Validation

I'm glad, and grateful, that so much of my hard work paid off. This is what one of the moms who went to France with us said about the trip on Facebook:

Jan wrote: "What's two weeks with little sleep, Mass in a cathedral with our youth singing "The Spirit of God," Performances with our team going on stage at 12:43a.m., Sacrament meeting in a bus with two young men from Bolivia and two French women, Sacrament meeting in a room with a drinking party going on outside the windows, Twenty-eight dancers ages 9 - 19, Running through Paris, Running through France! Five women to a dorm room with one bathroom, Washing our clothes in the sink, Not speaking a lick of French, Meeting the most amazing people from around the world, Meeting the most amazing people from Utah & Idaho, Testimony meeting in a parking garage in the basement of our hotel in Barcelona at 11:00 p.m. Feeling the sprit stronger than ever! The best two weeks of my life!!!"

Motherhood Island

Every once in a while, not often, but sometimes, I am a Good Mother. We've been inspired lately reading the book of Nim's Island and last weekend we decided to make our own islands out of salt dough. How fun, inventing our own islands! All I actually did was come up with the idea and help Maggie make the dough, then she, Soph and Spence did the inventing. Here are the results:

Spencer's ended up being a snake that he took outside and lost after he painted it. Oh well.

I just wanted to document the fact that I do cool stuff sometimes. Call it Working Mother Guilt (because ever since we started the Festival Team I have come to the dismal conclusion that I am a working mother now) but I periodically feel like I am an underachieving mother. I haven't taught my kids to speak French (though Gary and I do), they don't have entire chapters of the scriptures memorized (though they do know the articles of faith), and I really hate doing girls' hair nor am I any good at it. So sometimes they leave the house looking like Plain Janes. And I lose my temper sometimes, and we didn't do workbooks and math camps and science experiments all summer to get them ahead, we have yet to memorize the preamble to the Constitution (well, Maggie did), my five year old is not reading chapter books and doing calculus yet, and I don't always cook them warm breakfasts (cereal, anyone?). I have lots of goals, and some good ideas, but many of my best ideas have never actually happened (see the above comments). But sometimes, kids, I do pull through sometimes. Remember that! :-) And hey, we did Princess and Adventure camps this summer too! I get points for that, right?

To give myself some credit, their homework is always done; their clothes are (mostly) clean and so is the house; we do our family prayers, family nights, service projects and scripture study; I am here to greet them when they get home from school to give them hugs and snacks; and we do have rules and chores and family responsibilities. And Gary is here to help with all of the above (well, except the laundry) - plus he makes it all FUN. I'm doing okay. I just know I could do better if I had a few more hours in the day, or extra organizing skills, or less laziness and more energy or something. I guess the only thing we can do is keep trying to improve, right?

THE Tour Song

Every good tour produces a tour song. This one we made up to the "Fox on the Run" tune that the Utah half of our team sings in one of their suites. It's all inside jokes, but if I get a chance I will try to explain some of them as we go:

LIKE A FERRET ON THE RUN

Gary taught us how to dance in Idaho;

Twila used to stomp her foot and teach tots pro;

I can still hear Mindy rambling ‘bout the lavender fields;

And when Audra played the fiddle

Joe locked himself in their dorm bathrrom
and had to be rescued by Tyler.

You could hear them clap,

You could hear them sing---

CHORUS:

And the boys jumped in the pool with their shorts still on;

The girls preferred the river instead of Max in a thong.

Tall Joe’s stuck in the bathroom and Annie get your comb,

But I guess my all time favorite was that ferret on the run ---

Like a ferret, like a ferret on the run!

Didier at our costume party

 (Verse 2)

We partied in the costumes to the break of dawn;

Didier the driver with those pink shorts on.

We did 80’s at the Eiffel and at Notre Dame.

Did you know those Paris blocks are two miles long?

CHORUS:

And we echoed through the metro and cathedrals fine,

Till Tara took a sip of that old moonshine - WHOO!

Kathryn turned her ankle and Hannah couldn’t breathe,



Brock giving bisous!

David lost his breakfast and was forced to leave ---

Forced to leave, forced to leave,

Forced to leave ‘cuz he heaved!


 (Verse 3)

Parker went further than he’s ever been

With a girl from Bulgaria he’ll never see again.

We all learned how to French kiss - Brock showed Taylon how.

Carol used the washboard - I wish I had her now.



CHORUS:

And we echoed through the caves of the stinky cheese - SHH!



On the Metro

Everyone keep quiet while Gary cuts the cheese!

Parker as Woman of the Year

Brenda got a shirt that she’ll never wear,

And on the stage McKell and Tasha lost their hair!

There was hair, there was hair

there was hair everywhere!

 

 

(Verse 4)
The Stones now have a daughter and he’s woman of the year. 

While Jessica was laughing everybody shed a tear.

We knew each other better after changing on the bus!

Wish Ana-is, Pauline and Marilyne could come home with us!

CHORUS:

Oh well Cody loves his lipstick; Madchen made a ton of friends

Teagan’s testimony made us all laugh again.

Mike suggested we all sing “God Save the Queen”,

We need to find a ‘toilette’ if you know what I mean --

What I mean, what I mean,

A toilette that is clean!

(Verse 5)

The Kellys are relieved now that Brenna’s gettin’ hitched;

Jan came to the rescue when the costumes needed stitched;

Courtney got attention with those pretty eyes;



Us and Brazil

Kallie fell in love with those Brazilian guys!

CHORUS:

Ashlyn could survive on a “freakin’ jug of water”!

There were times we felt that it couldn’t be hotter.

Crowds went wild when Mag and Mairin did their dance.  


Keri lost her purse but then she found it in her pants!

In her pants – HOORAY!

She found it in her pants!

Mags and Mairin... NOT in what
they wore for Last Night

(Verse 6)

We stacked chairs at 1 am – AVEYRON was amazed!

They’d never seen that happen in all their days.

It came naturally to us - that’s all we can say,

Just something we all learned at our ward par-tay’s

CHORUS:

We saw palaces, cathedrals, towers, Roman ROCKS!

The French girls in our fan club met us at every stop.


Czech girls chanted ‘kees-kees’, (Max got stars in his eyes!)

The Brazilian team was awesome (we really liked their guys!)

I like your Bangs! - like your bangs -



Max fell in love with the Czech girls

Like your bangs --- I LIKE YOUR BANGS!

(Verse 7)

The bathrooms were co-ed; (Austin used a little flowered pot.)

Mikalyn’s neck  was itchy: “Thou shalt touch it not!”

We ended every show with encores - which made us feel real hot ---

But realized free labor at the end was what they got!

CHORUS:

Courtney was the sweetheart of the Rodeo!




Our Sweetheart dance

Everyone count off --- 42? Where did Alicia go?

James called Seaweed “Sushi”; we swam in the sea;

We’ll be drinking wine in Heaven that’s a guarantee!

Guarantee ---- guarantee!

Gary says it’s guaranteed!!!

(Verse 8)

Lianne and others held the fort down in the USA

We’re grateful to them all for letting us go off and play!

Tyler kept us safe from drunks and high on sweets;

Janan cleaned up behind us all and kept things neat!

CHORUS:

‘Twas an AMAZING TOUR - We loved France and Spain

Where the cheese was abundant and the bread meant ‘pain’!

We all hope that we can go back again someday ---

‘Till then “Au Revoir”, “Merci”, and “Arrivederci”!

Au Revoir -

Merci, Arrivederci!