Back from the Land of Oz

Throughout the month of May, our family was transported to the land of Oz. Jared, Clarissa, and three of their friends had the wonderful opportunity to be Munchkins in the Pulaski County High School's production of "The Wizard of Oz." Rehearsals began shortly after auditions and thus started our afternoon routines of packing snacks and drinks, picking up Maggie from school, rushing to the High School, trying to keep the little ones entertained while the older ones were rehearsing, rushing back to drop off Maggie and make it home in time to make dinner (we did pretty good, we only ate out twice during the three weeks). Finally came opening night. Pictured from left to right: Maggie, Clarissa, Cailin, Jared, and Connor. Yes, we had a lot of fun coming up with costumes. Clarissa and Cailin were the first Munchkins to timidly come out on stage to meet Dorothy.

Here all the Munchkins sing about how the house landed on the wicked witch.

Maggie and Clarissa wait and listen as the Munchkins town leaders discuss the wicked witch.

Finally the Munchkin Mayor announces that the wicked witch is dead and all the Munchkins rejoice.

Jared, Devon, and Connor are the Lollipop Guild, they welcome Dorothy to Munchkinland.

In this picture, Jared just told Dorothy to "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" and is listening as another Munchkin gives the same instructions.

Here are Maggie and Clarissa with the Scarecrow.

Jared (with the blue wings) and Connor were so happy when they found out that in addition to being Munchkins they also got to be Flying Monkeys. They thoroughly enjoyed wearing scary masks, acting crazy, and tearing Scarecrow from limb to limb. How could two sweet boys be so terrifying?

Chris and I attended all six performances and enjoyed each one as though it was the first. We especially loved it in the last performance when after doing the jitterbug dance, the cast broke into the Thriller line dance. The whole thing was a great experience and by the end we all had the play and songs memorized, even Amber. So, it was no surprise that just when I thought we were done with the Wizard of Oz, Chris decided to use lessons from the play as our Family Home Evening the Monday after the last performance.

Chris came up with three lessons to be learned from the Wizard of Oz: 1)The desire to return back home 2)Having friends and family to help you on your way and 3)Resisting and conquering evil. Of course a Wizard of Oz Family Home Evening is not complete without costumes, which we fortunately had left over from Halloween a couple of years ago. At the end of the lesson, the kids decided to act out as much of the play as they could remember (which was a lot!), only Amber couldn't decide if she wanted to be the cowardly lion or the wicked witch.

Here she is as the wicked witch.

And...lest we think that this was the end of our love affair with the land of oz...Our family signed up to do a puppet show for a talent show at church and when I asked the kids (with the help of their friends, the Hales) to write the script, guess what story they chose - that's right, The Wizard of Oz. Only this time, the story was a little different; like instead of going up to Oz in a tornado, Dorothy fell down a hole to get the Oz. And we didn't have any puppets that were scarecrows, tin men, or lions so we used a gingerbread man (who needed a new gumdrop button because a hungry fox ate his), a prince (who wanted to be turned back into a frog) and an elephant (who needed courage against mice). Another funny twist was that Dorothy went to the Ruby city to see the wizard and he gave her Emerald slippers instead of Ruby ones. It was a lot of fun but I don't have any pictures because I was the one holding up the signs for audience participation.

So, now it's June and we are back from the land of Oz, at least until the next impromptu performance, and I just have to say - there's no place like home.