There's a Y in Here Somewhere . . . .

This is where we will spend the next three weeks of our lives—preparing for the Mesa Easter Pageant.

It’s exhausting, time-consuming, fulfilling, and worth every second.

Being in the pageant keeps my family focused on why we celebrate Easter—the resurrection of Jesus Christ and His redemption of our souls. I love this time. Although it’s a ton of work to keep my family organized, fed and rested when we’re gone from 5:30-10 pm Tuesday through Saturday, I love having my family around all the time, focused on the same thing and just being together.

Brad is playing Judas this year—

He looks scary, doesn’t he? One of the assistand directors quipped, “Hope you’re not headed to the airport!”

Super Saturday was last weekend—8 am to 4 pm. We packed up the family, food enough to feed a small army, chairs and a sun shade and headed to the temple grounds to set up for the day. The day began with a two-hour orientation meeting. That was excruciating. About ninety minutes into it, Hyrum asked me how much longer it would be. When I replied about as long as Caillou, he whined (loudly!), “Why is everything always wrong for me?” This was my first clue that this was going to be a long day.

We practiced and practiced and practiced. Evie tried to nap, but it was next to impossible with this many people around. The teenagers played Uno and scum while the little kids ate cheese balls by the handful and found friends to tease.

Ben doing his best Audrey Hepburn imitation.

But the real story is about this little guy. Are you surprised? Here he's pretending to be a lion in the grass.

See how many people were milling about?  There are over 450 people in the cast, and it's a well-oiled machine, I tell you what.
We were preparing for the scene when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey--people lined the upper and lower stages. People spilled onto the grass in every direction.
I was only about five paces away from Hyrum, who was facing the stage about even with the chain-link fence in the bottom left corner.  Suddenly, I see him drop his pants and commence creating a yellow stream--right there in front of everyone on the temple grass.  I was beyond horrified.  Everyone was laughing and pointing and commenting.  I turned on the rocket boosters, hustled over there, stopped him mid-stream and scooped him up.  When we were back in the tent, I asked him why on earth he had decided to pee on the grass!
"I had to go really bad all of a sudden."
No arguing with that.
I hear the donkey also got caught with his hooves in a yellow puddle.  But I don't want Hyrum classified with the livestock.
It's a long way to Easter, my friends.

Linking up to Y with Jenny Matlock