Christensen Summer Adventures 2009

Finally downloaded photos from my cell phone

2009-07-19T23:07:00.000-07:00

Flying beats driving for days...any day.

Allow me to introduce you to...my little friend...

The cast team gets a tour of the prop shop.
The stage and house before opening night. Note the false stone in the foreground where Moroni will bury the Book of Mormon plates in the final scene of the pageant.
Jacob's invading horde costume. He isn't allowed out into the audience with this costume on. I suspect you can guess why.

A general rehearsal shot so you can get a perspective of the scale of the stages and the lighting poles. I think it also gives a nice sense of how much of the rehearsal is about the logistics of getting many scenes and vignettes to be able to practice together. So many people and only a week to rehearse.

The sea of chairs that we hope to fill. This shows roughly half of the chairs.

This has to be one of the best pictures I have ever taken. Notice all the subtle facial and body language. Can you guess what they are all watching? The answer is at the bottom of this post.**

Girls are not boys. Who knew you could completely enthrall them with beads and pins and such?

This is a small portion of the E. B. Grandin print shop, where the Book of Mormon was first printed/published in 1830. 5000 copies were printed, bound in sheep skin, and sold for $1.25, roughly two days' wages.

A statue found at the top of the hill. The statue commemorates Moroni's mission to return the prophetic writings in the Book of Mormon to the world. If I remember right, it was erected in 1929.

One of the plaques that surround the main shaft of the monument. It contains the promise Moroni (the last prophet to write in the Book of Mormon) makes to each of us. If we will read and ponder the messages of the book and pray, God will tell us himself of its truth. So simple, so effective. I tested it- and the answer I received changed everything...

How'd this picture get in here?

More Pictures

2009-07-18T03:04:00.000-07:00

A quiet moment in the cast team tent...
A view of the Joseph Smith farm...very peaceful.

The old Smith log home and the farm land behind it.

A motley crew.

That thing on my head...it makes me look evil, right?

Everybody loves the Chill & Grill in Palmyra.

I think that is a Medium ice cream he is holding.

Hmmm. The old memories of riding in the back of a Volvo wagon...something has changed.

The Palmyra Temple from the road to the West.

Quiet moments in the Sacred Grove.

Robin and Gabby (our neighbor in the camp ground).

Performing

2009-07-11T20:58:00.000-07:00

Today we had to stop the performance. We were like right before the destruction scene, and the rain just started to pour. I had seen the lightning during the Alma scene but then there was no thunder and rain. It only took a few seconds for the rain to go from a drizzle to a pour. Then we took shelter in the prop shop and sang hymns while we waited for news that would say if we were going to perform of not. The answer was a no as I already said. I have no pictures to post right now, sorry.

Nearing public shows

2009-07-09T23:45:00.000-07:00

So you can see what the lighting towers and full set look like during the daylight...
Wesley and his friend Robert in costume.

Some of us in our costumes...

Nephite warriors...what 'ya gonna do?

Our friend Heather Williams and two of her little ones...

I guess Heather doesn't like to be surprised with cameras.

Half of our cast team girls in costume...

Rehearsals

2009-07-09T21:47:00.000-07:00

Sunday at the pageant...

2009-07-08T09:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry it has been such a long time. We were cast on Friday. I (Robin) am an Alma convert. Cameron is in the descension scene, mom is a harvest dancer (I convinced her to try out for dancing), Ethan and Jacob are battle people, (not sure what kind). Wes, um, well he wears a wig and beard but I can't remember what he is, Dad is a speaking unbeliever. (he has a very short part.) Sorry for the bad spelling and stuff but I am in a hurry because we have another devotional. (Third one today! then we have our third run through.) bye!

here I am (I'm not a huge fan of this picture.)

Jacob is showing off his weapons.

this is the cast team.

yea, don't this pictures look a little like last years?

Some Pics of travel

2009-07-08T05:03:00.000-07:00

More images to come soon. We are a LOT more busy than last year...

Hill Comorah Pageant

2009-07-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

IT IS SOO RAINY HERE! I thought i might make that clear before you read on. The past few days have been, well a blur. There were times we were just sitting in the motor home, (we as in me Cameron and Wes. Jacob and Ethan have a quit large group of friends most of them girls. and my mom and dad were always shopping.) But there were times we were doing something, if you don't count getting rained on. We have gone up the hill a few times. it is a bight steeper than i remember. My mom took Cameron up the hill early this morning. To his pleasure he found fresh road kill. It was a chipmunk. I can't remember the exact way he explained it, thank goodness , but he did say that the guts were squished out and the intestines looked like worms. Another time we went up the hill was to work off the calories of chill and grill. Which we went to for dinner. I forgot to take my camera but we will be going back so no worries. I got a 1/2 pound burger also a small cookies and cream ice cream. Which I ate like half of. The small is really large. Ethan got a small ice cream cone and it had four scoops of ice cream stacked on top of each other and the ice cream went all the way to the bottom of the cone. Before this some of us went to the printing press because Cameron has never been threw it. it was not crowded at all. It is was a pretty good tour. But i forgot my camera. Here are some pictures of the past days...........

We had to put up a tarp to keep the tents dry.

This is what is looks like from the outside.

Looks like we weren't the only ones.

This is the motor home the fist day we were here.

If you look close you can see cam walking in the
rain with his unclosable duck taped umbrella.

Here we are at the cast team tents. Cam is
looking at some dead bugs.

This is one side of the hill.

We are still trying to making are way to the top
of the hill.

Finally we made it.

We're Here!

2009-07-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I was wrong. We landed in Rochester about 11 and then crashed at somebody's house. Supposedly we know them, but I didn't have any clue who they were. The trip was pretty boring, except for the part where we ran pretty much the whole length of the Detroit McNamara airport to get some food from Fuddruckers. Thankfully our plane was late, because we got back just as they were boarding. That airport is sort of an H with the middle part being an underground tunnel, and said tunnel has some really cool lights in it. I took a small video of it, which I will post when I find the cord for my camera. We finally got to the hill about 10 AM on Wednesday, where we promptly changed into our church clothes so we could go do Baptisms for the Dead at the Palmyra temple. That itself was interesting, as Jacob got confirmed for one Charlie Brown and dad met some people that he home taught as a teenager and hadn't seen in 20 years. We made it back in camp and started gettin out the pallets to put our tents on (because the ground is wet so much). Sure enough, it started to rain. Then basically half my cast team from last year showed up and we hung out for the rest of the day. There was a potluck dinner, but it was a little weak because there weren't that many families involved. Thats about it for my story, so I'm going to set it up so other people can post. and Again, I'm sorry there aren't any pictures yet.

Packing

2009-06-30T10:53:00.001-07:00

Aagh!!! Things are crazy right now. I shouldn't even be wasting time to do this but I really wanted to get it set up. So to intro, we are the Christensen's and this is a blog of our adventures this summer. We're starting off by flying to NY today to be in the Hill Cumorah Pageant. That will probably be most of what ends up on the blog. We are trying to get everything together right now, and its not going great. maybe some pictures will show up, but I doubt it right now. We'll be stopping in Detroit for an hour and then continuing on to Rochester. We'll finally make it to the campsite about 11:00 PM. Hope that you enjoy the blog as much/more than we enjoy the stuff we blog about!