The 4th

Whoever pushed for fireworks to become legal in Arizona; I would like to give them a round of applause. Maybe a standing ovation. I love sparklers. I love setting things on fire. I love running away from smoke. I love watching my friends be stupid. It's true fireworks can be a little dangerous, Valerie burnt her fingers yesterday, but so far they make my 4th of July.

The day started off with a bath and body works trip and then grocery shopping. Taco run for lunch and then a nerf gun war. There was swimming of course and delicious food. Maddy's leg is broken so we mostly hovered around her and played an abusive game of phase 10. Pretty sure everyone was hit, or hit on, during that game. The hand print on about me knee and welt from rubber band proves it. We tried spelling things in sparklers and my dad's blow torch was just as popular as the fireworks. After the little kids were done the teens snuck away and lit off a big one. I won't go into too much detail, but it was awesome and driving in the trunk of a car, even a Santa Fe, is kinda scary. ;) This week has also been full of super heroes <3, copying how to do your nails off of pinterest, and spending the night in Tempe to protect my Grandma from hooligans. Yay for summer and yay for patriotism and the men and women who keep our country free!

West Side Story needs it's own paragraph. My sister and I went to see Actor's Youth Theater's production of West Side Story. Megan participated in Peter Pan there and I'm currently part of AYT's Ambassador program. The company uses the Mesa Performing Arts Center and I LOVE those stages. :) (but then again... what stage don't i love? ;)) We knew a few members of the cast from past shows and the ambassador program and my second cousin. The show was great. The dancing was phenomenal, singing lovely, and everyone just looked like they were having fun on stage. I wish I could break up the show into little parts and analyze all of it, but I'm not writing critique right now nor do I think either of us have the attention span to get to the end. There was one scene I'd like to touch on just because it was so unique. A scrim was dropped halfway up the stage to the ground and flooded with yellow light. The dancers portraying Mariah and Tony during a dance sequence appeared as shadows on the big drop and continued the dance based solely on the shadows they made on the big screen. The effect was marvelous and I wonder how silly it looked behind the screen with all the dancers standing far apart from each other to create the different levels and images for the audience. I think it was genius. :) I'm so happy I am part of AYT's program now and I look forward to participating in more of their productions. This one was fabulous.

Lastly, I'd like to mention girl's camp. Technically this was my last year of being part of the church run camp for girls' grades 7-12.... but I'll be back next year if I can. :) I like to say I was head of the entertainment committee with the amazing Laura. We wrote the skit, choreographed the flash mob, ran the snipe hunt, and parodied a song. I won't deny I love being in charge and I hope the first years I was over thought I was as amazing as I thought they were. The 5th and 6th year you go to camp you become a Youth Camp Leader (YCL) and get a few youngins to look over and help make the most out of camp. We made jewelry in the craft cabin, went to activities together, and spent the last few minutes of each night having a devotional in their cabin. The theme was Amazing Race and it was fun to stick to such a competitive, yet uplifting, theme. There were lots of devotionals that became hard to sit through, but we still had an amazing ;) time at camp and got to know each other a little bit better. My one regret is watching a Psych episode only a few days before where a camp counselor turns into a murder. *sigh* No scary stories! I appreciate all the time and effort put into camp by our leaders because I know how much work just a few hours of entertainment costs and hope they understand that even if what they were in charge of wasn't really wasn't our thing, someone took away something meaningful from camp. I learned that questioning a director's vision really REALLY tries their patience. Something to keep in mind for further shows. After this paragraph I feel like singing more of the endless camp songs. We sang so much at camp that some people were probably thinking, "That Just Happened?"