Last night we went to see State Fair at the Sugar Factory Playhouse, and it was a pretty good show. Some of my old friends there haven’t seen me since I was a single, not-even-anyone-on-the-horizon sort of guy. Finding out that baby Dodge is on the way was a real shocker.

But even with all this great news, the most memorable part of the recent week was when we decided to take the kids to a free puppet show at the West Jordana library for Family Home Evening. It was the Starry-Eyed Puppet Show, and it was really something else. What made it so great? Well, let me tell you…

Johanna’s friend Heather told us about a free puppet show at the library, and since we didn’t have any concrete plans for the evening, we decided to go and see if it was any good. We got there quite a bit early, and had some time to wait in the kids section of the library. There is a ‘bug’ theme going on right now, and kids are able to sign up for contests and reading clubs to earn prizes – plastic bugs among them. Of course, for little boys, there’s not much that can top a good plastic bug.

When the puppet show finally got under way, and we were completely amazed at the quality of the show. We thought it would be some hokey little thing with a card table and a guy with some socks on his hands or something. But there was a complete 2-tiered ‘puppet-stage’ with soundtrack, silly-string-sneezing noses, giant spiders (remember the bug theme), and the kids went crazy! The show was actually funny enough that most of the adults were laughing a bit, too. And since it was at the library, of course it was educational to boot.

The show was about things that “Bug” us, and one of the first I can recall was rap – a sorry excuse for music, in my humble opinion. They had a rap about the life-cycle of a butterfly. Then they had another thing that “bugs” a lot of people – bad poetry. Some boring-to-tears worm came out and read poetry about daffodils, and all of a sudden, daffodils are flying all over the place at this worm…he never does finish the poem.

During “scene changes” a puppet comes up singing “eency weency spider” to the audience, but he isn’t supposed to be part of the show. So the master puppet tries to shoo him off, and calls on his friend spider to help. Each time the scene changes, the singing puppet reappears, and the spider shooing him away gets bigger…until the spider is HUGE and the little puppet runs away screaming! A classic joke, but well played here.

The main story was about a worker bee who noticed that all villains are popular, while nobody remembers the heroes in those books (eg. Dracula, Moby Dick, etc.) So he decides that in order to be famous, he needs to be bad. But every bad thing he does ends up saving some other bug’s life, and he gets frustrated. In the end, his conscience gets the best of him, and he is awarded for being a good worker bee.

All in all, it was a really fun little show, and Johanna thinks it might be something we could do on the side for extra income – put on puppet shows. We will have to see about that, but this much I can definitely say: the Starry-Eyed puppet show was a real hoot, and I will not second guess the programs that the library puts on for kids again. I highly recommend looking into the nearest public library to see what youth activities they have planend in the near future – and going!

She values her storage space, especially since the house is not as large as we would like it to be. Her bed was on tall legs (almost a foot high) and we could put all sorts of stuff underneath. Mine was on a standard metal frame, which left a little to be desired when it came to stowing things down below.

I know, I might have boosted the height of the Queen sized frame, and that would have solved that problem. But there were emotional attachments involved, and I thought my mattress was rather uncomfortable, so I said “Let’s give it a shot.” And for a while, it was okay.

Now, we’ve rotated her mattress twice, hoping to find out exactly where all the broken springs are (directly underneath MY side, of course.) The bedsheets were made for a – you guessed it – Queen sized bed. We have to put them back on the bed every other night, because they come off when I have to slither out of bed twice a night to let the dog out (Chewie is as high maintenance as any baby could ever be.) Add to this a pregnant wife who can’t sleep on her back, and 54 inches just isn’t enough for two full-sized human beings.

So I have spent two nights on the couch, and they have been the best two nights of sleep I have had in a while. Lonely, yes, very. But also a lot more comfortable, and I was starting to feel the effects of poor-quality slumber. Johanna agrees, she is better able to sleep on her side with a little more room to do so. That settles it, then, our minds are now made up. We will be in the market for a new Queen (or should we make the jump to King?) mattress and frame. I may end up making the frame from some spare 2×4′s I have from my basement construction to save money for the time being…but regardless, the decision is made.

Now we just need to save up or find a crazy-good deal. Saving up will take three months or so (GAH!) Drop us a line if you find anything too good for us to pass up!

We are in the Children’s Story equivalent of 2 Nephi – Jacob, long past the time when Lehi’s family crossed the ocean. In that account, the story explains:

As they [Laman & Lemuel] came toward Nephi, he commanded them not to touch him because he was filled with the power of God. Laman and Lemuel were afraid for many days.

Then the Lord told Nephi to touch Laman and Lemuel. When Nephi did, the Lord shocked them. Laman and Lemuel knew the power of God was with Nephi.

Sometimes when I read that to Aiden and James, I would substitute “zap” for “shock,” just to mix things up. Still, when it came time to ask Aiden what he remembered, the standard “I don’t know” was the only thing he would ever really say consistently.

Then, this past Sunday, I was at the computer uploading some pictures from our wedding photography CD’s, and I heard the kids playing in the basement. Aiden was standing on the couch, and James was on the floor – this greatly exaggerated Aiden’s towering stature over his younger sibling. They were laughing pretty good, apparently with Aiden holding something just out of James’ reach. Suddenly, I heard Aiden say:

James, don’t touch me. I have the power of God! ZAP!!!

Well…

I guess they were listening after all.