Hunter with Julia in the front

Missoula Children's Theater was back again in November. This time for Blackbeard the Pirate (#4). Bruce, Luke and Hunter tried out this time. Bruce as a beach bum, Hunter was a sassy alligator, and Luke performed in the pre-show.  I liked this show. I'm amazed every time that Missoula Children's Theater puts a show on in a week with children of so many ages and huge ranges of acting experiences. I'm bummed I didn't get a picture of Luke. He was so cute for his Dr. Seuss number with a red and a green sock, blue shorts, white gloves and a fun hat.

This was Bruce's first play ever! He thought it was "really fun." So descriptive, I know. He was a goofy beach bum. I don't think he was to act too hard for that role though, because I think he'd really like to be one sometimes! Although, they did act a bit ditzy and Bruce is actually pretty smart.

Can I just say how fun it has been to have a friend that loves musicals! It's been such a blast to have Candice to take Hunter to so many events this year! Sometime during the winter he was taken to both The Secret Garden (#5) and The Little Princess (#6). 

In January, Hunter and I went with Candice and Olivia and Julia to see Mozart's operetta, The Magic Flute (#7) put on by the College of Idaho. It's fun! Papageno! What a fun character. And some seriously beautiful soprano arias. The storyline is a little silly, but that was Mozart's intent to create a light hearted opera.

All winter long our house hold was focused in on ONE musical though--Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance! (#8)  When the lead, Fredric, lives in your house you get to learn a lot of songs right along with him. Six months later I still catch Luke humming or singing, "A paradox, a paradox, a most ingeninus paradox. ha ha ha ha..." and sometimes we still hear "OFF TO THE PIRATES LAIR!" from Dallin. (I loved that he did that all winter!) I must give this musical its very own post though. I got to watch it three times and that wasn't enough.We all loved it so much! Dallin was really good. Truly, really good!

Pirate King, Fredric, Major General (photo bombed by )

 As soon as Pirates was done, Dallin took me and Hunter to go watch Columbia High School's production of Footloose (#9). Based off the movie and family friendly (the movie isn't) it was fun to see. Helped us realize what an amazing job Kuna High does at producing a musical though--especially the tech guys! We really liked the dancing the second half of Footloose. It was put together very well.

On July 30th, Dallin, Hunter and I headed up to Garden Valley, Idaho with Andrea, Rhonda, and Abby Johnson to watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (#10) by the Starlight Mountain Theater. What a fun acting in this musical! We took no pictures though.  

This summer Hunter has spent every Monday and Thursday afternoons rehearsing for The Mad Adventures of Mr. Toad (#11). He was cast a Mole--one of the supporting leads. He was fabulous! He too gets his own section about this experience! 

Mole, Rat, and Badger

I'm kind of liking this new little hobby we are starting of going to see musicals. I only wish I could have made it an even dozen for Hunter this past year. Lance and I went to see Wicked in May. WOW! Just WOW! Probably my most favorite musical ever. Dallin was able to go with Andrea also. I was so excited to be able to talk to him about it afterwards. The Johnsons gave him tickets for his graduation gift. So next time that musical comes through Boise I'm just spending the big bucks and taking everyone!

Us--Together and Growing Up

For Family Home Evening on July 29th we got family pictures. I love them more and more everyday. (I have to get used to seeing myself in the pictures before I can like them--it's so hard to not be really critical of myself. I'm a work in progress).

These are our last pictures
before life with all the children at home changes into life with a missionary, then a college student and more missionaries and on and on ...

Makes me emotional to think about life changing. I spent half of my life just wanting to grow up and be a mom. Then the next part being a mom and having these beautiful babies and helping them grow. It just a bit much to be sending one out of the "nest" in just over a week. But I wouldn't have it any other way. He's been stretching his wings and I think he's really ready too go. Just love them all so much. I get kind of attached to something that I've been caring for for 18 years. But then again, I still have several of my childhood stuff animals too. I guess I'll let him go, because keeping him in a box in my upstairs closet is kind of weird! 

For now this was us this year in 2014. It has been a fabulous year so far!