The Rojas - Mendez Ranch 🇲🇽🐎
Now that Esmeralda is finally here, I thought it’d be cool to give y’all an exterior tour of the Rojas Mendez ranch. 🎩 tip to the beautiful build from (Origin ID: Bookdragon4ever) , it took me three weeks while I was waiting for the horse ranch pack to renovate it in the style of the Rojas Mendes family, but it was worth it.
In my mind, I pictured what their ancestral home would look like and incorporated those features into the ranch.
There’s a second house to the left of the main where the ranch hands stay  during the busy season. There are extra beds when they need to hire extra help, as well as extra room for storage.
The ranch hand quarters lead straight into the courtyard, which lets them stay close to the horses.
Behind the quarters are the stables where their horses, Tialoc & La Llorona live. On the other side is the training area where they can stretch their legs, play and train. 
Definitely one of my favorite places; the back courtyard of the main house is perfect for barbecues, and a popular spot in the warmer weather. It leads right to Isamar’s garden, but you’ll see more of that pretty soon in the next Rojas - Mendez posts. 
I’ll be showing off more of the house soon; I don’t wanna show too much because I want you to enjoy it organically as the story unfolds.
Hope you enjoyed it!
🖤🤘🏾 
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2012 VoicePlay fall tour shenanigans
From September through mid-November of 2012, VoicePlay traversed most of the continental U.S., sharing their music and silliness. But not all of the fun happened in front of live audiences. Fortunately for us, though, the guys captured some of the behind-the-scenes hijinks and highlights, and posted them online. I've collected a bunch of my favorites here.
YouTube videos:
The Van Down By The River (VoicePlay's channel) — putting their signage on the tour van before setting forth
fake apple bite (Eli's channel) — Snacks in the travel cooler may not be what they seem.
before & after Earl eats a 32-oz. steak (Eli's channel) — and reportedly still feels great. Doing various restaurants' eating challenges was clearly A Thing on the road.
kids at a student workshop sing Happy Birthday to Paul the sound guy (Eli's channel, Layne's channel) — a sweet gesture to balance out some of the teasing he endures
Happy Fun Time with Layne and Earl (VoicePlay's channel) — late night supply runs sometimes become ridiculous
Can't take these goobers anywhere when they're overtired.
Video Response to Ino-Ogo School (VoicePlay's channel) — the guys answer fan mail from attendees of a student workshop a month before
The first rule of VoicePlay is: "Not the face!"
Tony is bigger than Elvis (VoicePlay's channel) — but he's not entirely certain how he feels about being a heartthrob to middle schoolers (headphone warning: contains excited tween shrieking)
Intermission (VoicePlay's channel) — Geoff and Layne play a pencil snapping game to amuse themselves backstage
tour van before coffee (Eli's channel) — a fun bit of animation practice from our resident digital effects geek
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Instagram photos:
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Twitter tidbits:
Part of their tour prep involved a trip to Build-A-Bear for fuzzy doppelgangers that they used for an audience participation bit.
Somebody at the Universal Studios "Beetlejuice" show (presumably Kathy) got Geoff and Tony a send-off cake.
Sometimes during student workshops, the guys arrange themselves by height.
And they're good sports during post-show photos. (If you know, you know. If you don't, stay tuned.)
Traveling musicians are sustained by coffee, soda, snack cakes, chain restaurants, and local diners.
One of their East Coast tour dates was postponed because of Hurricane Sandy. :( So they acquired some adult beverages on their way to their next hotel and hunkered down for an unexpected night off.
All told, the tour spanned "11 weeks. 20,000 miles. 62 performances." That sounds both exhausting and incredible.
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eyes zoned onto puppet trivia on that post give us the puppet trivia
Oh fuck oh shit ok - Realizing now I don't exactly know what like... is fully common knowledge and what isn't with puppets, the type I know most about (especially because I'm making one now!! Slowly, but it's coming together!) is muppet-styled hand puppets
It's really cool just how many types of that kinda hand puppet there are! That's somewhere to start - rod-arm puppets are what Piggy and Kermit and Elmo are, ones who move their arms with little rods while one puppeteer puppets their mouth. Then live hand puppets like Swedish Chef, Cookie Monster, or Rowlf use two puppeteers and glove hands (or just... Hands, for Swedish Chef) - and then Big Bird and Sweetums and so on are pretty much costumes!! And honestly the difference between animatronics and puppets is like really small if you think about it, there are all sorts of animatronic puppets!
Puppeteering Muppet-style is like... Really physically taxing also, like it's hard to think about unless you watch behind the scenes and see how long they have to keep their arms up for while remembering choreography - usually remembering the choreo like Backwards since the cameras they use flip everything they do so they need to like go the opposite direction from where you see the puppets move on screen, even now
Uhh what's more obscure puppet trivia ,, hm . Oh ! Did you know marionettes were named after the Virgin Mary? That style of puppetry was originally used for biblical stories mostly from what I remember before branching out - marionette pretty much just means 'little little Mary'
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2013 VoicePlay spring tour roundup
VoicePlay's spring 2013 tour was shorter than their previous fall tour – just five weeks – and mostly stuck to the southeastern part of the country, but that didn't stop them from packing in the fun. They made up the concert postponed by Hurricane Sandy, visited family and friends along the way, and documented a lot of their downtime on social media. Some of the guys were particularly excited about a new short-form video platform called Vine.
Showtimes:
They started close to home with a student workshop and a concert in Lake City, FL.
Geoff and Eli got up early to chat with the local access morning show folks in Cullman, AL and promote their concert that evening.
Some venues have extensive backstage areas with unexpected benefits.
Some… not so much.
No matter what, though, there's always some waiting involved.
Which can be alleviated by creating your own silliness, or fended off by middle schooler screams (headphone warning).
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On the road:
The boys left a sticker on the giant sparkplug at the South of the Border tourist attraction in South Carolina, as is traditional.
Long drives might get tedious after a few weeks, but the scenery can be very pretty.
The aromas aren't always so nice, though, especially with six guys (and occasionally a dog) in the van. So if you've ever wondered what the VoicePlay fellas smell like, apparently sometimes it's "vanilla and moonlight".
The theater kids of a cappella enjoy a bit of dress-up wherever they can find it, even if that's in the toy department during a supply run on their day off.
Tony's adorable terrier Fletcher went along for the middle leg of the tour to El Paso.
The cuteness didn't stop the guys from getting goofy during the long stretches of driving or late night shopping excursions, though.
No trip through Texas is complete without a stop at a Buc-ee's for provisions. (Which prompted Eli to give a shoutout to former 4:2:Five member Matthew "Bucky" Buckner who's been making cameos recently.)
The boys popped home for a few days just in time to see Rachel Potter in concert (with friend and future VoicePlay collaborator EJ Cardona). Layne and his then-girlfriend got a little tipsy and silly.
Fewer shows on the tour might have been easier on their vocal cords, but it also meant more long stretches in the van between gigs. At least it had a video game setup.
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Feeding the beasts:
○ Earl doing restaurants' eating challenges continued to be A Thing.
Earl hot wing challenge (Layne's YouTube) The "blazin' challenge" at Buffalo Wild Wings (a dozen spicy wings in under 6 minutes) was no problem, even playing injured. He was awarded a t-shirt and the onlookers' respect.
(Eli's Vine) He polished off another 32-ounce steak at a Texas Roadhouse.
(Eli's Vine) A tex-mex plate and beer-rita on Cinco de Mayo was easy peasy. (Followed by much silliness from everyone.)
(VoicePlay's Twitter) He was only defeated by the 72-ounce steak at The Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo. He gave it a solid try, though.
○ This one's more of a not-eating-everything-at-once challenge, but when your percussionist's little sister is a professional baker, you've gotta visit and stock up for the road while you're in town.
○ Lunchtime ambience is important, no matter where you are.
○ It's good to acknowledge the fans, no matter how famous you get.
○ And sometimes you just need to share your thoughts with the world, no matter how banal. (That's what social media is for, after all.)
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