Yesterday was a really great day.
To start off, I had three things I felt prompted to do:
-call a second senior rehabilitation center to see if they would like a Halloween performance last minute
-write Avot
-...it's a secret.
So, moving into our day...
We had no seminary that morning (the school had a teacher's work day on Halloween--smart!), and so I had the morning to prepare all the last minute details for our rest home performance I had scheduled a little over a week ago. We knew we were going to do one, but our preparation had been leisurely. Although yesterday morning was a little frantic, it worked out with happy cooperation from all the kids and Q-dawg saving the Daddy Rice and getting the babies where they needed to be.
The performance was awesome. Although we had our usual sound glitches--our previously working fine laptop decided to freeze up--Q-dawg used his phone hooked up to the speakers and saved the day on that one. The kids had a great line-up, singing, signing and playing songs on the piano and bells and reciting poetry:
-started with a bunch of animal and Noah's ark songs,
-had a nice patriotic stretch of music in the middle in honor of Veteran's Day coming up,
-finished strong with a great selection of Halloween music!
Highlights:
-Hava's solo while the older kids did bells for "Build an Ark" (great song from the "Friend" magazine...check it out!)
-The Goob's first true performance on the piano with two great songs, our main soloist in "The Monster Mash" and a funny recitation of "One Dark Day"
-Pipalicious did a few signing solos and definitely won the most expressive award, hamming it up all throughout
-Chugger-dude, in his classic "Men in Black" costume (buddies with the Goob), signed solos and had the majority of our piano pieces performed; he also really hammed up the chorus line of "The Monster Mash"
-Papaya held our signs, sang a little along the solo with Hava and was adorable with her pumpkin in "Five Little Pumpkins." She was a little shy (strange, eh?) so her big thing was actually performing for the whole thing! She also helped color a lot of our posters
-Liliputian did a beautiful job signing "Lost Boy" and led the whole group in signing our signature closing song, "Glorious" from "Meet the Mormons"
-Spooner even made an appearance during one of his favorites, "The Monster Mash" and did the cutest little first pumpkin, saying "Oh my! It's getting late!"
We got back in the car after finishing and I asked, "Hey, how was it?" "Great!" was the overall consensus. "How do you feel about sharing this awesomeness with another rest home?" (Timing is everything.) They were game so I called up the other place and had to leave a message. I almost reasoned myself out of this prompting even before calling: "Who would schedule something this last minute?" but it was kind of like one of those "all dressed up and no place to go" feelings with all our performance gear and practicing at our finger-tips and just needing another audience to have fun with. Did it anyway and....well, you'll see.
We got home and Spooner wandered around and said, "Where's Binks?" Whew. Thanks, buddy. Spooner and I drove over to the Zyborg's to pick up the baby who was happily playing with his cousin, "Little Quinn." (Thank you, Q-dawg, for the built in aliases!)
The day was low-key. I got my awesome time of emailing with my sweet sister missionary. (Lek's p-day is on Wednesday of this week due to a national Hungarian holiday.) The kids didn't have to check off their scholastic obligations for the day and just had to do their jobs. We did the other performance, this time without Q-dawg and without Spooner and did even better! The people at that wing of the hospital loved it an the kids had a great time, although we cut out most of our piano numbers because they didn't have more than a little keyboard. It was great. The lady ended up calling me back, saying, "Is it too late for you to come?!" They are hard up for entertainment over there and don't get many so it was very satisfying for the kids to go. It is hard to gauge the effectiveness of the program in those situations due to the physical limited abilities of those we are performing for, but when they call out after, "Thank you so much!" and "That was an excellent program!" you know that they were touched and it makes it all worthwhile. And the kids got cookies on the way out. Bonus.
We headed over for Halloween fun to the Zy-borgs after that. (Pictures to follow.) Q-dawg went as an appraiser. (A stretch, I know.) The Goob and Chugger-dude were Men in Black and the Goob had even contrived a "neuralizer" that worked. Well, it flashed...not erased memories :). Liliputian was Wendy at the rest homes and then a princess that night. Pipalicious was a lost boy, Hava a pirate, Papaya was a very cold Tinker Bell with the high heels sandals she took for trick-or-treating, Spooner was an army guy (camo jacket and quick last minute marker on the face...it was all about the candy) and Binks has an adorable coat that has a gorilla hood over it that he wore for his costume. Spooner was hilarious. The first couple of houses that he went to for treats, he would come tearing back down the walkways hollering, "I got candy!!!!!!" He got used to it after a while, but had a great time for his first, "aware" Halloween, as I like to dub it.
Binks just had fun sucking his way through sucker wrappers and seeing people smile at him.
We had soup, bread and friends at the Zyborg's house and had a great evening. We came home for our scriptures, reading of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (courtesy of Daddy) and I passed out in slumber while the older kids and Daddy headed down to get in the traditional "Halloween" movie. Not sure which one they watched, "Private Eyes," "Gremlins," or "Goonies" I am guessing from the brief excerpts I heard in between moving from the floor where I started sleeping to the bed where I finished :).
A good day.
