Tales of Shakespeare the Bard

For anyone that knows me knows I have a deep and abiding love for Shakespeare. What can I say he just makes me giddy. I have loved him since sixth grade when I was first introduced to his stories and this love has just grown. I loved teaching Shakespeare, it was my favorite time of the school year. I loved making his stories accessible to others.  About five years ago I decided that I wanted to see every one of his stories preformed before I die, lucky for me the Utah Shakespearean Festival decided last year that they are going to preform all 38 plays in his canon in the next twelve years. This served me well, seeing as I really only had the more obscure stories left to see. 

So this year I was a lucky girl and got to take two trips down to USF. The first was with my good friends, we had a delightful overnight trip to the festival to see King John (my first viewing) and Love's Labour Lost (my second viewing). 

\

a week and a half later we took the whole family down so I could take Laine to her first Shakespeare show - The Tempest (my first time seeing it too) and the others could enjoy the Greenshow. We stopped at Popeye's on the way down. Yummy fried chicken!

And of course we grabbed dinner at The Pastry Pub, a favorite of all festival goers. 

We had some time to kill in between dinner and the greenshow so we took picture. My favorite picture at the festival is with Falstaff, what I can I say, I like that fat drunk man. I have had my picture with him for the last ten or so years, now the picture is much more than me, it has four little monkeys that like to climb all over it.

Christian, being upset that I had a Shakespearean 'boyfriend' decided he needed his own Shakespeare crush, not sure he picked the best one in Juliet.

My kids like the Lear statue though. I guess that is okay. 

The girls have started to take over my love for Shakespeare. They love the kids versions of the plays that I get them. They are being taught right and were okay showing their love by hoping on his lap.

Matty though wasn't quite sure about this man and why he was forced to sit by him. I think this one might need a bit more work before he thinks Shakespeare is awesome. 

Then it was time for the Greenshow and Tarts!!! The kids loved it.

I was sad to see they have changed the tarts. In fact I did not have one on this second trip down- a first for me. Those are usually my favorite treat so I have at least two every performance. None this time though for me. The kids still liked them though. I guess only having them one year is a lot different than eating them for thirteen years.

So right now I am sitting at 24/38 of the plays seen. Many of those being seen multiple times (I think As You Like it is the most seen with four viewing, Othello a close second with three). This fall I hope to knock off one more, taking me one step closer to my goal. I am just grateful that I have people to share this love with me and the oppertunity I have to share my love with them. 

Hop on the Bradley Reading Train

At the beginning of the summer we set a goal to read  100 books by the end of the summer. It was a lofty goal and one that was going to be a challenge to read. To help us I put a reading train up around the room. Each car had the book name that we finished, the name of the person who read it, and the day that the book was finished.

 It took us a while to get the hang of it, but soon we were reading books left and right.

 We didn't quite make our goal by we did get 88 books by August 31st and 100 books by September 10th.

 James was our number one reader, reading about half of the books on his own. Eve read the most pages though finishing the last three Harry Potter books.

After we hit 100 books the kids decided that they wanted to continue our reading train. So our new goal is to go around the whole room. We are up to 108 books.

It has been a fun adventure and the kids love watching their train grow longer and longer.