October 1, 2011 Intense BSU vs Nevada game at the in-laws. . .
Watching the game at Jeanie's is almost as good as being there. . .
October 2, 2011 Youth Sunday (click on the link to see the details)
October 3, 2011 Monday.
This picture will make more sense later in this post! Zach asked me to text it to him so he could continue working on something during a break at school. . .
(October 4th is forever lost to me. . . )
October 5, 2011 Youth Group
October 6, 2011 Zach's Artwork (See Oct 3rd above!!)
October 7, 2011 Friday- Road trip to McCall for Samuel School at Quaker Hill
October 8, 2011 Andrew at Art in the Bar
October 9, 2011 Boy's Birthdays (Click on the link to see the explanation for the picture below!)
The Resistance of Catan
(You can read more about it here.)
A little walk on the canal with Jake and Gloria. . .
October 12th???
October 13, 2011 The Project (See the finished product right HERE)
October 14, 2011 Road Trip to Newberg for Quiz Meet #1
October 15, 2011 Quiz Meet #1 of the 2011-2012 Season
October 16, 2011 Road Trip back to Boise
October 19, 2011 Cases
Rob has had a backlog of cases that piled up on him over the summer and this is one of the few pictures that I have. At some point I'll have to track the delivered cases down and take a few good detailed pictures but for now, this will have to do!
October 21, 2011 Antsy and the Troubs at the Civic Center
October 23, 2011 (Cheating- this was not taken with my Blackberry!)
Matt's Party!
October 24, 2011 Halloween Prep
Getting out the costumes. . .
October 25, 2011 Jake the hugger
October 26-27, 2011 Quite Possibly The Longest Day Ever
OK, this requires a bit of explanation. We agreed to work on a show in Twin Falls without realizing the amount of time involved. OK, maybe I'm the only one who didn't realize it but in order to be in Twin Falls to set everything up first thing in the morning, I had to get up at 4:30 a.m. I left Meridian around 5:30 a.m. and headed for Twin. Rob had driven the Uhaul over the evening before so he could be at the church we needed to set up in by 8 a.m. for a walk through. Early mornings don't bother me when early is 7 a.m. but driving at 5:30 a.m. was pretty miserable. I remember thinking, if the sun would just hurry and come out, this won't be so bad. I waited and waited but kept driving anyway . . .
In spite of missing the Twin Falls exit (what, I thought there were 2 exits to Twin!!) I was still there shortly after 8 a.m. and Rob and Kurt had already unloaded half of the truck. We had to set up in two different places- we had our Genie towers with our line array along with a bunch of subs and amp racks in the church sanctuary (called "stacks and racks"). This tour traveled with everything else they would need so we had to set up as quickly as we could so they could unload their semi truck full of stuff around us. . .
I'm not a big fan of the pressure that is part of the deal when working with national artists even though this was probably more mild than I imagined it to be but at some point early in the day, my head started to hurt. Maybe it was the (perceived) stressful show or a lack of sleep or my blood pressure or just my life in general but this head ache was there to stay. Even with a few sweetly offered and much appreciated remedies, the pain just wouldn't go away.
After setting up in the sanctuary, we headed over to the gym (in another building that might as well have been a mile away!) so we could set up the rest of the stuff we brought. It wasn't much in comparison to some of our other shows, but we had to set up a small sound system as well as about 120' of pipe and drape, a big screen with a projector and lots of lights and truss. It seemed like a lot at the time. When everything was set up and had a stamp of approval, Kurt headed back to Boise for important obligations and Rob and I went to the local mall so I could get a pair of jeans. Much needed jeans. The mall is next to this canyon which was the general area of a car accident I was in when I was in about third grade. I guess I'll have to save that story for another day. . .
After the dinner we all headed over to the sanctuary for the Steven Curtis Chapman concert. . .
We sat on stools next to the front of house engineer. The lights and the fog were cool and the loud music sounded great but none of it helped my head. When the digital mixer out front went out after the third song and flashed it's lights ominously before it came back on (lots of silence when this happens) I decided to head over to the gym and start taking everything down so it wouldn't be an all-nighter.
One foot in front of the other, breathe in and out. . . By the time the concert was over, I was mostly packed up at the gym with everything by the back door to be loaded out to the truck. We had to tear down and load up everything in the sanctuary first and try to stay out of the touring company's way while we were at it. I got to meet Curtis Chapman during the load out and he shook my hand and thanked me. He was very genuine and kind. I don't know why I stress over these things! He gave us this signed picture for our artist wall (that doesn't exist yet!):
When we were done loading the speakers and amps that had been in the sanctuary, we pulled the truck to the back door of the gym to load everything there. After about 10 minutes, we realized we would have to move the truck so that the semi and tour bus could get by. We backed the Uhaul up to the front of the gym and decided to load out there while the artist convoy pulled out. The tour bus didn't seem to be in a big hurry to leave so we ended up loading everything out by the front door. Even though I had placed everything by the back door. It was a long load out. Thankfully my friend, Jamie, was there to help or it would have been even worse! We finally left Twin Falls around 1 a.m. It was a painfully long trip. I was tempted to find a place in Twin Falls to stay the night but I had to take the kids to school first thing in the morning so we just kept moving. Rob was in the Uhaul in front of me so we didn't go much over 55 mph all the way home. We had to stop often to get some fresh air. The Stage Stop half-way between Mtn. Home and Boise was a welcome refuge in the middle of the night. Looking at the pictures now, I still feel a little queasy. . .
I actually even found a little humor in the situation. . .
Moving on. . .
October 27, 2011 More Halloween Prep
The shopping. . .
October 28, 2011 More Halloween Prep
Pumpkin Picking. . .
Pumpkin carving. . .
October 29, 2011 More Halloween Prep
The Construction of the Maze and The Party. . .
I have to insert a little blurb about Zach and Halloween right here. Zach enjoys Halloween. REALLY enjoys Halloween. He even has a large stash of Halloween items and they are all categorized by item on a list on his Ipod. The only reason I agreed to the maze this year is because it will probably be his last year at home on Halloween. My boy is growing up, you know, so this was kind of his last hurrah. He spent a lot of time prepping this year. A LOT. This is the Lego interpretation of the maze:
These are the pipes and couplers that form the maze. The day they were laying everything out, Zach ran in and asked for my camera to take a picture and all I had was my phone. I didn't realize until I uploaded this picture to the blog that he was taking pictures from the roof!!
I stayed out of the way while Rob and Zach (with help from Gloria) put up the maze and covered it with the black Visqueen. Zach strung cobwebs and dug some graves under the pear tree. Rob hung lights and speakers. And swore a little bit. And then we had the youth group over for a party. Gary dropped off their fire pit and Rob put in a movie about Zombies so I think everyone had a good time!
October 30, 2011 Sunday
I didn't take too many pictures of the maze. I'm not sure why. I don't have a video or anything. This is one I must have taken when I got home from church. Hmmm. . .
October 31, 2011 Halloween
We spent a couple of hours after school putting finishing touches on the maze. There was more swearing but it eventually worked out. We had a few Zombies over to help us out and I, of course, had to dress for success. I have a NEED to watch over every person who goes through the maze so that no one can possibly get hurt. I don't want any Zombies or Trick-or-Treaters getting lost or hurt on my watch. In my yard. The liability is just too great!!!
I took a few pictures before the crowds started coming. . .
I talked Steph into being my door keeper again this year. I couldn't have managed without her. Isn't she pretty??
We had a good rush right as it got dark and then just a trickle through the rest of the evening. The whole thing ended by 9:00. It's hard to measure the success of the maze since some kids thought it was amazingly frightening and other (older) kids kind of scoffed at it but there were two people that made it all worth it for me. One sweet little kid by the name of Carter came by on Sunday afternoon with his dad. I saw them peeking into the maze so I offered to give them a little tour. Carter is probably about 4 years old and was VERY articulate. He had good questions and was very curious about what the maze would be like. After the tour on Sunday he promised me he would be back. Sure enough, on Monday evening at dusk, sweet Carter returned. He was in a costume and was with his mom this time so I didn't recognize him at first. I over heard him telling someone in line about the inside of the maze and was describing it in quite a bit of detail. It didn't take me long to figure out who it was. His mom said that the maze was all he could talk about since he saw us putting it up on Friday. He clung to his mom as I led them through the maze and screamed at all the right places. I was a little worried that he might be too scared but as soon as he emerged at the end, he said, "Cool! Can I go again?" He ended up going two more times before the evening was over. I was still smiling about it when I went to bed that night.
The other person (?) that made it all worth it was this Zombie. . . Yeah, the memories will be worth every bit of effort it took to make this evening possible. Even though most of the effort was his:
So that marks the end of October but I have to include one more picture:
November 1, 2011 Post Halloween
What goes up must come down. Yes, it absolutely MUST. . .
No comments:
Post a Comment