Pageant(Better late than never...)

I've been doing several things this year and have found plenty of excuses why I needn't post in the blog. Well even though I feel hot, tired and lethargic, I'm going to actually do something.

As several of you know I was in the Oakland Temple Pageant this year as one of the extras. I was casted as one of the director's ancestors (The lady in the purple in the picture with me is Merilee, our main director and a wonderful lady).



I was Susan Ashby, married to Nathaniel Ashby (Daniel who is deaf) with two children(A boy and a girl, both teenagers, and only 4-5 years younger than me...)
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That's my beautiful family, ain't we cute?

From left to right it's John (Morgan), Susan (me), Nathaniel (Daniel) and Susan (Amy). We all had a grand time teasing each other(silently), and for one of the scenes was the only 'nice' family on the stage(IE, we weren't fighting or arguing, just working).

It actually came as a surprise that I had a family with me as the mother. Until the day that they started introducing us to our stage family's history I thought I was going to be one of the daughters of the Curtis family, along with my good friend Samantha's Mom, but they surprised me. When they called the Curtis family up, my name wasn't among those called. Instead I was called later with the Ashby family, to my surprise and... when I first saw who my children were, momentary dismay.
I don't usually like working with teenagers, even though I just recently got done being one. I've never liked their attitudes and, frankly, most of them frustrate me. There are a few exceptions, and I am very thankful for those few, especially when they happen to be in my stage family(Well, at least they weren't horribly annoying around me...)
As I got to know my children, I was able to relax and have a good time with them. They were responsible(sometimes, though I hate to admit it, more responsible than me) and a joy to be around. Even with us miming hitting each other with shovels and water ladles behind stage.

After I met my children, I met my husband(He wasn't with the group when they told us about the different families, he was off fighting Nephites in one of the other rooms). I went to Merilee and asked her who he was. She motioned him over and had a hard time trying to communicate(For not using sign she was doing pretty good) since I had seen some girls(Lissa and Brenda[dance director]) interpreting for him I started signing with him. Merilee was VERY relieved when she saw I knew sign language.


This is me and the 'Ugly Orange Shirt Sisters' The two on the far left were going to be my 'sister' and 'mom' the one next to me is Maren, she's a fun person. She's the one who made me "Old" by adding wrinkles to my face after I did the rest of the makeup. She also sat next to me in the opening scene when she got healed (She was the woman with the issue of blood).

Our costumes are almost all hand made by our wonderful costume directors. My green shirt they made to fit me specifically(and even so, the shoulders felt a little weird...)
Thankfully I didn't have to wear the ugly orange shirt for long since one day after it had gone into the wash, it disappeared (possibly into a boy's dressing area.) and I had to wear a different costume which consisted of a part of my first costume (the blue under thing) and a different over thing.



That is a picture of the Writers and their Paige. Me, Samantha, Brittany, Amy and Paige is in our arms. The four of us were always seen writing or drawing(and occasionally reading) while offstage, and got teased for it half the time. It was fun.








The sister missionaries were absolutely awesome. There were times when I was feeling so stressed and frustrated that I would be close to tears because of my heavy work and school schedule (For a while my life was get up, go to school/work, get dad from work, drop him off, go to pageant, go home, go to sleep, repeat) . One night, when I was feeling particularly bad, I was on my way to get dressed for the first scene when one of the sisters stopped me and asked me about something. We got to talking, and were joined by Kerianna(one of the girls who would get a ride from me) and we all just chatted for a while. After that I felt so much better, and would stop and chat with the sister missionaries as much as I could. Sister Daniels(in the picture with my old roommate Clarissa and I) was one of the sisters I would chat with frequently. (I don't think I have a picture of the first sister, but she actually looks like one of the girls in one of the pictures Amy has in one of the earlier posts...)


This is Kerianna and Kent(Samantha's brother) in a picture I like to call "Emily's Rumor". One night Kerianna and Kent were sitting next to each other(They were in a devotional group together, so it was a common thing) and looked like they were cuddling(They were both kind of slumped down in the auditorium seats. Emily(the costume director) bent over to Samantha and I and asked if they were going out.
"No." Samantha said
"They should! They look so good together!"
Ever since then I and others have teased Kerianna terribly about it. She's taken it well, but it helps that she has two sisters at home who also tease her. Kent is now officially labeled her summer fling.


"Remember to smile children... like this!"
One of the things our directors had issues with was us and looking dead on stage... well, with most people any way... hehe




Ahhhh the makeup room... Now you get to go behind the scenes, don't you feel special?













Dad had fun with the camera, can you tell?






The Aging process... though from what I understand you couldn't even see the wrinkles Maren spent so much time doing.






Getting powdered, the last step of the makeup process. Glamorous shot, isn't it?

Oh, and if any one is curious, my makeup was: PC11 for the foundation, Capillary Stipple for the lips, Forest Green for the eye smudge stuff, and... shoot I always forget the cheeks...(Literally, the first night I went on stage without any blush... I doubt any one noticed, people offstage didn't notice unless I pointed it out to them.)

And yes, they are using a baby brush to take off the excess powder.

I'm willing and able to put pictures up of the actual pageant, rather than just people, but it's nearly midnight and I want to wrap this up, so I'm going to end this for now, if you want me to do a running commentary on the pageant, I will do so, but not tonight.