Backstage with Sydney

Welcome 2019! I know it has been 2019 for like a month now. Oh well, better late than never. Happy New Year Everyone!  {January of 2018} 2018 was wild. So much has changed for me in the last year. 2018 was full of hellos, goodbyes, and see you laters. I am going to do a little year in review just for fun.  In January I took a short little trip to NYC with my dad! We got to see Once On This Island and The Play That Goes Wrong.  In February I got to see my sister Annika star as Polly Baker in Crazy For You. In March I went to San Francisco with all of my best friends and made the memories of a lifetime! In April we had our annual family Easter Party. In May I graduated High School! In June I turned 18! And so many of my favorite people came to support me on closing night of The Drowsy Chaperone. (Best birthday ever!) In July I went to Las Vegas with my favorite gals. In August I said some really hard goodb

I was so happy to be home for Christmas this year, I missed my family so very much! I flew into Salt Lake on December 19th which was Annika's 16th birthday! It was amazing to get to see her on her birthday. My family was all there at the airport among the millions of missionary families. There were 18 missionaries on my flight from Chicago to SLC. I got to talk to an elder the whole way home! After meeting up with my family we headed to Downtown Salt Lake to stay overnight and just be together to celebrate Annika's birthday. I can't stop smiling just thinking about how great it was to see my family again! And getting to spend Annika's birthday with her was more than I could have asked for for Christmas. Being home I got to see so many people that I really have missed seeing all the time! I was able to meet up with so many friends and family members and I am grateful to have a home full of people that I love. The week of Christmas was packed full. I got to

After finals week I had a few extra days before my flight back home to Salt Lake City...so I headed to the Sherwood's once again! Although, this time around, Amanda and I took a tourist trip to Philadelphia! It was awesome, I had no idea how many cool things there were to do and see in Philly! We made our first stop at the Liberty Bell. That was cool to see, and as a bonus, it was completely empty--that's right, no lines, no people. We then headed over to Independence Hall and got to walk through the whole place! Now I am not a huge history nerd, but this place was seriously cool! Everything was just as it was in 1770; the furnishings, structure, and wall paint color were all from the original building! I got the see the actual room where they signed the Declaration of Independence, and see where George Washington actually sat! You may call me nerdy, but in all honesty it was seriously cool! Then we walked down this little place called Elfreth's Alley.

I did it! I finished one semester of college! This has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I have learned so much over this semester and I am also grateful for every second I have spent learning. I will say the last week, finals week, was the most exhausting tech week I have ever known. Even though I was busy, busy, busy, I loved every second of it! I had a lot of performances to be prepared for and the biggest one was my composer project show. My 12 other classmates and myself put together a 2 hour show highlighting several major Broadway composers including; Jerome Kern, Sissle & Blake, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Kurt Weill, John Kander, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jeanine Tesori, and Johnathon Larson. I studied everything there is to know about Richard Rodgers and how he came to be one of the rulers of Broadway. We spent ten weeks putting together this devised show. We would meet, play, and creat