The Bunny

Here comes Peter Cottontail!  Okay, it might even be me - I was on "Bunny Duty" again for Easter, something I volunteered for again this year, but honestly that costume can be occasionally challenging.  This year, the preschool was wanting to have the Easter bunny wandering around amongst a sea of preschoolers, and fortunately I had a spotter to help navigate.  Because Bunny Vision is poor, and sure enough, the sun was beating down on that terrarium on my head, and sure enough, the kids were wanting to play around.  I was getting plenty of exercise today, hopping around - literally!  The kids thought it was great though, swarming me as I was quite the celebrity.  Lots of high fives and hugs.  Lots of "I love you Easter Bunny!"  So cute.  I'll never forget this one kid that kept wanting me to run around with him, around the playground.  He was pretty happy to have a giant fuzzy playmate.

The running continued later on as tech week continued.  I say "running," because for the past three years there's a pretty amusing moment that happens "behind the scenes."  As soon as the Palm Sunday scene is over with, with us joyfully marching out the back entrance of the sanctuary, suddenly Jesus and his twelve disciples are running out the back lobby area, down the stairs, past the KidPak desk and down the long hallway to the music room, through there and around the corner to the stairwell, launching upwards so we can make it there to set up the Last Supper scene.  It's like a 5K with people dressed up as apostles.  It's pretty funny!

As for practice, it's going well.  As with all things, there are changes and modifications going on to improve certain parts of the production, but on the whole, things have been quite smooth.  We're doing something that is largely what was done last year, so there's a bit of familiarity with it.  I'm excited to see Maddie's face on the big screen once again, excited to hold palm branches and see Jesus heading through the Eastern gate.

We've had some funny moments, and some tense moments too - but it's all part of practice.  Mom's been so busy with these costumes, still making modifications.  

She had some changes to make on some skirts for dancers, a good bit of sewing, and then there's velcro for Jesus' costume, and the Roman soldiers needing more glue for their segmentata, and suddenly kids showing up for the first time to practice because their parents have no idea what's going on, so Mom's got to get them all in costume.  But it's all working out, and we're certainly getting our steps in - this is a big church, and we're traveling all over it from one side to the other over and over again.  

Nevertheless, I am still getting my steps in for the treadmill.  Maddie was at school of course, and tonight she was at FCY, which was very limited with staff - most of the FCY people were here at practice.  Skylar was Mary Magdalene, Pastor Hamilton a Roman soldier, Pastor Jacob is Peter, Bailee is coordinating actors and props, and the list goes on and on.  Sunday morning's KidPak service will be similarly limited, as most of us are up in this sanctuary - Ivan is Jesus, Caleb and I are James and John, Josh and Camille are heavily involved with make-up, Pastor Lance is in the sound booth with the directors, and of course Mom is by the costume rack getting a pretty big cast of dancers and performers ready for the production.

We got home late tonight, and we were pretty tired.  Nevertheless, we wanted to watch the latest episode of "The Bad Batch," and I for one was pretty thrilled to see the return of Asajj Ventress, one of my favorite Star Wars characters ever.  I remember the first time seeing this character in the animated cartoon back in 2003.  Then she made it to the CGI "Clone Wars" series, and now she's here helping out the "Bad Batch."  I have the book of concept art for "Attack of the Clones," the second of the Star Wars prequels, and inside that you can see concept art for what the Sith character would look like.  Eventually, things settled down with Count Dooku, but some of that other artwork was actually used to create the Asajj Ventress we all know and love today.  

It was late when we turned the television off, but we had to watch that episode.  We opted to see that, rather than do our nightly reading, so bedtime came pretty quickly after that.  We said our prayers, and quite exhausted, we all fell fast asleep!