Practice Night

Daddy took a few pictures of some of the kids doing warm-up exercises before our play practice tonight.  You can see Madison on stage, along with the other orphans and some other cast members too, although not all of them.  This stage is so small compared to the one they'll be performing on.

Nevertheless, we've been doing some blocking, going through the placement of characters as they say their lines and so forth.  Daddy is right there in the midst of all this, doing his lines as well.  Reluctantly, he's playing a character on stage too.  But the orphans are the ones who will shine brightly for this.

They are all doing great, not only with their performances, but with their work ethic and their passion for acting.  Madison carries a notebook with her, one with the script, and with notes about her character.  She studies this even when she's not on stage or at play practice.

They're all doing really well, and we have over a month to go still.  I think their part of the performance is going to be really good.  Madison does her lines in the car, and other kids' lines also - she knows the script very well now.

Tonight we finished "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," which ended quickly, actually.  I think this is because you feel like you want it to go on and on, but the reality is that it is a short story that leaves a lot more to the imagination than what is in fact written.  The recent movie did quite a bit to fill in these blanks, and in fact was a really good version of the story.  We enjoyed reading it, and in fact Mommy has never heard the actual story before.  So we may or may not stay in Narnia over the coming weeks - it's up to Madison if she wants to keep hearing more from this wonderful place.  Tomorrow, we have a short story to read, one we picked up from the library.  We'll read about that tomorrow.  

In the meantime, school was good for Madison today again.  She got an A on her presentation on Globalization, which I start with a capital letter because I'm afraid of the people who in charge of Globalization.  This is because they may be reading this, and if I don't comply with Globalization, of course I'll be in serious trouble!  That being said, Madison's presentation on only the positive aspects of Globalization went really well.  This is, of course, because there are no negative aspects of Globalization to speak of whatsoever.  At all.  In fact, Globalization is the best thing for all of us.  Just let Globalization tell us what to think, and we're good, starting with the indoctrination of our kids in schools.  No problem!

Anyway, moving on, today we were working on Sunday's message, which is based on "Queen of Katwe," which is an inspiring story.  Madison will probably see the movie of this story Sunday.  But the message is a good one.  It won't help me get better at playing chess though.  I'm great at checkers, but chess is one of those games that takes a long time to master.  Madison and Daddy may give it a try this weekend though.  

Oh, the Book Fair started this week.  Forgot about that one.  Madison spotted a book or two, and we gave her some money tonight to take to school with her tomorrow.  We looked up the books online, and there's one she's interested in that is actually about the same cost as it would be online.  We don't mind paying a little extra, but sometimes Book Fairs charge about ten dollars more than what you can get elsewhere.  Anyway, this one is reasonable, otherwise we'd just get it online.  She's always gotten a book at the Book Fair, and she's always been reading this book right away.  They're lately bigger books, and it's obviously thrilling to a parent to see a daughter spending so much time reading.

We said our prayers tonight - in one week we'll be with the grandparents, who we've been praying for.  Lots of good news from Florida though.  Ba-Ba has been gaining weight, and his blood counts are up, and most importantly, he's feeling a lot better.  We'll be there for Thanksgiving, and we have a lot to be thankful for!