We had 30 folks and one dog over to celebrate and as they have for the past 5 years at least, Emily and Britney stayed overnight. They spent the next day playing and that afternoon I pulled out The Harvey Girls, a musical starring Judy Garland and Angela Lansbury. It was filmed in 1946 and the plot line was how the girls fought corruption in a wild west town via showstopping song and dance numbers. It was great, we laughed like crazy! Afterward, we watched the special features and saw the theatrical trailer, which touted it as a 'gay and lusty' film. The kids have ragged me about making them watch gay and lusty films ever since. There WAS unmarried kissing and a brawl...I got the girls dropped off Friday evening.
On Saturday morning, there was a big reunion at the theater where the kids tried out for the new winter play. I feel like they all did a great job and there were a couple surprise auditions from unknown homeschoolers who sang VERY well. I am thrilled, it will be great to have a really GOOD musical, with the pool of talent to draw from just from Saturday's audition, it should be the best one yet. The cast list does not go out for 2 weeks, I do not envy the casting panel, it will be a hard decision.
Anyway, here are my very few photos from the gathering:
The Boggan, Bothwell, Lackey, Amos, Spradlin and MacDonald families all came to celebrate!
I let Jake set the guest list, he wanted Austin and Granddad to come as well, but neither could make it. Still, it was a great turn out for him-though I imagine he would have been thrilled if it was just Rho...*sigh*
I let Jake set the guest list, he wanted Austin and Granddad to come as well, but neither could make it. Still, it was a great turn out for him-though I imagine he would have been thrilled if it was just Rho...*sigh*
Looka that purple house, I LOVE it. :)
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| If you wanna horse man this is what you do... |
The fire was blurry yet well tended all evening! Despite it being a week night, most folks stayed until 10 or so and we made big plans for a communal colony so that every week we could have bonfire and group meal night. I REALLY would love to do something like that.
It started off chilly, but the wind died down and it seemed warmer the later it got.
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| After everyone else left, the 5 teens managed to put away as many marshmallows in 10 minutes as were consumed over the course of the whole evening. ACK |
I used 2 different cameras so below are shots before and during the gathering:
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| Got the house all decked out in lights and set up a cozy chatting area. Yes, that IS a door in Chan's room, in fact there are 3 doors up now! Her door, Ben's door and the door to the hall from his room. I can't find the door to the hall from Chan's room, Matt thinks it was used in a chicken house at some point. |
The birthday song!!
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| Chan wanted a photo of her cheese house, and here it is! |
We had a wonderful time hanging out with everyone, lots of laughing and chatting and plans to get back together ASAP.
This week involves dental visits and at some point we have a guy coming to fix the heat pump. The power was out for several hours a few days ago and when it came back on, the inside unit fan never shut back off-even when we turn the whole unit totally off. The only way to get it to stop was to flip the breaker. It's a bad relay switch, I am hoping it won't be another $300 fix, though while he's here, we are going to go ahead and have the unit serviced and the heating coils cleaned. We usually do that every other March and it's due this next spring, so might as well save the second house call fee and do it now. Plus, it kind of makes sense to me to clean the heating coils in the winter when they are being used. Luckily it will be mild the next few days so if we have to leave it off a little while, we won't freeze.
That's the news from the castle!
