This last weekend saw lots of activities and little sleep.
I took Friday, Aug. 12th, off of work because we were going down to St. George with Matt's family to see Disney's The Little Mermaid at Tuacahn. The original plan was to hang out there and spend the night in St. George. However, it was the same weekend as the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, and Matt decided to invite people to our house to watch the competition.
Friday, we left Payson at about 1:30pm and arrived in St. George a little before 5pm.
On the drive down
By now, you should know my love of Joshua trees :)
We met up with family at the hotel and talked and watched TV until it was time to walk over the Brick Oven for dinner, where we met up with Lori and the kids. :)
Waiting at Brick Oven - Matt did so well with giving me decent smiles all night :)
Rylee and Lori - waiting at Brick Oven
Everyone trying to decide what to order.
After dinner, we said goodbye to Lori and the kids and walked back to the hotel for a bit. This time, we hung out in Jason and Camile's room talking before heading out to Tuacahn.
The drive was uneventful. We didn't get lost and didn't spend a ton of time looking for parking. We arrived early and shopped in the gift shop and took pictures in the cutout board.
Matt's parents ran into someone they knew in the gift shop, and while Matt and I were wandering around, we ran into Michelle from Damsel in this Dress. Remember her? Yeah, she remembered me, which was cool. Umm, and you should all go check out the blog cuz she's hilarious. Matt, McKade, and Me
Jason, McKade, and Camile
Dad, Michelle, Matt, and Jennifer . . . waiting
Mom and Me
I wasn't sure about Broadway-style Little Mermaid, but, as always, Tuacahn did an awesome job. Unfortunately, the leads' vocals weren't awesome. Okay, but not awesome. Ariel bugged both me and Matt on sustained notes. She couldn't keep enough support, so she'd go flat until she hit her vibrato. But overall, it was really good and it was fun to see how they dealt with the different aspects of the story (you know, land versus ocean, swimming, mermaids and the like). I think my favorite was Les Poissons - such a fun scene!
Anyway, right after, Matt and I snapped a few pics of some of the cast and headed back north to Payson.
Sebastian and Flounder
King Triton and me (sorry about my devil eyes, I haven't edited these)
So, the play got out later than we anticipated (11:30pm). After getting gas in St. George, we weren't on the freeway until midnight. Worlds started at 2am MST, so that was when Matt had invited people over. We texted everyone that it would be closer to 3am, which we did get home just after then :) At about 2:15am, 2:20am, Matt handed me his phone to try to stream the qualifiers because LA Scots (with whom Andrew was playing) played at 2:30am. We missed them, but we did finally get things streaming at about 2:40am.
A little after 3am, our few awesome friends who made it up that early came over. We had a fun time. Matt made pancakes later in the day, and most everyone napped at some point or another. I did well this year, only napping during breaks in the competition, except for the last couple of medleys. Oh well. I was awake for the whole march around and awards, which is quite different from last year :)
Everyone attending, less me ;) Matt, Ian, Elyanna, Zach, and Susan
Ian and Elyanna sleeping
Ian got to share Elyanna's blanket ;)
Matt napping
The boys asleep
The girls not ;)
Susan and I stayed awake playing on our laptops. Mine was too little to be seen in the picture, however.
Sorry this post is getting long, but it really was super eventful.
Later in the morning, I fed the animals. Bandito seemed to be having some balance issues. I got worried and started researching potential reasons. I pulled him out later in the morning to make sure his feet and legs looked okay. After worlds, I started looking for vets. Dr. Ipsen wasn't in. Dr. Folland's practice wasn't even open. So I searched online for more avian vets who might be open on a Saturday. We called one in Provo, and while they were open, their avian vet wasn't in. Bless them, though, they offered a few numbers as referrals. We called up to Creekside Animal Hospital in Draper, and they had an avian vet and late hours (after-hours charges suck, in case you're wondering). So we got an appointment for 2pm and packed up our little one to take to the vet.
In the car on the way to the vet.
They decided to keep our little birdy overnight, which we consented to because their overnight fee wasn't excessive. On the way home, we decided to stop at Petco to look at cages. (The canaries' cage is old and they could use a new one.) While we didn't purchase any, Petco was hosting adoptions, and there was this cute little Miniature Australian Shepherd.
Matt has wanted a dog for awhile. Finding one we can both agree on is challenging. Matt's aunt as a mini Aussie, and I had told Matt that if we were to get a dog right now, that is probably the breed I'd be okay with. Well, lo and behold, the adoption had one. We wandered around while Matt calculated costs of supplies, and we pet her and talked to them about her for a bit. Then, because we were hungry, we went to lunch and talked about it. Then, we went back and adopted her. She came with a name that we have decided to keep, Mocha.
First pic, while Matt was filling out the adoption forms.
As if this wasn't exciting enough for our weekend, we also went to the Scera Shell Saturday night (August. 13th) to see Aida. Two of my friends were in the ensemble, and we liked the show when we saw it at the Hale, so we headed out to that. We put Mocha in her crate for the duration, just in case.
Waiting for the show to start.
The show was really good. I had forgotten a lot of the storyline, and so naturally forgot that I should have brought tissues. I totally was crying at the end. Oh well. We chatted with Alicia and Stacy afterward. I'm just glad it didn't rain much, so the show wasn't cancelled. :)
Mocha was good that night. She hasn't had any accidents. Bandito has been kept at the vet's office. I authorized a blood draw, but it stressed him out, and he's really little, so they only got a partial draw. There were indications of a liver problem, so they started him on Milk Thistle, a liver protectant. He has been getting better. We could have brought him home Thursday, but they called too late in the day so we couldn't get up there. We opted to board him there over the weekend since we were leaving for Jackson.
