Giggles

Our trip to Las Vegas is over. It was so short that it was hardly a vacation at all, trip or even jaunt would be a much better word to describe it.

We left on Friday after school, stopped in Cedar City for dinner, and continued on to Vegas, arriving right around bedtime. My thoughts on Cedar City? Don't eat at the IHOP for dinner. The waiter was pleasant enough, but nearly as dumb as a rock. And when your waiter is that dumb, service tends to be bad.

Saturday a portion of the adults went to Food 4 Less and picked up junk food for breakfast. I like to stay at hotels that have free continental breakfast, and I thought this one did, but I was mistaken about that. And since the continental breakfast was $8.99 w/o eggs and $9.99 w/, we decided junk food from Food 4 Less was a good option. The kids certainly enjoyed it.

After breakfast we took the kids to Ceasar's Palace to go shopping at FAO Schwarz, or as Ella calls it, "FAO Shorts". My kids have been saving their chore money for a while, and were all hoping to get something really cool. Sarah bought mismatched pajamas, Ben bought a remote control car, Josh bought a sword and the sorting hat, and Ella bought a baby doll. Life is good for my children. And truthfully, I'm rather pleased myself with their purchases. I think they chose wisely.

Ceasar's Palace has a huge shopping mall attached to it, and we spent some time wandering around. We didn't buy anything else, but we did watch the Atlantis show. You think it's just a fountain with some cool statues and a really great fish tank, then suddenly, the statues disappear and there are animatronic figures in their place shooting water and fire and heating up the joint. My boys thought that was pretty cool.

We didn't want to spend much more time on the strip than we had to, so we headed back to the hotel to swim. When I was checking out hotels, I looked for two things: free continental breakfast and a pool. The continental breakfast thing might have been a bust, but the pool was great. All the kids had a good time, they didn't play Marco Polo, but they did play Shark. I swam for a while, and then I read my book and took pictures.

Finding dinner was a joke. We ended up at Marie Callendar's with a snotty waitress. Once again we suffered through poor service. At least we got to eat, I can be grateful for that.

Rachael, Esther, Sarah and I had tickets to see "Jersey Boys" at the Palazzo theatre. We left 60 minutes before the show started, figuring that would be plenty of time to drive maybe 3 miles, park, and find the theatre. We were very nearly wrong. It took us just over 30 minutes to even get to the Venetian, which is where we needed to park. Traffic on the strip is ridiculous! Then we walked/ran through the Venetian, through the Shoppes at the Palazzo, through the Casino, and finally found the theatre. We picked up our tickets at will call, found our seats, and had 8 minutes to get our heart rates back to normal before the show started.

Once again, the show was amazing! Esther and I had seen it in New York, but even after seeing a second time would love to see it again. I knew Sarah would love this show, and she did! Toward the end of the second act, Franki Valli sings "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You", and he does it concert style, facing straight out to the audience. When he finished, Sarah and I cheered and clapped really loud. Rachael and Esther cheered and clapped, too, but apparently not as loud. Franki Valli bows to the audience a couple of times, and then blew a kiss up to the balcony! Yep! That was us! He looked right at us as he did it, and three of us knew it was meant for us. (Esther caught on a bit later.)

After the show, the four of us stood in the theatre and listened to the band finish up, giggling like school girls, which only one of us really is, and watching the old people leave the theatre. It's probably a good thing we were there, otherwise, it would have been a dead audience (literally).

The Hard Rock Cafe is a really cool place, and we want to be really cool people, so we decided to go there before heading back to the hotel. We asked a lady at the Palazzo how far down the strip the Hard Rock was, and she informed us that there is no Hard Rock on the strip. We had all seen the big guitar, with the words "Hard Rock Cafe" that morning on our way to Ceasar's, so we were a little confused. She told us it must have been the Harley Davidson or even Planet Hollywood. We didn't want to cause problems, so we accepted that, took the directions to the Hard Rock and left.

As we were driving back down the strip we saw the fountain show at the Bellagio, lots of drunk people who were probably going to be married in the morning and didn't know it yet, and yes, we saw the Hard Rock Cafe. There is one on the strip. But, we had directions to one that wasn't, and since we were tired of dealing with the traffic on the strip, we went to the other one.

I'm glad we went to the other one. Our waiter was Toad, and he was the best waiter we had the entire trip. He was also the curator for the memorabilia in that Hard Rock, and answered lots of questions for us. Questions like: "Where is Frank Sinatra's suit?" and "Why does no one seem to realize there is a Hard Rock Cafe on the strip?" The suit was through the archway and the HRC on the strip will have it's official grand opening on Thursday. ("She'll see it in the paper and think, "Oh no! I lied to those people!")

The four of us laughed and laughed, flared nostrils, held knives, poked each other (verbally and literally) and had much more fun than the table of "drunk girls" behind us. We don't know for certain that they were drunk, but we could see that they weren't having any fun.

Well, Vegas may not be my favorite place, but I had a great time. My kids all say that they had fun, too. So, Friday down Sunday back nearly killed me off, but...it was worth it. I had one good meal, lots of laughs, time with my kids, and a kiss blown from Franki Valli.

Ego Boost

I saw Kelly at Hale last night.

I've been a little concerned:
what if the kids hated me?
what if I didn't accomplish anything?
what if he decided I wasn't the substitute he hoped I would be?

He told me:
the kids loved you!
they learned so much from you!
the Concert Choir was less chatty for you than they are for me!

*contentment*

Substitute Teachers Learn Things Too

Kelly called me on Monday night to ask if I would be willing to substitute teach for him on Tuesday. Since this is the only reason I signed up to be a sub, I said yes. Although, I'm sure it came out sounding something like "uuuuhhhhss", after all, it was 11:45 p.m.

I've been really excited to sub for Kelly. His choir programs are amazing, he has good taste in music, he has a musical theatre class, and the thought of being back in front of a high school choir just sounded great.

Tuesday morning came very early, but that was okay, the adrenaline carried me through. I started the day with Belles Voix, his women's choir, and things seemed to be going well. I give voice lessons to several of the students at West Jordan, and it felt good to have them run into the choir room just to make sure that the substitute really was me. And one of my girls is in Belles Voix, so I went into it feeling like I had someone in my corner.

Concert Choir was something else altogether. I have 8 current students and 1 former student in concert choir, the choir president is one of my students, and everything should have worked out fine. But see, I forgot that respect from high school students isn't given just because their teacher asked you to come. Respect can only be earned, and quite frankly, one class period is not enough time for a sub to earn that. In other words, Concert Choir turned out exactly how I should have expected it to, but not as well as I hoped. Teenage boys sitting on the back row will talk more than any teenage girl on a phone. At least by the end of the class we were kind of in sync, and we managed to make some great improvement on a very difficult piece. The class period ended with me asking them, "Are you proud of yourselves? You should be. That was a really hard song."

The last class I taught was Spotlight Players. The kids are working on musical theatre presentations and audition pieces for their class show. This meant that my lesson plan for this class involved bringing the kids up one at a time, playing their song, listening to them sing, giving a little bit of individual instruction, and starting over with the next student. Sound like voice lessons? Felt like them, except I had about 4 minutes per student instead of 30.

It was a fun day, in spite of the "high school students must do everything in their power to make substitute teachers crazy" rule. Will I go again? Yes, if Kelly calls me.

The biggest lesson I learned? I don't miss it. I was worried that I might. I gave up my high school choir position years ago to raise my family, and I haven't had a chance to be back and see what I had lost. And after 14 1/2 years, it's easy to forget that it was a struggle. I did have the respect of my students, and things weren't as difficult on a daily basis as they were yesterday, but no. I don't miss it.

p.s. one more thing....

It won't matter that I said, "Kelly is a better pianist than me. He's amazingly talented. Do you know how lucky you are?" What the kids will remember is that I also said, "He may be more talented than me, but I'm taller."

Interjection!

Woo Hoo!

Esther's coming, too!

(to Las Vegas, that is)

Sweet Silver Lining

I'm going home
Downhearted and hoping
I'm close to some new beginning
I know
There's a reason for everything
That comes and goes

But so many people are looking to me
To be strong and to fight
But I'm just surviving
I may be weak but I'm never defeated
And I'll keep believing
In clouds with that sweet silver lining

Most days I try my best to put on a brave face
But inside
My bones are cold and my heart breaks
But all the while
Somethings keeping me safe
And alive

Chorus
I won't give up like this
I will be given strength
And now that I've found it
Nothing can take that away

363 Minutes

That's how long it takes, accordingly to Google map, with a specific start point and a general finish point, to get to Las Vegas, Nevada.

Why does this matter?

In a little more than two weeks, I'm going to be throwing all of my kids into my van (I hope they land softly) and driving to Las Vegas. And since Rachael and I have been trying to plan a vacation together for a couple of years now, and apparently all the planets are aligning ever so nicely, she will also be throwing all of her kids, but into her car, not my van, and driving to Vegas with me. We might even let our husbands come along.

I have hotel reservations, and tickets for "Jersey Boys" (yes, I enjoyed it that much!), money for gas and food set aside, and a preliminary packing list floating around in my head. I've chosen a couple of books on CD for my family to listen to while we're driving (The Edge Chronicles, book one: Beyond the Deep Woods, and Magyk) as well as new music for our Road Trip playlist (Here Comes Science!) My children have been told and have been asking if Jacob and Drew are going to ride with us (I said, "No").

It's not like I'm anxious to get away from my current life, but...I think I'm anxious to get away from my current life for a little while. I just want to take my family with me this time.

And so, in 18 days the Rogers' family will be singing "Viva Las Vegas", and taking off for a weekend of driving, swimming, miniature golf and good old "Are We There Yet?"

*sigh*

About a month ago Sarah was asked to sing in Sacrament Meeting. Being a teenager, and my daughter, she left choosing a song, or even remembering that she was supposed to sing, until the last minute; that minute being when they called to ask her what she would be singing. That was last night.

I was sitting in my room, which is right by the phone she answered, and when she asked what she should sing, David said, "Popcorn popping on the apricot tree" and I said, "I'm trying to be like Jesus". Guess which one she chose.

We didn't run through it until this morning (good thing church doesn't start until 11:30), and when she started singing it, Ella came into the living room and started singing with her. Ella informs us that she knows this song because they sing it in primary. We asked Ella if she wanted to sing with her big sister in church, and to my great surprise she said 'yes'.

Of course, once we were sitting in Sacrament Meeting, and the reality of having to stand at the pulpit was ever closer, Ella changed her mind, telling me that she was too nervous. I wasn't shocked and disappointed, this was pretty much what I expected from my youngest. Still, when it was time for Sarah to go sing, I looked over at Ella one more time and asked her again. And she came up with me!

The bishopric looked very pleased by this development and quickly pulled out the block for her to stand on. Once the music started, she didn't look up from the podium, and she sang very softly, but she did sing! For my extremely shy little girl, this is a huge deal!

Call me happy mommy...*sigh*