Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

When I went to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes two years ago, I had very low expectations.  I am definitely not a fan of James Franco and the premise of the film didn't interest me very much.  It turns out that I loved it.  I became very emotionally involved in Caesar's (the chimpanzee rescued by Franco's character) plight which, in turn, made me question the ethics of animal testing.   I love a movie that is both entertaining and thought-provoking!  So, even though I was extremely tired from a leadership conference (and driving home for six hours), I just had to see the sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Friday night!  It is a great movie, one of the best I've seen this year!  The virus used in the first movie has decimated the population leaving a small colony of survivors in San Francisco.  Caesar has become the leader of a community of apes in the Muir Woods just outside the city.  A group of survivors travel to the forest hoping to get a hydroelectric dam working to give the colony electricity and encounter the apes.  Caesar reluctantly allows this group to work on the dam and they bond with the apes but Dreyfus, the leader of the colony, doesn't trust the apes and secretly arms the colonists.  Koba, an ape who was a test subject and tortured his whole life, hates the humans and challenges Caesar's loyalty.  This leads to confrontations between the humans, between the apes, and between the apes and humans.  Everything I loved about the first movie is even better in this one.  I was even more emotionally attached to the apes.  The scene where Caesar's mate gives birth to a baby is tender and beautiful (I almost cried) and I loved the scene where a teenager working on the dam reads a book to Maurice, an orangutan.  In the last movie, my sympathies were so firmly with the apes but in this one I was conflicted.  As Caesar learns, there are good apes and bad apes and there are good humans and bad humans.  Dawn made me think about the notion of diplomacy (particularly salient in light of recent events in Israel) and how easy it is for extremists to undermine the work of leaders.  Finally, the storytelling is incredible.  The tension builds and builds until the epic showdown (which is not what you expect) and, while the special effects are dazzling, the plot is what held my attention.  Go see this movie!

Note:  I've heard a rumor that a third installment is in the works!  Great news!

Leadership Conference 2014

I have had such a fun week!  I took my Student Body Officers to a Leadership Conference at Dixie State University in St. George.  I specifically chose this particular conference because many of the schools in our area go to it and I wanted to create some collaborative relationships (plus I wanted to see The Little Mermaid).  I am so glad I chose this one!  I think my students had a lot of fun but I also think they had some amazing experiences which will help them be great leaders next year! After we checked into our motel on Tuesday afternoon, we went to the university for a keynote speaker and some roundtable discussions.  Our Student Body President gave a fabulous roundtable about our Multicultural Week last year (which was a great success) and the rest of them got some great ideas from other schools which we are excited to implement.  Then we had a pizza party and spent the rest of the evening at the Washington City Community Center which had a swimming pool, various courts for team sports, a climbing wall, etc.  My students really enjoyed this facility and basically owned the volleyball court!

Wednesday morning we had another keynote speaker and then an amazing activity.  The students were given wooden boards and told to write down everything that was holding them back on them.  Then the presenter had them each break the boards.  Wow!  This was one of the most powerful presentations I have ever seen and most of the students at the conference reacted very emotionally to the experience!

After everyone broke their boards, the presenter turned off the lights and had them all chant "I am a force for good.  I will make a difference.  I will step up!"  I was almost in tears listening to 200 students repeat this.  I always hear people talk about how terrible this generation is but I think the world is in pretty good hands with this group!

After lunch the students had a poster making workshop.  Isn't that Multicultural Week poster awesome (despite the fact that they didn't include a Canadian flag)?  We had a BBQ for dinner and then we all went to the Tuacahn Amphitheatre to see The Little Mermaid.

I really love the shows at Tuacahn and I had never seen the Broadway version of The Little Mermaid before so I was pretty excited!  So were my students!

The show was pretty incredible with lots of special effects.  There was a wall of water at the back of the stage which was amazing!  All of the mermaids glided around the stage on Segways (but we can't figure out how the actors operated them) and various sea creatures "flew" around the stage and into the audience (my favorite was the turtle) during "Under the Sea."  Speaking of which, all of my students giggled with delight as soon as the distinctive opening notes of "Under the Sea" started playing.  Emma Degerstedt (Ariel) and James Royce Edwards (Prince Eric) had beautiful voices and they gave wonderful performances.  Payton Kemp (Flounder) also had an incredible voice and was absolutely adorable.  Heidi Anderson was perfect as Ursula and I loved the sizzling and crackling lights on Flotsam and Jetsam's costumes.  It was a fantastic show and my students raved about it the whole drive back to the motel.  I'm so glad they had the opportunity to see it!

Thursday morning the students were able to participate in service projects around the St. George area.  My students went to the Utah Food Bank.

Again, this was a wonderful experience for the students.  We were involved in sorting the food into various categories and decorating the boxes used to deliver food to people in need.  In the afternoon the students went to various workshops on leadership.

On Thursday night, dinner was on our own so that we could process what had been learned and plan for the upcoming school year.  We were lucky enough to have our assistant principal with us and he took us to dinner at Chili's which was a lot of fun!  I am so glad that he was able to come with us because the students absolutely adore him now!  We were able to plan our Welcome Assembly and Homecoming Week (we have an awesome theme).  Our waitress was so nice!  She gave the students some individual containers of chips and salsa to take with them to snack on later that night!  Then we had Dixie Idol and our Student Body President was one of the three winners!  He has got some moves!  We had a really fun Spirit Bowl (lots of ideas for our assemblies) and a black light dance.  A really late night but lots of fun!

Friday morning we had one final keynote speaker.  I thought all of the speakers were great but this one was my favorite.  I loved it when he said that all you need to do anything you want is 30 seconds of insane courage!  Isn't that great?  Then the conference concluded and my students were sad to leave.

On the way out of town we went on a little hike to Dixie Rock.  The boys were trying to catch lizards...

This picture makes me laugh because I have a similar one of my family in this same spot making silly poses.  I will have to find it...

Last year at our leadership conference I treated the students to some Aggie ice cream (we were at Utah State University).  This year I wanted to do the same for this group so I took them to Swig, which is a crazy popular place in St. George (there is also one in Provo and one in Bountiful) for all kinds of mixed sodas.  I had Sprite with a shot each of mango and raspberry puree!  Unbelievably fabulous!  The students want them to build a Swig near the school!

These Student Body Officers are amazing and I am so excited to work with them!  If this week is any indication, we a going to have a wonderful year!  I'm so glad we got to have such an incredible experience together.  A huge thanks to Dixie State University!

Note:  Hands up if you think the student who never smiles (it is my mission in life to get him to smile) looks like Adam Levine from Maroon 5.  Is it just me?

Baseball & Fireworks

I really love watching fireworks this time of year so when I found out that there would be fireworks after the Salt Lake Bees game on Saturday, Marilyn and I decided to take Sean and Tashena.  The Bees played the El Paso Chihuahuas (we had a few laughs about their name) and it was a much better game than last time.  The Bees had a very dramatic home run in the sixth inning to get the crowd cheering and ended up winning 5-3.  But, honestly, it was really hot.  I think we were all just sitting through the game to get to the fireworks!  They were pretty spectacular!

Note:  During the fireworks display, they played patriotic music.  When Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture was playing, Sean spontaneously started conducting with very dramatic gestures!  It was hilarious!

Independence Day 2014

Friday was absolutely wonderful!  I spent the holiday with my family and we had so much fun together.  We had a fabulous dinner of dutch oven chicken cordon bleu, corn on the cob, fruit salad, and rolls.  I think everything tastes so much better outside.

I made my traditional flag cake, which I have made every year since I was in high school.  It is so simple:  bake a white cake, spread a tub of whipped cream on top, and place blueberries and sliced strawberries in a flag pattern.  It is a really light and refreshing dessert which tastes a lot like strawberry shortcake.

I also made flag cupcakes at Sean's request.  He kept asking me if he could have one.  I think he eventually had four of them before the night was over!

While Sean went swimming, the rest of us played the board game Life.  This is actually one of our favorite games to play when we were kids (we also had epic Monopoly games that would last for days during every school holiday when were young).  It was so much fun to continue the tradition with Tashena.  We have a tendency to get really silly while playing cards or board games!

Sean had a hard time waiting for it to get dark to start the fireworks so we had the kiddos play with poppers and sparklers.  I think Sean would have been completely happy with just the poppers!  But we take fireworks very seriously in my family!  When we were kids we used to spend the 4th of July at my Grandma's house in Moroni.  My Dad used to provide a fireworks show for all of the grandchildren.  This usually necessitated a trip to Wyoming to get the good (illegal) stuff.  One year the sheriff pulled up in front of my grandma's house and we were afraid that my Dad would be in trouble.  Turns out, the sheriff just wanted to watch the show!  Now aerial fireworks are legal in Utah so Marilyn and I spent the equivalent of the GNP of a small country on fireworks this year but it was so worth it!

We had an epic show (although the expensive one I bought for the finale was kind of a dud).  One of our aerials malfunctioned and sent showers which exploded towards us!  One exploded right next to Marilyn and actually burned her leg a little bit.  She is such a pyromaniac that when we rushed to see if she was hurt, she yelled out, "That was awesome!"  After the fireworks display (we were competing with the people one street over and I think we won), we went inside for cake.  Then the kids wanted to go in the backyard and play another board game.  We ended up playing Clue (at midnight) and laughing so hard!  Another very memorable 4th of July!

I hope you had a wonderful holiday with your family and friends!

Utah Symphony at the Waterfall

On Wednesday afternoon I was driving to American Fork to get the oil changed in my car and, as I passed Thanksgiving Point, I noticed on the marquee that the Utah Symphony would be performing in the Waterfall Amphitheatre that night.  I was unable to see the concert at Sundance last week so I spontaneously decided to go (it was the same program).  I bought tickets while sitting in the waiting room at my dealership!  It was an absolutely gorgeous summer evening and I was thrilled to be seeing another outdoor performance in a venue I had never been to before!  I will have to add the Waterfall Amphitheatre to my list!  As I was looking through the program, I noticed that there would be fireworks!  Score!  The concert began with a few patriotic numbers and then the orchestra played Gershwin's Piano Concerto with Mary Anne Huntsman as soloist.  After the intermission Celena Shafer sang Musetta's Aria from La Boheme.  Oh my goodness, it was amazing!  I love that opera and I always love hearing Shafer sing!  She also sang "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess which was lovely!  Then the orchestra played a medley from West Side Story.  For the finale, we heard Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture complete with cannons provided by the Wasatch Cannoneers.  This piece is unbelievably stirring!  I have heard it many times and it never gets old.  The cannons make me jump every time!  Then came a spectacular fireworks show!  I love watching fireworks and it was such a beautiful evening!  I need to be spontaneous more often!