McFadden Fall Dallas Vacation: Part 6 The Skits

On Wednesday, the Clown skits started, leaving Brylee and I without a vehicle during the day.  However, Poppy left the house at 8 a.m.(ish) and got home around 10:30 a.m., so it didn't leave us too long without a car.

Brylee even got to learn how to play 100-pin bowling on the Wii, and while holding her and demonstrating how to use the remote, she mimicked me and hit me in the eye--hard!  I am thankful she didn't have the controller in her hand!

And while her Poppy got ready for the skits, she had to be in the bathroom and watch or goof off...

She was a bit shy again around Radio, but she wasn't completely freaked out.  He tried several times to get good pictures of them together.  This is one of my favorites:

Gotta post some pictures of what they were educating about:

The full gang, minus the sound dude, John:  Model T, Ashes, Petunia, Embers, and Radio.  This is Model T's, Embers', and Petunia first year on stage as clowns with the school skits, but they are far from new!  Embers has been sound and puppetry for several years, Petunia has been doing clowning outside of school skits for a long time as well, and Model T was 1/2 of the sound/groupie help for the school skits for a couple of years.  What a very talented group of people, and I must add that I am so proud of Petunia, Model T, and Embers for stepping out of their comfort zones and jumping up there on stage.  They add a lot of character to the already super-talented Ashes and Radio!

Got a MissChief/Radio shot!

Wow!

MissChief with her 2 favorite clowns...and not just while they are in makeup...

My buddy Embers and me!

While waiting for the show to start, she sat calmly in her chair and said 'Tuwn it owf Wadio'...It's only a matter of time before she join her friends on stage, too!

McFadden Fall Dallas Vacation: Part 4 The Clowns!

A big reason why my trip was planned late September/early October was so that we could attend the Lewisville Open House to be there to support the clowns and Lewisville Fire team in general.  I used to go to take lots and lots of pictures of the clowns, and when Cary came along, it made life so much easier because he and I would go opposite directions, following the clowns around all day.  Those were the productive days...before Brylee, which has since become the attention-stealer, even through a camera lens...

MissChief with the clowns!

   

Meet Model-T, 1/2 of the newest Lewisville clowns!  Love this guy!

Pictures of hot dogs, just for my love, who wasn't there to enjoy them with us...

MissChief--a very appropriate name for this one!

She loved the boat and it took a lot of persuasion for her to come down.  This below fireman was super sweet to show her around while I stayed on solid ground taking pictures. 

4 generations of Jarvis' on the Bryan Jarvis!

After the event, Brylee sporting the new October Breast Cancer Awareness shirts the LFD sold.  LOVE these!!!!

 

Gone But Not Forgetting

Weird title...but I think I'll keep it for now.

Basically I wanted to say that I have been in Dallas for the last week, and staying quite busy.  This evening was the first evening that I actually went somewhere by myself, and left Brylee at home with her 'T' for a bit.  That was an hour...to go to Target and get Pull-Ups...yeah, I took my time.

I have been taking pictures here and there, pictures of our kid interacting with her grandparents (she's attached), of clowns, of boats, and more clowns.  Which leads me to the fact that I have 5 cameras that have events of this past week on them. 

My useful, 4 year old one's screen is now trying to go out on me, dad's super awesome Nikon has locked up during an update, and now I am left playing with both of my parents point-and-shoot as well as my phone's camera.  It might take a little time to get them all together to be able to show to the world, or my 12 readers, but but I will try to start working on that now that the mornings find me without a car due to the clown skits that have started.

But for now, I am exhausted, fighting an all-day headache, and now trying to figure out the best way to collect all of the pictures of our fun week.  But I will leave you with this:

Good night!

What Is Vacation Without A Little Clowning Around?

While planning our trip to Dallas, Cary and I had the intention of trying to help out with the LAFS conference happening that Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. But other plans happened, more or less.

On Wednesday, mom suggested to dad that I play puppeteer for the Mission Safety skit that Ashes and Radio was to put on Friday. I agreed, having done it twice before, once for a school, and the other while they were video taping the show.

Brylee and her daddy watching the rehearsal:









Dad and Jeff won the Brian Collins Memorial Award this year. This award goes out to the person/people who commit so much of themselves to helping others. I think these 2 definitely deserve it!

The neat story for this: we had hung around the conference briefly on Wednesday and Thursday, and as Cary, Brylee, and I were leaving to go take care of Vader and then eat, one of the McKinney clowns stopped us and told us that he really thinks we should stick around for just about 5 more minutes. I asked if a camera was needed for this 'sticking around', and he nodded yes. So Cary, Brylee and I headed back inside, camera in hand for wait for the special award to be given out!


















On Friday, little L'Ashes made an appearance to the conference! Once she came out of her little shell (when we sang "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" as well as "If You're Happy And You Know It"), she was the hit of the show. Whoever thought something so little and 'cute' would bring several men to a circle to watch her play and dance? They were even sweet enough to let her play with some of their props!




































































Even because she was so cute, even her daddy got to play with props!













And now for some fun pictures from the day. The real guest star was Larry, a very recently ex-Ringling Bros. clown. He has always been really kind to the clowns whenever Ringling Bros. hosted a clown college for the Fire Safety clowns, and even made sure to say 'hello' to them when they were not in clown garb last year at the circus. A real nice guy, who even let Brylee sit in for a couple of the pictures.





























































And now for the performance mentioned at the beginning of the post. Radio told me that Larry had other arrangements for the day, but made it a point to come out to the conference and to stay around long enough to see the Lewisville skit. And when I found this out, I became slightly nervous...I'm doing part of a skit with a professional performer in the audience...this is definitely a first!!! (well, except for the time I found out Emmitt Smith came to see a Lewisville Fighting Farmer football game, but what are the chances he really watched the Marching Band half-time show???)

See the hand holding the 'U'? That's me! Along with holding up the letters 'L', 'C', 'E', and 'U', I also was Mrs. Dousefire. Should have taken a picture of her behind the curtain with me. We usually have some kind of conversation before going on. You know, the typical 'check' stuff...hair combed, glasses on straight, fresh breath...










And finally, a tight shot of what it looks like behind the puppet curtain for me. Didn't take any more photos, which I regret...but I bet I'll have more opportunity!









On with the show!