Pioneer Day

After the Shakespearean Festival, we headed back to St. George to hang out with my sister and her kids for the weekend and celebrate Pioneer Day. We always have fun doing what we do best--shopping at our favorite stores, eating yummy food and treats, playing in the water, and staying up way too late talking and talking. The kids enjoy playing dress-ups, wrestling, watching movies, and playing the Wii. On Saturday we hit the Main Street Park to play in the splash pads and wade in the streams that run through the park. Steph and I ran around taking hundreds of pictures of the kids and Joe read a book during the 2 hours (almost) we were there.

Steph thought she was pretty funny with this pose


The boys--Clark, Ty, Jake

The girls--Madi, Kate, Carlee

After cleaning up, we ate some delicious cupcakes to celebrate Steph's 30th birthday and lit off some fireworks in the parking lot. St. George is always the perfect quick getaway. And Steph is always the perfect hostess at a moment's notice.

Utah Shakespearean Festival

It's finally the field trip that Clark has been waiting for. He has been anticipating this for over a year, especially since Ms. Jackson announced that they had raised enough money from the May 2009 production of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". The drama students acting in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" would be performing at the Utah Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City. Clark was determined to earn a great role for this play so he could attend the special "overnight field trip".

The students left bright and early on the morning of Thursday, July 22nd. Clark was so excited to go that he didn't even give me a hug goodbye. He just threw his duffle bag in the storage compartment and boarded the bus rushing to sit next to his friends. I was a bit hurt but chalked it up to his excitement. His itinerary was to stop at Cedar Breaks for a picnic lunch and a short hike. When they arrived in Cedar City, they checked into their dorm rooms at Southern Utah University to get settled and then met outside by the waterfall for theater games. Dinner was in the SUU cafeteria and then they got dressed up for the Greenshow and production of "Much Ado About Nothing" before turning in for the night.

Friday morning the students got up early, ate breakfast and unpacked the set for their own production. They got into their costumes and their performance was at 10:00. We drove up to St. George the night before to stay with my sister and then drove into town to meet him for the play.

Demetrius

Helena is begging him to love her

Resting after being chased around the forest by Helena

Professing his love for her after a spell is cast on him

Fighting with Lysander over Helena

And they lived happily ever after . . .

After his spectacular performance, we were invited to join the students for a backstage tour of the Adams Theater and learn a little bit more about Shakespeare. After the tour, the students headed back to the school but we decided to make a weekend out of it and kept Clark. We headed to the bookstore where our kids picked out a souvenir. We walked around SUU's campus and I took the opportunity to take some photos of the kids in the shaded rocks and trees.

The Adams Theater, constructed and designed after Shakespeare's Globe Theater

Still playing the part

Our good friends, the Robinsons, met us for Clark's performance so we went out to lunch with them after the tour. We ate at Brad's Food Hut and embarrassed JaCoy by staring and giggling at a past boyfriend of hers that owns the joint. Her kids were loudly talking about him, pointing, and laughing. Her face was pretty red and Joe and I couldn't stop laughing. Luckily she is a good sport so it was great fun. Too bad she didn't marry him. She could have had free fries and white sauce for life!