At Last! A photo journey of the pageant!

The Promised Land pageant experience was phenomenal. I was a little hesitant as the time drew closer, especially the week before when I was tired from working on so many pageant costumes for our family and trying to get everything planned out and ready for the upcoming rehearsal week. And when I thought about having to take care of Henry (9 months old), I really just didn't want to do it anymore. Luckily I had already committed our family so I had to go.

Boy am I glad I did. The first day was better than I expected and it just got better every minute. The week was full of pageant miracles, we called them, and we just kept marvelling at how well everything went.

• The stroller, which definitely had a broken and unusable seatbelt, somehow was miraculously fixed the Monday morning we left for pageant.
• The kids never, NEVER complained about going to the pageant and working all day in the hot sun.
• No one ever complained about lack of sleep or being too tired to continue even though we were getting up at 6 or 7am and not getting home till 11 or 12 at night, or later.
• I have bad feet....tendonitis and a heel spur in one foot as well as just always having sore feet from standing up for very long. I made it through each day!! That's a miracle.
• Henry was an angel. I carried him around in the sling all day. He took naps in it too. He was so agreeable and people kept saying "what a good baby, he's so quiet" and I would think "yes, he is a good baby, but I don't know who this kid is!"
• Henry was teething and never acted like it.
• Even though rainstorms occurred each day of performance, the rain cleared up and we were still able to perform.

Now for the photos. This may be a first installment because there are literally hundreds of pictures to sort through on flickr, and I've only been able to sort through a few dozen. But here are some for now.

Audrey getting her hair done by a fellow cast member who played Emma Smith

Me and Emma, turning over some of the dirt from the amphitheatre ground breaking ceremony

The ground breaking ceremony with some cast members, the producer, and the director (in the white wig)

Sheila, the costume mistress, displaying her Don't-Eat-In-Your-Costumes face

the view from the stage

Austin and Audrey on stage during a break

Emma, waiting in the lovely air conditioned Ruritan Club, showing off the lyrics to the two songs that most of the cast sing

Thomas during a break, stage in the background

Emma, showing one of the many shark teeth she and the other kids kept finding in the gravel

Uncle Tony rehearsing one of the Lamanite/Nephite battle scenes

Rick storming the stage as a Lamanite warrior

Thomas returning from one of his many adventures around the amphitheatre grounds

Audrey preparing to practice the minuet, part of one of the Colonial scenes

This ship is used during the Blackbeard show, but when not in use is a play place for the kids

We took our pop up camper to use as a respite from the hot sun during the day. Here Henry is in his playpen in the camper, taking a much needed crawling break.

Is Madison suffering from sun exposure madness? No, just being silly during lunch break in the camper
More lunch breakOne of the best things about pageant week? The scene where the Savior visits the American continent and blesses the people. Austin got to play a crippled boy. Here's he's being healed by Jesus.

Audrey also got to play an important part in that scene by being of the people who gets to go up and touch the Savior's hands

Our family dressed up in Colonial garb before one of the performances

The Joseph Smith funeral scene. Henry and I are on the far left.

Rick, as John Taylor, singing some of the verses to "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" during the scene where we mourn the death of Joseph Smith

Henry and I getting some extra stage direction from Ivan, the director (you can see Emma behind him)

What a great experience. We are definitely doing this again next year. We used this week as a family vacation, making the sacrifice to take time off from Rick's work, and we are so glad we did. It was worth it, and we all had a fantastic time building our testimonies, meeting new friends, and having fun. We have so many precious memories from the pageant. I can't wait to make more next year.