How Christmas Saved The Grinch 2019

Throughout my life, I've enjoyed being a part of various musicals and holiday productions, even drama club when I was in high school. Although I can't sing (like at all) or dance (I do dance better than I sing), crowds never bothered me and I do memorize things fairly well. My enjoyment of the stage goes way back, to when I was 11 years old. Our former church was doing a children's Christmas production called "Twinkle and the All-Star Band". As a random chance happening, I was given the lead role of Twinkle, and that's where my love for it all began.

Fast forward to three years ago. Our church was hosting a Christmas production entitled "How Christmas Saved The Grinch", a spin on the typical Grinch stealing Christmas story. It was their third year to perform and I was having major FOMO. After the production was over, I approached our children's pastor's wife and told her if she ever needed any adult extras in the production, I would be more than happy to help. Well, enter 4th year of the Grinch (2018) and yes, I was given a role as an extra. I. Loved. It!

Although the story of Jesus is sprinkled throughout our production, it's not over the top and several years back, the local public schools began coming out as an optional field trip on the Friday of production week. They even have a chance to take a picture with Mr. Grinch and the cast after the production is over, which they love! Last year, we had almost 3,000 kids at our Friday performance and this year (our 5th year), we had almost 2,000!

I'm getting ahead of myself, though.

Rewind to August of this year. I received a phone call from our children's pastor's wife that the lady who had played Betty Lou Who for the past 4 years was stepping down and she wanted to know if I was interested in having her part. I was incredibly honored and knew I had a big role to fill, especially when someone had been in that role for so many years. I said yes and reminded her about my singing and dancing abilities again. Thankfully, no singing had to be involved (with just my voice alone) and only minimal dancing.

So, last weekend was the 5th year to perform "How Christmas Saved The Grinch" and it was a smashing hit! In total, around 3,000 (ish) people were in attendance!

I also knew I wanted to take that role and make it my own. Throughout the five years, many different cast have played many different parts and each had their own unique spin on their characters. I set out to do just that.

Backstage was a flurry of activity once it became time to start getting dressed. About 75% of these costumes are hand sewn which blows my mind!

This table was once organized by characters and buckets but this is the aftermath! Hah!

My friend Mackenzie has played the part of the Narrator for the past 5 years and she always does an amazing job!

Time for noses! If you want to see the entire process of costuming and makeup, check out the Vlogidays video at the bottom of this post. :)

Almost ready!

The Grinch might have driven to McDonald's like this! The manager remembered him from last year and asked for a picture! Hah!

A little more behind the scenes of the cast...

You might remember the orange dress pictured here? That was my costume from last year!

Brayden was quite intrigued by my nose!

Playing the part of Betty Lou Who meant I was also the mom of Cindy Lou. :)

This was the closest Brayden would get to Mr Grinch!

We were trying to take a picture and we were photobombed by both the Grinch and one of our husbands! Haha whoops!

 

After Friday's performances were over, we decided to get shakes from Chick Fil A, makeup and all. It was rather hysterical if I do say so myself!

 

...and that's a wrap on How Christmas Saved The Grinch for 2019. Although we were sleep deprived, it was an amazing weekend filled with lots of wonderful memories! Until next year....

If you're interested in seeing the process of creating a "Who", check out the video above.

Have a fabulous day!

Favorite Non-Running Hobbies

Today's Tuesday Topics Linkup is all about our favorite non-running hobbies! If you've been a blog reader here for a while, I'm sure you can guess mine! :)

#1 Disney and Traveling 

We LOVE going to Disney, but we also love seeing new places! One of the reasons we joined the Disney Vacation Club last fall is because it gives us the opportunity to do just that. Already, we've discussed the idea of visiting Hawaii in the future (I traveled there for my senior trip, but Jason's never been)! We are also taking a cruise this summer (non-Disney) with Jason's family to Alaska! This time, we will be sailing on Royal Caribbean. I am excited to return to Alaska and take in the wondrous beauty of it all. For this trip, we are planning on excursions we've never done before which include whale watching and visiting a musher's camp. I know Brayden is going to LOVE seeing the dogs! It should be an all around fun time!

#2 Family & Friends

Family and friend time is absolutely the best. I love being with my family and friends and spending time with them! Life is seriously so fragile - I see it every day. One thing about working in oncology is it has given me a better appreciation for LIFE and enjoying loved ones in the here and now. In the end, I want to be able to look back over my life and say that I truly took the time to appreciate my family and friends. Our loved ones bring such a richness and fullness to our lives and it's important to truly value that.

#3 Baseball

During baseball season, you can either find me at home watching a ball game or at Minute Maid Park cheering on my beloved Astros! I've been a fan since birth and love carrying the tradition over to Brayden! We also love visiting Minute Maid Park! It's almost opening day, y'all!! I'm SO excited!

#4 Volunteering

When I look back over my life, I can't remember a time that I didn't volunteer (because I truly love it that much)! At my church, I've been a volunteer with our Girls Ministries program since 2000 and once I started working in oncology in 2007, I also became a volunteer with the American Cancer Society. Over the years, I've also helped in various other areas, but these two have stuck the longest and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Giving of yourself and your time, especially with how busy life can be is truly rewarding, especially when you know you're helping to make a difference.

So, there you have it - when I'm not working or running or going to Orangetheory, those are the areas you'll find me! 

Join Kookyrunnerand Zenaida every Tuesday for the Tuesday Topics Linkup!

Friday Five

Happy Friday! It's so great to see another weekend, especially since most of last weekend was spent in bed for me, but more on that later.

We've had some fun things happening around here this week, so I thought I would share them in a Friday Five format!

#1-The Weather

Have you seen those memes going around about fall in the south? They say things like "oh yay it's fall - let's get out the pumpkin spice and scarves and boots...just kidding we live in the south, it's basically like summer but with lots of orange." Yeah, that's 100% life for real. Well, it began yesterday, but we've officially had our first cool snap of the season! When I walked outside yesterday morning, I was shocked to feel the cool breeze - the temps were in the 60's and it was glorious. Of course it warmed up to the mid 80's by the time the sun came out, but we won't discuss that.

Also, we might have made our first pot of gumbo last night! It was delicious!! Gumbo and cool weather are synonymous down here in southwest Louisiana!

#2-Superhero Commercial

On Monday afternoon, I met up with a group from our church to shoot a commercial for our church news segment. At the end of the month on the Sunday before Halloween, we always throw a big "Superhero Sunday" shindig where kids dress up as their favorite superhero (which could be anyone that you "look up" to) and it's always a fun time.

To promote this event, we made a commercial for our Sunday church news. They had me dress as Wonder Woman and I had to run all over the place which was lots of fun of course.

I can't wait to see how it turned out!

#3-Workouts

Sadly, I spent the entire weekend in bed due to a stomach virus and fever. I seriously felt the same way I did back in January when I was diagnosed with the flu...and the fatigue lingered for days. Yuck. Needless to say, I did not have a long run on Saturday and didn't really return to Orangetheory until Tuesday. Running around on Monday for the commercial was as much as I could stand, so I decided to wait until Tuesday to resume my workouts. Both Tuesday and Thursday workouts this week were great! I also plan on running a long run tomorrow morning in the (hopefully) cooler weather!

#4-Police

This week, the local PD visited Brayden's Mother's Day Out program where they had the chance to see an officer in uniform, check out their motorcycle with the lights on, and crawl through the backseat of their unit. I had my brother (who is also in law enforcement) send a picture of himself in uniform to me so I could show it to Brayden and make that "personal" connection to what these guys do. Brayden was a little hesitant with the officer presentation at first but once the MDO director told Brayden that this officer wears a uniform just like his Uncle Brian, he was ok!

He was so very proud of his little badge and hat! I love opportunities like this where they get to see professionals and hear what they do.

#5-Pumpkin Patch

It's that time of year again! Pumpkin patches are popping up everywhere and we've already visited one! Brayden had so much fun calling out the different colors of the pumpkins he saw and running throughout the patch! We even came home with a little pumpkin as a memory! :) Sadly, the memory card inside of my DSLR camera decided to corrupt and won't allow me to even see any of the pictures I took there (which just means we will have to go back for more). Thankfully, I have the pictures I took on my phone!

I'd say it's been a pretty great week so far! :) Have a great weekend!!

It's FRIDAY!

Link up with Running on Happy & Fairytales and Fitness for the Friday Five 2.0 linkup!

4th of July Weekend

Hello there and happy Monday! We had such a great and relaxing weekend and I loved every minute of it! I made it my goal to seriously stay home, chill, and relax this weekend and we did just that (well, mostly).

My "weekend" began at work with a luncheon on Friday. It was a luncheon to end the 3 week summer student program and those sweet students voted for me as their favorite hospital associate and the physician I work with as favorite doctor! My take on students is this - they don't have to be there but they want to be because they want to learn. Everyone was also a student at some point in time, so we should be nice to them and encourage them. Anyway, I was honored to say the least!

After the luncheon, we were closed for the remainder of the afternoon and got to go home! Score!

On Friday evening, I browsed through my Orangetheory days and realized that I had an extra one because I miscounted. I knew I couldn't let it go to waste, so I headed off to Orangetheory instead of running outside in the sweltering heat. More about my Saturday OT experience on Friday! :)

Jason had rehearsal for our Sunday church production and while he was gone, Brayden and I ate a few grapes and watched Meet the Robinson's. Brayden actually watched something other than Mickey Mouse or Puppy Dog Pals which blew my mind! It was truly a monumental occasion!

After enjoying a nap on Saturday afternoon (all of us), we spent the rest of the evening outside enjoying the water! My parent's bought this water pad for Brayden for his birthday and we just got around to filling it up with water!

For dinner on Saturday evening, we had our first Hello Fresh meal! More about this coming up in a future blog post (my thoughts on it all, etc).

On Saturday night, I also realized that I hadn't yet registered for the 4 mile race on the 4th of July and online registration closed that night. DONE!

Sunday morning was our patriotic service at church! I left with a full heart as we ended it with celebrating our veterans. A sweet and precious WWII veteran absolutely brought me to tears as he (along with all of our other veterans) reminded me of all they sacrificed so we can enjoy the freedoms we know today.

Afterwards, we had dinner on the grounds which was so much fun! We haven't had an after Sunday dinner at church in a LONG time!

This kid loves chips, y'all. Chips chips all day long.

After returning home, we watched the Astros game, hoping to catch a glimpse of our Florida friends who were there. (We didn't end up seeing them.) We also spent more time outside and enjoyed leftovers for dinner.

Mission accomplished - it was a truly enjoyable and relaxing weekend! I'm excited for a day off of work this week and am looking forward to spending more time with my sweet little guy! I hope you all had a great weekend, too!

20 Years

I'm a firm believer that honor should be given when honor is due. So, when our children's pastor's daughter (also one of my good friends) approached me about helping her plan a celebration for her parents 20th year of ministry, I knew we HAD to do it!

This weekend was busy, it was full of activity, it was fun, it was exhausting, and it was 100% completely worth it all. I seriously had one of the best weekends of my life!

So, our church has a thing. It's called the "DREAM Team" and it's a junior high and high school ministries team, that help lead children's church, perform at various services and community events, compete in festivals, attend and host summer camps, and the list goes on and on. Our children's pastor's have been with us and have overseen the team for the past 20 years - so, we made our event a "reunion" of sorts - to honor our children's pastors as well as bring back old team members to celebrate with them! 

We were blown away by the response! Over 20 years, we've had over 100 DREAM Team members and about 90ish former team members and spouses registered for our reunion dinner! 

The room was decorated with the intention of stirring up old stories and memories over the past 20 years. Each table was full of pictures, "candy grams", and the entry table had a tshirt from every single genre of team members.

At each function we attended, our children's pastor's wife would give us candy grams each day, so we incorporated those into the decor!

My "baby" was the video that was played during the reunion. I worked weeks on that thing - going through old VHS footage from the early 2000's as well as DVD performances that were more recent. It was so much fun to reminisce and put the video together. I'm not a master at it, so I was incredibly nervous, but I LOVED how it came together!

Our gift to them was a tshirt quilt, made out of all of the team tshirts and polos over the past 20 years!

Seeing everyone from past and present so warmed my heart. The entire evening was perfect and everything flowed so smooth! I love these people dearly and can't wait for the next one!

 

On Sunday morning, we also had the entire church service to honor our children's pastors!

I also mentioned on Friday that I was asked to help host our "announcements" segment that plays during the Sunday services. Well, I was super nervous as to how it would turn out but it wasn't bad at all! (I was mostly worried about my super "magic" hair that grows with the humidity!) Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as my mind made it out to be, but isn't that how it always goes?

We also performed a song that was a complete surprise to our children's pastors. We picked a song that almost every single team from the beginning of time knew (Testify by Avalon). The current team started out on stage to perform and as a surprise, the old team joined them midway through the song. I LOVE the visual it made, showing how far and wide of a reach our children's pastors have made over 20 years! It turned out so well!

This weekend made me cry, it made me laugh, and it definitely warmed my heart. Sometimes we need weekends like these to remind us of where we've come from and just who helped us get there.

Happy 20 years, Pastor Darrell and Mrs. Gwen! I hope the weekend was all you dreamed it would be and more! We love you!