Freelance writing headed north

Happily it looks like my 'will write for free' days are over! I got rehired by the guy that I have done a few travel articles for for fairly decent prices. Very exciting. I love getting paid for just playing around.

Archer's debut

Here's the number Acher did in his play. Which I won't mention here because I wasn't supposed to tape it so I don't want it Googlable. But I have mentioned it elsewhere. It was only the dress rehearsal. And too bad because they only worked on this for two weeks so he did keep getting better in the performances. But I really see a bit of musical theater stardom here. Chase did well, too, but his confidence level is different and it limited him a bit, and I think he will get there too someday.



Thanks again to those of you who take a peek at the blog and compliment the kids' efforts, even if they are kind of hohum and pedestrian by objective standards. It makes them feel really good that they have people keeping tabs on them and commenting on them once in a while!

Stay tuned for the rest of the clips on these performances. I have a suspicion watching this that some of the other recordings are better, so I will keep trying to find better ones, even though none of them are probably that great. It is amazing to me that they had only practiced this musical one and a half weeks by the time this was taped. Well done, FG theater!

Anaheim, the happiest bulldog on earth!

So most of my lake pics are on Slade's phone, and sadly the video that I took on my laptop of Drake getting seranaded at MG had that weird mismatch of the video and audio, so don't have much yet about the last leg of our journey.

But since most of the hotels, even the ones that call themselves 'pet friendly' like this one in Anaheim charge usurous fees, it was really nice of Donna and GandG Morgan to let us bunk Harry with them. Hope the smell goes away some day. And that also goes for Sarah and Jim Black who bravely withstood all seven of us visiting with the beast in question.

BTW, we went to the Utah Shakespeare festival and saw School for Wives by Moliere, which was OK, and Taming of the Shrew, which was absolutely excellent and I suggest anyone go see it if they are in the area. We ran into Michael Wilcox there, and he was nice and pretended he remembered me, but he actually DID remember Sarah (Black, Slade's sister).

Anyone know anything to do in Vegas? (With kids, G rated, etc.)

We are in Vegas recouperating today from our Lake Mohave experience. Last night we went to Macaroni Grill for the whole thing where they sing Happy Birthday in Opera style for Drake's 13th. He was so embarrased he was going to die until she actually started singing, and then he was pretty impressed. Mostly he is excited that we don't get to call him a preteen anymore. Actually I still will when I feel like irritating him, which is a lot.

So the kids mostly want to watch the Olympics and laze around the hotel today recouperating from waterskiing, and Slade is down with that. He can seriously sleep around the clock if he wanted to I am pretty jealous. But I'd like to find something to do. Slade does want to go out with only me to some type of show.

Riverbottoms

Saturday we arrived at Mohave Lake for a bit of dragging children behind a speedboat. Don't really know why it struck Slade to do this, because lake water is too cold for him and he's the only one that can drive a boat anyway. But we gave him a few of his demands and the kids appeared to like it.

One of the first things that happened is that Archer jumped into the lake with his glasses on and they went plunk down to the bottom. So that's about 250 bucks there. He also dumped the flag that you're supposed to wave when there's a skier in the water.

We 'camped' by the riverside, and by camping I mean most of us huddled in a tent that was uncomfortable crowded, hot, and patrolled by a hot and bored bulldog all night. They kept having to get him up and dump him in the lake so he wouldn't overheat. I slept in the boat, but I got attacked by some pretty feisty insects. August in Arizona is a pretty harsh place.

But it was fairly fun. Actually I am not sure what people do for about fourty percent of the fun on their vacations without bulldogs. They are a pain but the kids absolutely love seeing what he is going to do in new situations, etc. He didn't like the boat so mostly he hid in a hole under the front deck until the boat stopped. We also learned he can swim for about five seconds. Fun times.

Harry gave us a scare

We were in Anaheim yesterday and I was taking Harry on a walk and all of a sudden he got really overheated. He made this wheezing sound like he was going to die. He crashed in a puddle in some guy's yard and wouldn't move. The guy hosed him off and finally he was able to walk toward home and Slade came and found us and carried him home.

The whole thing made me think of what it has been like most of human history with the health of loved ones. Pretty much your kids or your spouse would get sick and be dying and there would be nothing you could do but watch them suffer.

When we were coming back into the hotel it was pretty funny because the sight of Slade carrying a giant bulldog was probably pretty impressive and unusual. When we got to our floor some guy was walking a little tiny dog on a leash from the other direction, he saw us and he immediately turned around the other way, no questions asked. It was classic Morgan family.

But all is well now, Harry is ok after a long bath. But he shed so much hair there was enough for another animal afterward. My guess is it is some kind of automatic thing with increased temperature.

Trip, etc

So we are off on our big family adventure. We are having a good time so far. We stopped at numerous places along the coast. Here are some pics.

We are in Eureka this morning and will wind up in Bakersfield tonight.


One of these pics was a random one from Sadie's play rehearsal. I meant to post the vids of Archer and Chase's solos before I left but it took me too long. That will get done as soon as I get home, promise. They both did completely awesome. It was a true thrill. A payback for every difficulty as a parent that night.