Dress Rehearsal

I might actually have time to breathe today. Yesterday was a killer marathon day of all kinds of awesome things to do. I started the day taking James to Taylorsville High School for his annual Salina Leadership Camp. On this overnight trip he helped train the leaders for next year. His heart hasn't been in JROTC as much as it was after having experienced Basic Training but he is taking this camp quite seriously. I think that's mostly because dad can't go so James gets to play medic.

Back a few weeks ago, I had all these costumes to make. There were about 100 skirts, kilts and drapes to make and it would be cool to have a few vests. I decided that we'd get the essentials (skirts & kilts) done and see how things were going. I cut out fabric and made instructions and shopped for threads and elastic. Everything was given out in kits and the sewers were given two weeks to complete the tasks at hand. If it all worked out well, I'd have two weeks to spare until dress rehearsal day and felt we could easily get 32 vests made in that amount of time. It went really smooth so as I began to get skirts, etc back all complete, I got really excited and made the vest kits to hand out. This did not go quite as smooth. Some sewers no longer had time and one thing and another conspired to hold things up so that I didn't get them all back in a week but have had them straggling in this last week too. Then on Wednesday, I discovered that I was short a few drapes and had to track those down which took a couple days.

All this week I've been sewing odds and ends. I had two kilts and one skirt to make as well as lacing up all the vests. You know, it takes longer than you'd think to match up costume pieces with all the right sizes for each person. I also put a number on each costume piece to identify it to its wearer in case something gets misplaced or mixed up. Once all costumes were hanging with all their pieces, it was time to convert the Yukon into a costume vault. Everything got loaded Friday night... much easier than waking up at 5am to do it before the THS run.

As soon as James was on his way, I high-tailed it to the church to set up. The kids started arriving just before 9am and were given their costumes to change into. The boys and girls each had two of the smaller multi-purpose rooms for changing so those had to be set up too with pictures of what they were to look like and some brief instructions inside the room and on the doors. I also needed to set up tables for checking the costumes back into me. That went fairly well for our first time doing it. There were just a few bloops and blunders. One gal was on my list as YM so her costume was very wrong! Luckily I had almost a full outfit extra at home and could run go get it. Another gal was measured wrong or something because she got a skirt that was about 5 sizes too small so I have to quick make a skirt for her. Then, to top things off, one of my clothing racks broke the weld where the rack attaches to the wheel base. That was interesting. Duck tape to the rescue! It was a temporary rescue at best but bless Bishop Watts for knowing how to weld and having all the equipment. When we were done checking in all the costumes, he took that part home, fixed it, and ran it right back up to the church. Fortunately I don't have to haul costumes back and forth but can store them in a fairly secure place on site.

Then it was time to get home and change for the temple. Little Diane-y and her hubby were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple today. It's awesome that they made this commitment to each other and to the Lord. Their sealer was really good and it was neat to see Diane's family in the temple setting. It was also awesome to see the change in Joe's countenance and I felt really good about their temple marriage.

Rush, rush, rush... then it was time to get to Greg Fetzer's Eagle Court of Honor! Everyone who knows Greg can hardly believe that this finally happened. He waited until the 11th hour (11:59 to be exact!) to get his Eagle papers in and have his Eagle Board of Review so it was no surprise that it's about a year later that he's having his Eagle Court of Honor. I'm almost amazed he did it at all. It's fun to see all the accomplishments of the young men of our ward. Now I'm off to another Board of Review... keep 'em comin'!