April showers bring...not a whole lot for the Murphy's.

April wasn't the most exciting month for us. Sean kept going to work and I kept going to school. In fact, Winter Semester 2009 was my last full-time semester, which is exciting, but also sad because I love my dance friends and teachers, and especially because I love Brigham Young University and learning. Education is one of the most important things in my life, which is perhaps why I am more interested in the pedagogical aspects of dance more than the creative facets. I hope Tilly and the rest of our kids will value it as much as Sean and I do. I am planning on doing a post about these topics sometime in the future, especially defending dance as a major (you cannot imagine the reactions I get unless you are a dance major yourself), so I will go ahead and continue reporting on the events of April.

Sean and I both auditioned for performance opportunities in April, Sean for Singin' in the Rain and the Hale, and I for the BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble. Unfortunately, only one of these auditions concluded with favorable results, so I will begin with that one. The Hale Center Theater Orem held the real auditions for Singin' in the Rain at the end of March, after which the show was cast. Sean did not go to these auditions, so obviously he was not cast. As it ended up, several of the men who auditioned and were cast could not or did not want to be in the show. So why did they audition? I have no idea. Anyway, because of this shortage of men, one of Sean's bosses asked (told) him to come to a mini-audition because she knew he had some dance experience. He went, he auditioned, he conquered. That is, he was cast as one of the ensemble members.Between work and rehearsals, Sean was a busy boy. I was so proud of him for stepping up and auditioning even though the only experience with musicals he had had was playing trombone in the orchestra. The show didn't open until June, so I'll write more about it later.

On to less happy news, I auditioned for folk dance again, but this time I did not make it. I was on the Performing Arts Company (PAC) of the International Folk Dance Ensemble back in the 2006-2007 school year. It was a great experience and I discovered that I am in love with the dances of different cultures around the world. There is a folk dance concert every year called Christmas Around The World that is held in the Marriott Center, so when you are on PAC, you are the star of the show. Unfortunately, I broke my ankle on October 26, 2006, so I was unable to dance in the show, which was the first week in December. Naturally, I was devastated. I was also unable to audition for the dance major, but that was less devastating because my teachers loved me and petitioned successfully for me to be accepted without auditioning. Anyway, you can understand how my experience was marred by the fact that I could not dance. By January, I was allowed to dance again, so I still had great experiences going on tour to California, Italy, and France. Long story short, in the spring of '07 we decided to have a baby, so I did not do folk dance the following year. We first found out I was pregnant in September, but that pregnancy ended with a miscarriage in November. I mention this because I had all sorts of thoughts about giving up folk dance to have a baby, and then I wasn't having a baby anymore. Luckily, I became pregnant with Tilly right away after the miscarriage, so those thoughts went away. Since I stopped doing PAC, Sean has seen how much I miss it, so in February of this year, he suggested that I talk to Ed, the Artistic Director, about auditioning. At first I didn't think it was a real possibility, but we decided that I should talk to Ed and just see. I talked to him and he was happy to consider me for the team again, but in the end, I did not make it. Ed asks for a two-year commitment from his dancers, so I like to think he didn't take me back because there wasn't enough room on the team for a one-year dancer, but it could be because of my skill/performance level or any number of reasons. It was, and still is, hard to accept that I'll never perform on a folk dance team again. There have been many things I have auditioned for that I haven't gotten, but dance isn't one of them. I have gotten everything I have auditioned for in dance. I know this is a great growing experience for me, but I would have rather been on the team. I know I should feel like this was what was right for everyone involved, but I just don't feel that way yet. So, yes, that has been on my mind a lot the last few months. Sean has banned me from BYU folk dance concerts for a while because I seem to have a breakdown after each one.... All this said, please do not think that I am deeply depressed or anything. I really am as happy as ever!

So, apparently, even though we didn't do a lot in April, there were still many things going on. The post is a lot longer than I was expecting. Thank you for reading the whole thing if you did. Now here are some pictures from April!

Matilda loves to take baths with her turtle washcloth. It matches her turtle towel.

The Exer-saucer was Tilly's favorite toy for a few months. At least until she started crawling.

Sean fed Matilda some prunes one day and waited a little too long to clean her up. By the time he wiped her face, the outer edge had dried, leaving a prune goatee.

Every Sunday we go to Sean's parents house for dinner. On this Sunday, I took a nap while Sean and Tilly went on a walk with some of his family members. Family friend Justin Wright snapped these awesome pictures. Having Tilly stand on his hand was Sean's favorite trick for a while, until she learned how to sit down from standing.

Apparently we didn't get any pictures of me in April, so instead here is a picture of our house on April 16. That's right, that much snow in the middle of April! I'm still not used to all the snow here.