Two street throwing experiences

Opening night
Hannah and I were preparing to go onstage and throw our street higher than all the other streets (it was a competition). We were getting all pumped up and excited, so we decided to do our new secret handshake for good luck. Of course, knowing us, this secret handshake involves a high five. Also knowing us, our high fives are never very good ones. It's a mystery. So there we were, standing immediately offstage, getting ready to go on. We turned to each other. "Share the love!" we whispered. Of course, everything went silent. No one on stage was speaking, and there was no music. We high fived each other. It was the loudest high five ever (well, I would say second loudest high five ever. The first place going to the high five Mark and I did in the hallway during small ensemble practice...but I digress). So everyone looked at us, we felt embarrassed. And also kinda bad. It was pretty loud. But no one said anything.

Closing night
We threw our street for the last time, and I thought it went really well. I ran across the stage, set my street down, then I had to run upstage and assume a freezing position, in order to get out of the spotlight. When the stage Nauvoo came back to life, I unfroze and ran back to my street so I could straighten it out a bit before exiting the stage. Unfortunately, it got stuck in a crack on the stage. Hannah and I both started pulling on our own ends, and we freed our street, but right as we were straightening it, a girl (I think a Sciamarilla) was running upstage. She unfortunately ran into our street. And tripped. And fell. I felt bad.

The Final Countdown

Okay, so we slept through too much of the train ride and planned ahead well enough to really have anything that funny happen. But I did remember a few things I meant to write about earlier, so I'll make up for it now.

Sometimes Dreams Come True
Friday night, I had this dream that Ross--the Pageant's instrumental music director in charge of the dance band and a bunch of other stuff--was clogging. In my dream, I grabbed Natalie and pointed out his clogging since I knew she'd appreciate it as a clogger herself. So, Saturday morning, I told Natalie about this dream. Then, that night, I was playing in the dance band, and Natalie was dancing. . . when all of a sudden, Ross starts clogging to our music! Natalie and I both saw and immediately made eye contact. We couldn't believe that my dream was coming true!

Cheesy Directors' Comments
While I know that our directors are very sincere in their love for us, sometimes their compliments are a little over-the-top. I can't remember all of them, but one night, our associate director said that the previous night's performance brought a phrase to his mind: "sing unto me a new song" -- our performance was "new," "fresh," and "energetic," apparantly. But who just uses a phrase like that to describe a performance?

A few nights later, he made up a short poem:
Wacthing you last night
Was such a delight

I know, it even rhymed. And it was completely off the cuff. And, as he pointed out, he has short cuffs.

My Physiological Morphing
I'll be surprised if you guys even recognize me once I'm home, because I've apparantly undergone some weird physical changes on this trip. For instance, I've developed freckly hands and arms. Especially hands. It's really weird. Also, my eyes changed color. They've always been green (or so I thought), but on this trip I had a couple different people comment on my blue eyes! I was so confused, so I looked in the mirror and saw that they were mostly right: my eyes are changing color (although I'm still convinced I see a lot of green. . . maybe just wishful thinking)!

Home
Well, it's great to be home. The train ride home was a million times better than the one out there -- due partly to our company, the fact that we knew the people sitting by us, and that we had planned ahead better for what to bring. Also, a big reason was that we arrive in SLC two hours early, which was a huge blessing! Anyway, I can't wait to see you all, and I hope you've all had a blast!

Home again, home again.

So, I had planned on coming home and blogging about everything hilarious that happened on the train ride, but we ended up sleeping through most of the trip. Seriously. We probably slept through 75% of the journey (well, I don't know actual numbers. But we slept a lot). However, I did remember a couple of funny things that happened in Nauvoo. I will blog about them soon.

We aren't going, we're coming...home.

Well, I guess this is farewell from Nauvoo. We just checked out of our room and we'll catch the train in a few hours for the long ride home. It's been great. I'll be thinking of other funny experiences we had here during the train ride, and I'll blog them when we get home. Plus we might have more funny train stories.

Going Home!

Well, this is the last chance I'll have to blog from Nauvoo. We anticipate funny adventures on the train, but those will have to be blogged about once we get home.

Anyway, Friday night after our show we had a cast dance. It was a blast! Although they didn't play "Every Time We Touch," we inserted stick dance moves wherever possible. And now several more people have been indoctrinated to the dance. Who knows how far it will spread?

Yesterday was closing night. There's too much to say about it to even begin. If you want a more detailed summary of conversation, "moving with joy," and leaving Nauvoo for the last time, you'll have to talk to me in person.

Well, this morning we woke up bright and early to make the 8am church meeting, where our friends the Young Performing Missionaries performed the musical number "This is the Christ." And now we're waiting for brunch to start, after which we'll leave for another very long train ride home. I love this place, and I'll miss it so much; but I'm also very excited to come home! See you in a couple days!

The story of how Hannah and I became Irish dancers

Someone recently asked us our history of how we became Irish dancers. This is our story.

We were walking down the street one day, when suddenly a man from Ireland tripped over his own ghillies, fell into the street, and got hit by a car. Of course, Hannah and I rushed over and started giving him CPR. We took turns for about 30 minutes, and finally he was in the clear. We had saved his life, but of course we couldn't accept a reward for that. We were just doing our civic duty. He was very glad that we had helped him in his hour (or rather, half hour) of need, so he offered and we accepted his offer of free Irish lessons. And that's how it happened.

A mistaken identity

Hannah and I were practicing the "Happy Birthday" song in spanish. She was sitting on her bed facing the window, and I was sitting on my bed facing her. We were singing along, and it sounded great, but then Hannah made this noise like "aaaahhhh". It was a blissful sound. I looked at her face and noticed that she was looking out the window. I concluded she must have seen someone who she thought was very attractive, namely our "elder brother" S. So I quickly turned to look out the window to see who she saw, but the only person in view was Ken. He plays Brigham Young, and he's very nice, but he's probably old enough to be our father or great-uncle four times removed (no, just kidding), plus he has long Brigham-like hair. I was shocked. In all the time we've spent together recently, we've shared a lot of secrets. But Hannah had never told me about that.