Sunflowers

Breakfast with Sunflowers

I never had a favorite flower because most of the time they made me sneeze. I loved my rose garden that I had once because they were all fairytale names & I have a fondness for purple roses because you rarely see them and when my dad would get me a flower it was a purple rose. When I was in college I had a friend who loved sunflowers because they were so "happy" - ugh. I needed a black flower I thought. My mom loves the white daisy. Simple and wild and she swears it has nothing to do with her growing up in the 60's. I had another friend who loved orchids and would tell me, you have to love the expensive ones so the guy has to spend more. This same friend got annoyed at me when I broke up with a guy in high school not because I broke his heart but because he had a nice truck.  Another friend loves tulips, I can see why, they are perfect, beautiful, and only show up for a short time to be admired. They are too delicate for me, one strong wind and their petals are gone and your left with a naked stem. Some people are okay with a naked stem but I have no desire to relate to that stress. Despite the "happy" comment I kept being drawn to the sunflower. It wasn't fancy nor did it have this magnificent fragrance but I loved the clean dark brown center with the large contrast outer yellow or shades of blood red that some varieties had.  This flower has grown on me. It can bring cheer, demonstrate great moods, lasts longer than a week in my vase, and can feed me if i run out of food and want to harvest the seeds. You get the picture. BBBuut... the reason I decided to write about this flower was because I was going over pictures and found my Italy pictures.  When I decided that I was going to love this flower I wanted to take a picture of the notorious sunflower fields in Tuscany. Every bus tour drive to and fro I looked for these magnificent fields. None... Then on our day to Rome I told Trever I had really wanted a picture of a sunflower field and was disappointed. Not a few minutes later, we passed this huge field of dried sticks with balls on top of them. Wait... those aren't sticks they are Sunflowers, DEAD ONES! Trever laughed and said I should have been more specific in my request. You thought that I would hold this huge grudge over this flower after that, but I laughed and thought it wasn't a "happy" flower - it was my black flower! This flower has earned the honor of being my favorite flower ever since! Although I do prefer the live version better!

Hello Dolly Musical 2011 - Coed

The Emotions We Felt

This Hello Dolly coed group was probably one of the hardest working groups I have had the privilege of working with.  When I was asked what part of the musical was my favorite I didn't have a normal answer this year. Last year in Oklahoma, it was the scene with Jud & Curly in the shed. I loved that scene from the second I saw Roy and Balfour together.  This year there was never that moment but rather a process that I loved.  Our Hello Dolly coed group started working last December. Rehearsals with them are always entertaining. Some of my favorite comments came from my captain Eli who would state "there's more", "let me guess, we spin next", "did you see that", and all the sudden hits to the ground from misplaced foots. I also love being there when they get their stunts.  This group turns into an amazing team that knows how to work hard and play hard and I am proud to be their coach, director, and choreographer. I hope they had as much fun as I did & encourage them to write their favorite coed moments below.

Snakes, Snails & Puppy Dog Tails (part I)

Kaden's Birthday on Indiana Jones Ride

Our little man is 7 years old this year and he is constantly making us laugh even though he finds the most interesting things to get in trouble for.  A few months back I was cutting his hair and he asked if he could take a small piece to school so that him and his friends could pretend to make poly juice potion (harry potter fans are knowing where I am going with this). I said yes as long as they didn't really do it. The next day, I get a call with the familiar first statement, "Mrs. Jones, we had a little incident today with Kaden..." Somehow, Kaden and his friends decided that only making Kaden poly juice potion was not going to be good enough for this crew so they decided to sneak into their classroom to borrow scissor and then go out to the playground and snip hair off of each friend.  Kaden of course had to be the "snipper" since he was the trustworthy one. So one by one he cut pieces of hair from each friend including a piece of hair close to the scalp on his best friends forehead (oh that won't be noticeable). Now, they couldn't have gotten caught before this all happened but when they did finally get caught they didn't want the "professors" knowing that they were secretly making poly juice potion so they said they were playing "hair salon". Not to my surprise, the girls were afraid of getting into trouble and said it was all Kaden's fault and they didn't want to do it. Boy was I upset with him despite everyone else laughing and thinking it was the funniest thing ever. So funny that my high school drama class decided to improv the scene out one day when I was gone. (I wish I had that on video) After writing apology letters to all his friend's parents, Kaden has realized that he probably should not be a hair dresser. Since no one got injured in the poly juice fiasco, I do find humor in it but can't help thinking, "oh no, what are we in store for next?"