tRUNks {The Final Episode, #103}
09 Feb 2013 Leave a Comment
in family outing, play, weekend
But, before that…we had Grandma over and had lunch with her. Then James got her an e-mail account and showed her how to send e-mails by comparing it with a typewriter and an in/out box on your desk.
We will see if we can get her acquainted with the computer at the assisted living home and then she can e-mail everyone (letters with no stamps! Imagine!) We dropped her off and donned our capes for the final performance of tRUNks at Buntport.
All good things must end and so we joined our crime fighting crusader friends: Trixie the Germ, Walter the Volt and Scott the Amazonian Scottish Parrot Psychologist (and our favorite evil/good character The Maniac) for a final story.
From the Buntport Narrator: Episode 7 (Star Wars VI: The Return Of The Jedi) by George Lucas):
Walter (Luke Skywalker) Cosmic, Scott (Princess Leia) Parrot, PJ (CP3O) Truddfeldt, Fartoo, and Wookie sneak into Big Mama Jabba Wookie’s place, where the popsicled Trixie (Han Solo) Truddfeldt is on display. Scott unfreezes his gal-pal in short order, but before they can get away, the afore-mentioned BMJW shows up, and summons her minions to capture them. Well, Walter says that’s part of his plan, and he uses his groove (and a Bantha call) to scare the bad guys away. TTFN, BMJW. They get back to the rebel base, where the Maniac (GENERAL Maniac, if you please) and Admiral Awkward Man tell them about a hatching plan: Darth Bumfuzzler is rebuilding the Mild Thang VAT, probably because that’s easier than figuring out a new way to rule the universe. Off the team goes to find and destroy the new VAT, but Walter takes a pass, saying he senses (the groove thing again) he should walk his own path. The others’ search for the VAT takes them to Forest Moon Where Trees Are Not For Touching, where they get separated through various stumbling moves.
PJ and Trixie are captured by some Pig-things (less cute than the teddy bear things from the movie, but pretty cute in their own way), who decide to eat them. Elsewhere on the planet, Wookie, Maniac, and Awkward Man find the VAT, but instead of destroying it manage to fall in, and they become mild. Big change for Maniac, not so much for Wookie and AM. Meanwhile, Walter sneaks into Team Bad space station, and faces off with his mom, Darth Bumfuzzler. Back as forth they go: “Get with the mild, kid” … “You used to be fun, mom, what happened to us?” etc. Walter starts to win, as DB starts to loosen up a bit. Enter Mild Thang, taking matters into her own hands. Meanwhile, Trixie and PJ are about become the main course for the Pig-things, when Scott reappears.
Turns out the Pig-things and other Forest Moon creatures worship him (maybe it’s the hair buns and toga). Scott saves the day, just by showing up! Off they go to destory the VAT. Back at the Team Bad space station, Mild Thang is gaining the upper hand over Walter … until Darth Bumfuzzler turns the tables and dumps glitter on her. So much for Mild Thang — no one covered in glitter can stay mild. Back at the moon, the rebels found the VAT — and witness a hoard of mild zombies. Everyone but Trixie begins to succumb to the VAT’s influence. Enter Walter, he and Trixie get down like they’ve been doing every other Saturday for eight seasons, and no one — I SAID NO ONE — is going to stay mild under that sort of entertainment!
Hugs all around, and thanks for all the great times.
After the show we gave Jessica, Mitch and Jack paper flowers that we had made with some of our favorite tRUNks photos through the years.
It was an awesome end. Thanks so much to the creative people at Buntport who came up with episode after episode to tickle our funny bones.
But, it’s not the end for family plays at Buntport. Starting on March 23 they will be running a new show called ‘Duck, duck, dupe.’ (Come dressed as a duck and get $1 off.) They will show 3 short plays, 2 are real and one is made up (2 are based on a real story that is.) The audience has to guess which story is the made up one. There probably won’t be any superheroes or capes and gold tights, but it’s sure to be fun. You can go here to RSVP for the shows.
A day
20 Sep 2012 Leave a Comment
in play, School Stuff
It was one of ‘those days’ over here, I know you don’t think we have those days, but we do. I woke up early took Joel to ACC and took Grace to the pulmonologist. She had a great appointment, she’s not sick right now so her flow rates were all good, her lungs are clear and her meds are stable. She grew 1 cm which was acceptable (actually anything over 0 would have been acceptable.) Dr. Searing was impressed when I told him that she caught a cold and got over it without nebs or extra meds, of course it did take 3 weeks to get over it and I did some back pounding during that time, but she got over it. He agreed to let her current meds ride until we’re over the Winter season and evaluate after that. He didn’t have anything to offer for the back/leg pain other than pain reliever (and then not every day) it’s just a side effect of the meds she is on and one that she will have to deal with as long as she is on them.
Here is her flow chart from today – it says that she got 84% of her air out within the first 6 seconds, really the graph is what you want to look at as it shows a baseline that you are shooting for and records the 3 tries against that – they pretty much line up (when she is sick the lines will be far below the baseline) so that tells us that she is feeling good and that her lungs are functioning at about 90%. She’s never at 100% because she has some dead tissue in her right lung, but she usually hovers in the low 90′s. So, it was a very good meeting.
From there I ran to the North side of town to pick up some items for James, then back home to finish up school with the girls, then to ACC to get Joel, then back home to clean up real quick before a play-date, then I got to sit for a few minutes and talk to my friend before we went outside to watch the local high school’s homecoming parade (with lots of candy being thrown to the kids.) Then the kids played while we talked and now I’m making dinner. It wasn’t a horrible day, just a day with a lot of running around and where I had to stuff things like cleaning and laundry into a few minutes here and there. Tomorrow will be much calmer, a bus trip to a favorite cafe’, a visit to the MOA, a ride home and then James and I will be going to an event at the Wildlife experience, sans kids.
Art, Solo, tRUNks
19 May 2012 Leave a Comment
Bethany went to the artist’s reception Friday night at 910 art gallery.
There are some really nice works there, some funny ones and some unique ones. We perused the art, grabbed a chai and went home.
Joel bought some glasses to commemorate another solo; he has a long cross country on Sunday flying to Limon, Lamar and back to Centennial.
If the weather stays nice for him he should be able to finish up this week.
Saturday we went to the last tRUNks play of the season, it was based on the book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. The crime fighting crusaders find out that there is a contest that rates do-gooders and in first place, again, is the Super Duper Dream Team and in 7th to last place, yep….Trixie, Walter and Scott. Our team realizes that they will never get to first place without adding a villain to their team (that they can turn good.) Scott goes off to bribe the judge (he gives him a cookie, then a glass of milk, then a foot rub, then a cup of coffee…)
Walter heads out to find a villain as does Trixie, while Trixie’s dad gets an unpaid internship with the SDDT to find out their secret.
Former Truth-a-maniac now named Silly-string-a-maniac pops up and sprays Trixie, she’s got her villain (but, he isn’t very evil.)
Walter ends up with Birdito the bird, who is evil and wants crackers. Scott isn’t getting anywhere with the judge, Mr. Truddfeldt finds out that the SDDT are very vain, Walter can’t turn Birdito good and Trixie can’t turn Silly-String-a-maniac evil. They all meet up to hear the results, SDDT in 1st, Crime fighting crusaders in 7th to last place…again. But, then everyone breaks into song and we are assured that big or small Trixie, Scott and Walter will be there to save us.
After the show we got some pictures, SS-a-maniac was trying to look evil.
Walter and the judge pose with Bethany.
Hannah and Scott the Amazonian Scottish parrot psychiatrist.
James and I went to Interstate for dinner and had: sweet corn jonnycake with creme fraiche, radish & spicy honey and seared ribeye with blue cheese potato salad & whiskey molasses sauce. The johnnycake was spicy and had a wonderful corn flavor mixed with the honey and radish. The steak was probably the 2nd best steak I’ve had (White chocolate grill claims the 1st place with their steak.) The blue cheese was pungent mixed with the salty sweet of the sauce and provided a blast of amazing taste for the steak. The service was a bit off due to a couple of large parties, but we were in no hurry so it was fine for us. Interstate is at 1001 Santa Fe dr.
The Bungle Games
05 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in play
The May joy dare for today was a sign, a smile, a snack – we covered all three with a trip to Buntport for tRUNks.
The sign welcomes us into a place where we can forget all of our troubles for an hour as we watch talented people perform a live comic book show based on a book (this week – The Hunger Games.)
You can’t help but smile at the wacky antics of Walter, Trixie and Scott (and evil villains) and they have snacks on top of the fridge.
In this episode, Sgt. Speckles shows up at headquarters and needs help. He’s evil, he needed the best help available, they weren’t available, so he turns to the crime fighting trio to help him.
But….Sgt. Speckles is an evil villain – why would he turn to crime fighters for help?
Speckles goes on to tell them that a mysterious voice is calling all villains to the Bungle Games and they have to fight each other, when one person pulls the logo off the other that person is banished! While do-gooder’s would want evil villains banished, Trixie notes that if the villains are being forced to compete, they need to help them. Here is Trixie waiting for the mysterious voice to tell her she’s in after she volunteers for the games. He tells her that Rule One of the Games is: Lose your logo, get banish-ed. Rule Two of the Games is: NO MORE RULES!
In a strange twist of fate, Trixie and Scott are both de-logoed by villains rather quickly. Competing with them are: the Show queen, the Close talker, the Mild thang and the Pun-isher (also Dr. Dizzy, Loco-martian and Do-do brain, but they don’t last long.)
This leaves Walter on the ground huddled in a fetal position, but then he finds the power to stand up and armed with cupid’s bow (a bonus gift he received for defeating a villain) he defeats the Show queen. Their battle is ferocious, in a dancing, showy sort of way, until Walter gains the upper-hand … then refuses to grab Show queen’s logo, defying the mysterious voice and his ridiculous bullying competition. Then the mysterious voice unbanishes everyone.
Walter ends by telling everyone that all this fighting has made him….hungry.
tRUNks does Mark Kate and Ashley
11 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in family outing, play, weekend
This is how awesome the Buntport tRUNks crew of actors and actresses are: they took the book suggestion Mary Kate and Ashley: Camp Crooked Lake from Bethany (sorry guys) and came up with a 45 minute live action comic book play about it – and it was funny (and no guys had to dress up as girls.) James made it home in time to go with us and he even wore a gold cape (therefore – no pics of Dad wearing a gold cape!) But, here are the girls with their new capes – almost done. I still need to add buttons or velcro or both for closures (we just pinned them.)
We started the play with Walter, Scott and Trixie playing cards for invisible peanuts, then a detective waltzes in and tells us that Walter and Trixie are criminals!
How can that be? He introduces evidence of footprints, hair samples and a poorly drawn cartoon with 2 characters that look like they might be Walter and Trixie. Off they go to jail where they meet….the Truthamaniac (if you’ve been keeping track – he was the Insomnimanaic, the Chipmunksamaniac, the Tricksomaniac, the Stinkamaniac…) now he has a truth machine that makes you tell the truth …..even when you don’t want to…I guess that is evil? Anyway, he knows who framed our heroes and just then evil Walter and evil Trixie dash across the stage. They are headed off to tap on the aquarium glass and steal cookies from 2nd graders…..very evil…
The Truthamaniac takes Walter and Trixie to Crooked Lake, code for an evil lair where they find Mrs. Nomer creating evil clones of seemingly innocent items like teddy bears and caped crusaders.
(Oh yes, to get into the lair Trixie and Walter had to dress just like the Truthamaniac.) She unwittingly tells them that every evil clone has a weakness and it’s the same weakness as the original. Aha! The do-gooders go to the underground lair and try to stop evil Trixie and Walter, but alas our heroes don’t really want to tell what their weakness is….so Truthamaniac buzzes them until they do (turns out Trixie’s weakness is nonsense words and Walter’s is the chicken dance.) Singing ensues, everyone belts out a tune, evil Walter and Trixie turn good and all is well.
But then! What the Flibbertygibbet! Evil Scott comes out, but it’s okay because we all know what good Scott’s weakness is (Trixie.) So, Trixie loves on evil Scott and he turns back into just a Scott clone (although a bit more messy in the grooming category.)
After the show Hannah was telling evil Walter that she knew he was evil because his costume didn’t match original Walter’s. His belt buckle was really an ‘M’ turned upside down, his headband was a ribbon, his pants weren’t quite the right color of yellow and he talked funny. The next show will be on Feb. 25th and the book the play comes from will be Pippi Longstocking.
After we got home James and I went to dinner and then to a surprise. I bought tickets to the Chocolate Swirls Jazz dance here in Highlands Ranch. I thought, it has chocolate, it has jazz, so there is something for both of us! Normally all we do for Valentines day is Taco Bell (it’s a tradition), but since we were 7,000 miles apart last year on Valentines and he was in a war zone, I thought he deserved a better time this year. We were in the minority age wise at the dance, there was one couple there celebrating their 60th date anniversary! We’re only up to 22 this year (date anniversary, the wedding one coming up is 20.) We got our picture taken (once they come in I’ll post it), had dessert at the chocolate bar and enjoyed some nice jazz. We even danced to two songs, it was funny because we were looking at everyone else to see how they were holding arms and hands and where they were moving their feet. We felt a little silly, but it was fun (and no toes were stepped on!)
tRUNks and Frills
28 Jan 2012 2 Comments
in play
Before we went to the play we stopped in at Frills.
Bethany had some chocolate, Grace had a marble cupcake, I had an almond one and Hannah had…icing.
She doesn’t really like cake, so Anne gave her two dollops of 2 kinds of icing. We also got to sample some cake ends (Frills has a show tomorrow so they were trimming cakes) rum cake and strawberry balsamic vinegar.
The episode today for tRUNks was based on the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
It started with Mr. Truddfeldt bemoaning the fact that he couldn’t get his automaton to work, it was missing a piece….a piece that his grandfather probably has or had but he lived in the past…..Walter runs off to find the time travel treadmill and Trixie and Scott come in fighting about Paris (she wants to go, Scott says the Scottish and French hate each other and produces a history book page about it. Apparently the French hate the way the Scottish wiggle with singing and the Scottish hate the way the French sing without wiggling.) Of course, Walter finds the treadmill and pops back into 1930′s Paris. Mr. Truddfeldt says Oh!
In 1930′s Paris everyone must wear a moustache (why, we’re not sure why) but this means Walter is in trouble!
Mr. Truddfeldt pops a moustache on Scott and paints one on Trixie and they rush off to find Walter. Walter has already found Mr. Truddfeldt’s grandpa and Trixie is in search of a French ally to help her rescue Walter before the French moustache police haul him off to the Bastille.
Trixie find the Duke of Debris (aren’t you Captain Trash she says? No, Debris is not the same as trash, especially when you say it with an outrageous French accent!) Meanwhile Scott has found a Scottish ally and both of them are also headed to help Walter, I mean capture the automaton, I mean….well it was confusing. Walter gets the magic nose (to fix the robot – automaton in the future-uture-uture), the French and Scottish make up, everyone who needs to gets back to the future does and Walter gives the magic nose to Mr. Truddfeldt.
The automaton comes to life and…..it plays peek-a-boo. Walter is impressed.
The great thing about a live play is that you never know what’s going to happen (remember Walter’s ripped pants) well today Hannah (the Duke) mis-said something and giggles abounded. Mr. Truddfeldt was crying, Trixie was trying not to laugh and Walter held it together the best. I guess it’s pretty hard not to laugh when the audience is laughing with you.
Oh, and Bethany’s book choice got picked for the next episode, we’ll have to see which boy ends up being Mary-Kate and which one plays Ashley (there are more boys in the cast than girls and Walter and the Insomnomaniac did have to wear dresses in the Cinderella episode…) In case you couldn’t tell, Bethany was Rainbow girl (she colored her hair red, blue and yellow on the side) Grace was Whale warrior (she had her cape off at the end) and Hannah was Rock star girl (complete with pink hair stripes and blow up guitar.)
tRUNks superhero edition
18 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in play
Guess who came in on an earlier flight and got to come see tRUNks with us?
Daddy!
The play today was based on the book Knuffle Bunny Free about a little girl who loses her stuffed bunny on a plane trip (sounds familiar…) Anyway, bunny ends up in China and she learns how to live with out him. Then on the plane trip home whom should she find stuffed in the seat back pocket of the plane? Knuffle bunny! She gives him to a crying baby (something Grace thought was sweet, but she’d never give travel bunny to anyone – crying or not.) So, the show was based on that book, Walter was the one who ended up lost after their rocket trip. Trixie ends up at the superhero rendezvous point, but presses the wrong button, which leads to other superheroes showing up instead of Walter. The superheroes that were the winners of the drawing contest came to life, superheroes such as: Rainbow sparkle fairy, Pickle man, Mighty man, Jumper, Eyes, Super Eliza, Duct tape girl, Silent wolf, Earth clean up monkey and a few others. We were introduced at various points to the origins of the heroes, how they got their powers and what they do. Mighty man and Jumper took off with Trixie to help stop the Chipmunksamaniac – yep, the Insomnimaniac changed his name yet again and was trying to perfect a machine that would turn humans into nuts in order for his brain washed chipmunks to eat. Of course, he was defeated, just then Walter ripped his pants and Duct tape girl ran into action.
She duct taped him and then attached a few other superheroes to him and they shuffled off the stage.
We got pictures with Rainbow and Duct tape girl.
Hannah was playing with the buttons on the superhero rendezvous point while Scott the parrot and Super Eliza watched.
The Buntport crew did an awesome job making the costumes of the superheroes match the drawings the kids did, look at Duct tape girl, she’s practically leaping off the page into real life!
Another great episode again. We left there and went home after shopping and James finally got to see the sign on the garage. It was a long day, but we’re glad to have James home and this will be a great Christmas for sure.
And the winner is
09 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in homeschooling, play
Grace’s duct tape girl. Friday there is a reception at the Lighthouse writers guild for the writers and winners, there will be food and prizes and everyone gets to see all of the art and stories. But, the BIG news for Grace and the other 9 winners is that their superhero is going to come to life on stage at the next tRUNks play on Dec. 17th! So, in just over a week we get to see duct tape girl in real life.
If you didn’t read the girls stories you can see them here.
Very cool, Bethany was very happy for Grace….Hannah not so much. They both forgot the other rule of writing for the contest – the character needed to be able to go from the paper to a real life person portraying them. It’s pretty hard to stretch like silly putty or fly on stage, but applying duct tape to a costume is doable.
The next tRUNks play is Dec. 17th at 1 or 3pm at Buntport.
Pretzels with a hint of peanut and tRUNks
03 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in play
Curse you pretzel makers who take the same brand of pretzel, but make it on a line that has – at some point- peanuts happily trotting down the same path! I bought the same brand of pretzels, but instead of sticks (which they were out of) I bought the regular looking pretzels. Fast forward to last night after the concert. Hannah was stuffing her face with pretzels. Fast forward to 1am-1pm today when Hannah, who is allergic to peanuts, got rid of every trace that was in her body. Oh yeah, a great night and morning.
She was stoic about going to the tRUNks show though and since she hadn’t thrown up in a few hours we went. It cheered her up to see Walter in his snowman turtleneck chasing after the villainous Miller moth who had destroyed Walter’s sweater.
Trixie, who was still a pumpkin, was transmorgrified back into Trixie..well….kind of. Her brain was still 30% pumpkin and she was a mermaid, a very tired mermaid.
Scott was running errands for Trixie, Trixie’s Dad was fixing the transmorgrifier (which, he remembered, had a reverse button on it), the Miller moth was eating holes in clothing and the detective was praising Trixie for saving the day…even though it was her fault the moth got away. In the end the moth was caught and the clothes were saved.
Yep, that is the way the heroes save the day in Dendiggityopolis. We were dressed as SuperMom (duh!), Flower girl (Hannah), Shadow girl (Grace) and Fire girl (Bethany, though I think by the time she took the picture with Walter her face paint had faded.)
The weather man was wrong about the amount of snow we were getting, so I had to shovel real fast before we left. See, my sidewalk is done.
I only do half of the front porch because I’m lazy.
A better end to the day that started off irritating.
Brrrr and Superheroes galore
12 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
in co-ops, play, School Stuff
Joel went through his accounting work today and got caught up except for a test. Most of the assignments seemed easy, which makes me think they were wrong, but we’ll see. The girls worked downstairs while I got ready for History club. I only made one meeting in Nov. so we did the Arctic and Antarctic. A map of Antarctica here, suitcase cover here, map and information about the Arctic here. You can use Earth viewer here to see the globe and continents with night/day added in. Blubber mitts here, we didn’t get to do these today and learn more about sea ice here.
Here are the books we read today:
This book has really serene pictures and in a round-about way introduces ocean currents.
Antarctic Antics (hey, that’s an alliteration!) had some really funny poems in it, the kids thought this one was gross.
(Can’t read the print?)
It’s been one whole hour since I ate,
Why is my dinner always late?
While you and Mom procrastinate,
I might become a featherweight.
You know what I’d appreciate?
Cough it up, Dad! Regurgitate!
Another good Arctic book with nice pictures.
There’s a movie coming out in Feb. about another trapped whale incident from 1988. The whales in this story were belugas, in the other incident they were gray whales. Both sets of whales were eventually freed from their ice holes and made their ways back to the sea thanks to ice breakers and determined natives. We made snowflakes, either colored or wrapped with yarn.
I think we’ll do some more for decorations in the basement. Then we watched (or tried to) Eyewitness video: Arctic and Antarctic.
The girls and I then headed over to Buntport for a superhero acting workshop. It was to flex the mind muscles and get them thinking about what type of superhero they wanted to write about for the Lighthouse writing workshop. They wiggled, spun, jumped, and laughed for about an hour.
I think that counts as PE and language arts. For dinner we took some friends out for pizza, it was good (Franks Pizza) and their calzones were huge. Somehow Bethany and Grace managed to eat an entire calzone on their own. Too bad they didn’t save half of it, now I have to buy them dinner tomorrow.
Plants and poets with big noses
10 Nov 2011 2 Comments
in co-ops, play, School Stuff
Hannah had a co-op this morning and Noah was going too, so she picked out a pretty dress to wear. The co-op was on plant propagation, asexual reproduction, genes and cells.
Hannah planted: strawberry, garlic, potato, carrot and aloe vera. They talked about how these plants will produce baby plants that only have one parent. So hopefully the genes and cells from these plants will produce healthy offspring.
We’ve done potatoes and carrots before from cut stems and eyes, but seeing the garlic, aloe and strawberries take root and grow leaves will be neat. Here’s a site that talks about different ways to get plants to grow.
We weren’t home long before we were off again, this time to go see Buntport’s traveling show: Ode to an Ode.
There is the poetry loving, swooning female of the play – Roxanne. Poor Cyrano, all he wants is to tell Roxy how much he loves her, but alas! He thinks his nose will impede their love. In walks Chris, he’s a bumbling guy who writes key chain sayings for a living.
He finds a note and reads it to Roxanne who believes she has found her secret admirer.
Cyrano agrees to help Chris woo Roxanne and shows him poems from the Longfellow to Shakespeare. Here they are reciting The Wreck of the Hesperus, with dramatic pop-up book action!
Cyrano reminds everyone that the pen(cil) is mightier than the sword.
Buntport makes their own costumes and sets, this set was cool.
It’s a bookcase in back and in the front some of the books come out during the show.
They did a great job, as usual. Mitch (Chris) told us that Jessica (Trixie from TRUNKS) would NOT be playing the part of Cinderella at the show next week. She’s having surgery, so the part went to……well, we know, but you’ll have to come to the show 11/19 at 1 or 3 pm and find out for yourself. Go here to make reservations.
Went home, got Joel, went to CAP, the girls did some schoolwork at Burger King and we’ll be heading home in a bit.
