17 Miracles

Chances are  -if you don't blink-  you might see our family in a movie that came out this weekend.

At the theater.  (In Utah, but hey)

I know, right? The What Why and HOW:  Well it all started with us having pioneer ancestry that crossed in the Martin Handcart Company.  Mary Murray Murdock to be exact, although she died along the way.  Fast forward 150 years and my parents' home teacher is a producer of this movie, 17 Miracles, depicting the story of that ill fated journey.  We were invited to be extras, because we were descendants and it was totally a life stopping experience.

Watch the  movie trailer:


We were dressed, hair and makeup, the WORKS at LDS motion picture studio.  The scenery, the costumes... it felt very real and I could imagine had we all been born into that circumstance what WE would have looked and acted like.  So SURREAL!


But just in case you blink- we were in three scenes:
1) When Levi Savage makes his famous speech to the saints of the dangers they would be facing.  We were in the background AND the foreground.  Tricky.
2) a handcart breaks down in the rain and some men are arguing... we are pulling handcarts in the background.  They had a rain maker from a crane so we didn't get wet until we walked under the rain maker.
3) a night scene where the men are talking around the campfire.  We are in the background doing what women do best... pretend to make food and talking.

Our 3 scenes were filmed in one day, but it was 13 hours of takes!  I hung out with Levi Savage for lunch and learned all about his acting career, pretty interesting.  A few months later, my sister came to be in a winter scene, so I was on the banks watching them film the river crossing while they had a fake snow maker blow in front of the camera.  It was all so fascinating how everything works.  Did you know the actors in the water had waders on under their clothes?  They also built an underwater platform out in the river for the camera to get close up shots with the director, T.C. Christensen.

Here we are, our pioneer selves:

Michael getting fitted for costume.

Benson and Josh on break.

Jessica, left, Aubrey, right riding on a handcart.

My dad.  Yee HAW.

Jackson sitting with grandma. 

Michael, Aubrey and I.  This is what we would have looked like if we were pioneers!!

My sister Cynthia and her four kidlets.

They rubbed dirt on our faces.

Josh was always up to something that day.

 

I was way too happy to be a pioneer.

Alex was as cute as any pioneer boy ever was.

My Jessie.

Listening to Levi Savage's speech.  Aubrey and I plus my niece Gracie in the foreground.  He did his speech like 50 times, no joke.  How he did it so emotionally every time I'll never know.

Jessie and Grandma (my mom) waiting to walk through the rain.

Josh, really?  That's just wrong.

Pioneer Me.

Aubrey getting "taken for a ride" on the handcart.  She went all the way around!

What an honor it was to represent those amazing pioneers.  It was hard not to get emotional as I looked at my parents, my husband, my children, my sister, my nieces and nephews and to know that this could really have been us had we been there 150 years ago.

Chalk up another memory we'll never forget.

And I love that it's a true story.  Our family's story.