Day Nine: Coming Home

We are finally home after a LONG drive through Nebraska. We left Casper at 7:40 mountain time and arrived home at 7 p.m. central time. We stopped in Valentine, Nebraska for lunch. Everyone took time sleeping on the way home....even Reed and Mrs. Wooley (although the vehicle was stopped at the time). It was good to finally arrive home. We sang and talked and joked all the way home. All and all we had a great time with fabulous friends and learned a whole lot at the same time. We didn't travel 1600 miles, as we originally thought we would, we traveled 2150 miles! ....... And we all came home friends!

Day Eight

We had a day to catch up on homework and reading prior to meeting at 3:45 to go to our final performance at Kelly Walsh High School in Casper. We are staying at the Ramkota and it has tied with Aberdeen's Ramada for the first place lodging award. We gathered together to go to KW High School right on time and arrived to find a cool "real" stage to work on. We were performing for the Natrona POA(Police Officers Association). We set up in record time and had the challenge of trying to rework the chase in that giant auditorium. There was no center aisle....actually there weren't any aisles except the extreme sides which made the running through the theatre extra funny and extra tiring. We decided it was the best show yet. Everything clicks so well---once the show begins it never stops. Reed was very pleased to see a huge painted saying on the walls of the theatre corridor saying, "If you are a redhead, you need better lighting"....or something like that. Our challenge of the day was trying to get that huge 15 passenger van backed out through a tiny corridor that had poles, trees, buildings as obstacles. It was slow going......MANY, MANY minutes. Instead of going to see the movie, FAME, we stopped at Wendy's and all went home to go to bed since we have "the long journey home" to look forward to in the morning.

Day Seven

Howdy!

Today was an adventure for sure! We woke up bright and early, ate breakfast, and then headed to Billings, Montana! (Mrs. Wooley's first ever voice student, Penny, lives there and we went to visit her!) The ride to Billings was absolutely beautiful! There were tons of rolling hills, beautiful colors, and distant mountains! When we arrived in Billings, we had a little trouble finding our way to Penny....we don't trust our GPS anymore! When we finally did find her, we headed way out into the boondocks to her house. It was located at the top of a large hill, and the view was spectacular! We spent most of the day at her house playing fetch with her dog Zoey, riding Go Karts and Four Wheelers, and shooting the biggest potato gun I have ever seen in my entire life! After many hours of great fun, we left Penny, her family, and Billings and headed back to Sheridan, Wyoming to eat. After getting lost once again, we found a fantastic China Buffet. After eating, we hopped in the van and prepared for the two hour journey to Casper. On the way, we made up songs, sang along to songs, and just listened to songs. It was a very musical journey! We arrived at the hotel about an hour ago, and Emily and Mrs. Wooley headed off to Walmart to get some goods for tomorrow. They had been gone no more than ten minutes when we get a call saying they are stuck in sand. Their plan was to dig out the tires with cardboard and then use the cardboard to drive out of the sand. The verdict? It worked! They should be back any minute. Well, with everyone filled in on today's amazing adventures, it is time for me to go to bed. Tomorrow, our last show, and then Monday we head home! Until next time!

Oh, and P.S. I am the man of the day. Penny had this miniature claw machine at her house full of candy....guess who was the only one who got a piece of candy out. Right! It was me! Thanks Penny for the hospitality!

Alissa

Day Six

Hello to all!

Well, today was quite uneventful. Emily and I woke up at 8:15 to eat breakfast with the plan of going back to sleep afterward. Well, we didn't go back to sleep and we ended up watching World's Most Amazing videos and giggling every half a minute. Something that WAS eventful was the fact that our room was FREEZING! Don't worry, though. Reed came in and saved the day! Most of the day was filled with doing homework and checking Facebook and email. At four fifteen we left for the WYO Theatre (newly renovated), and arrived a little late after getting lost. Silly road construction! We set up for the show and were excited to find that we had actual dressing rooms! Well, at least the girls were excited. The show went pretty well. We adapted it a bit tonight, but the children loved it and that's what matters. We just got back to the hotel and are now having our third annual sandwich party. I am sure that we will all sleep really well tonight. Tomorrow we are getting up at 7:00 to head to Billings, Montana for the day. Then, onto Casper and then home. Until tomorrow!

Alissa

Day Five

Yesterday was quite the day--on all accounts. I thought that I had better fill you in as the others are all hard at work on their homework. We have a free day today (day six) before our evening performance at the Sheridan, Wyoming's WYO Theatre tonight.

On Thursday we woke up and had breakfast in Rapid City after that incredible performance the night before. After filling up for gas....Reed was the manly one today.... We headed for the Hills...stopping first at a place called BEAR COUNTRY where the animals were roaming fairly free through a 3 mile reserve. At one point we were surrounded by wolves....cool! Alissa took video, which we hope to get online. I think we sounded pretty silly, but you will feel like you are right in the van with us. That experience ended with a trip through Baby Land where all the babies of the various animals are housed and raised. It was a great experience and we had the most fun watching the baby bears rolling all over each other. A visit to the Cosmos exhibit deep in the forest came next. I stayed in the van for phone calls and then out in the wooded area outside to get some work done as the four actors tramped through the haunted, magical hills and came back with the news that Emily actually may be taller than Reed. We left to head for some place to eat when I realized that my camera was no longer in my pocket. The kids were great trying to look through everything to see if it had slipped out when I got into that tall van.....but to no avail. We retraced our tracks back to the Cosmos, with me crossing my fingers that the camera had been discovered by someone there and turned in. We turned into the Cosmos parking lot and saw the shiny red camera under a car. Reed ran out and pulled it out from under the vehicle, but we all knew that it was not good news as his gait slowed considerably as he investigated the camera. Surprisingly the glass was not broken, but the front side had suffered a fatal blow. Had there been grass and not gravel, the camera may have survived. I still am hoping to get the sad little thing to work.

We ate a Buffalo Buffet in Keystone and then headed for Mount Rushmore. We were listening to Karen, the Garmin Girl and she insisted that I needed to go back around to a turn off that was certainly not looking too obvious or promising. We "recalculated" and got back to that odd looking exit and found ourselves in the middle of a rutted out road in the middle of a forest. I am glad that this was not my first day of mega van driving as the skills I had been gaining the last four days all came into play and we were able to stay above the deep ruts through the winding forest.....John-Emmett said that it reminded him of Jurassic Park and Reed said that that was not very comforting as we all know how THAT turned out. After nearly 30 minutes we were through the forest...(there was no way to turn around once we started) we met civilization with a new found enthusiasm. We dumped Karen (she was from Australia) and went back to the curt and all business Carmen (the American Garmin Girl) . We decided that Carmen would have never had let us get so lost. Mount Rushmore was beautiful and I really missed my camera, but I borrowed Alissa's to take photos of the kids which we will get posted soon. We were hoping to get to the Mount Rushmore Caves, but we arrived there just as they were closing. We decided to head for Sheridan with the hope that we might stop and see Devil's Tower (I think that was the name). When we came to the exit, we took a quick vote and decided to head on to Sheridan as we had four hours to go. Alissa and I sat in the front talking college, Reed and Emily (despite what has been written...those two really do get along great) played pictionary and John-Emmett was talking on his cell. Eventually we all got on the same page and began an old Guhin family tradition of making up songs on the road. I warned them that the first time we tried it, it would probably sound gross....but it didn't! We spent the next couple hours coming up with new songs in a variety of different styles. It finally deteriorated when Reed started singing about butterflies and ginger hair and the rest of us couldn't continue without giggling. We arrived in Sheridan about 10 p.m. and dropped off our luggage in the rooms before setting out for Walmart to purchase a few things for the next day.

We are meeting at 4:10 p.m. on Friday to head for the Sheridan WYO Theatre to set up and do the show. Hopefully, alot of homework is being done right now!

Mrs. (Diana) Wooley

Day 4

Hey everyone!

Today was so much fun! It started off with having breakfast at the Ramada Inn. Then we all got in the van and listened to Reed and Emily bicker at each other for 41/2 hours until we came to Wall, South Dakota so we could see Wall Drug. Well, we saw it, and it was expensive! Oh well, it was great food and a lot of fun. Then we drove another hour to Rapid City and dropped off our luggage at the Dakota Pines Inn. It's nice and cozy. Our show tonight was awesome! We had a full house and the audience was great. Emily was very graceful, Reed was hilarious, Alissa was wonderful, and Mrs. Wooley was amazing. After the show we went to Little Caesars and got some pizzas, wings, and crazy bread. While we were waiting for our food, Reed and I practiced our new hand shake and showed all the people our dance moves. I don't think Alissa and Emily were impressed. Haha! Anyway, the food was delicious! Tomorrow, we are planning on visiting Mount Rushmore and possibly Crazy Horse and then we are off to Sheridan, Wyoming! I can not believe it is all ready Wednesday! Time goes by when you are having fun! Well thank you for reading. I hope everyone is doing well! Good night.

John-Emmett

Day Three Continued

After everyone filled into the great fifteen-seater monster van, we left for Storybook Land. Then Mrs. Wooley proceeded to hit a few curbs, and Reed and I continued to insult each other. BUT overall, the ride was great. Once we got to Storybook Land, we followed the yellow brick road all the way to the park! It was great! Storybook Land is pretty much the best place on earth. It has EVERY storybook character. We saw Cinderella, Snow White, Jack and the Beanstalk, every character from the Wizard of Oz, Paul Bunyan, Humpty Dumpty, and a ton of other characters. We did not know where to start. I think about 120 pictures were taken of our great adventure. My advice to anyone reading this: GO TO STORYBOOK LAND, As soon as you can. It is so fun. Anyway, after we got home, we decided to get dressed up and go out to eat at Minerva's. Everyone splurged, except for Reed. Apparently he doesn't know how to. But the food was great and spending time with the whole group was a lot of fun. I think everyone has enjoyed this day off. Sadly, pretty soon I will be hitting the hay because we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Hurray for waking up at 7:00 in the morning! We will post another awesome update after our show tomorrow!

Emily

P.S. I'd like to give a shout out to Reed: you smell.