O Holy Night

On Saturday night Mike and I were lucky enough to get some tickets from my sister's friend for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Concert. It was AMAZING! Natalie Cole was the guest singer and David McCullough was the guest narrator. We were up in the balcony and had a great view. Really there isn't a bad seat in the Conference Center.

It started out with a original piece by director Mack Wilberg called "O Come, O Come" which transitioned into "O Come All Ye Faithful". There was a children's choir that accompanied the Tabernacle choir and their sweet little voices sounded angelic. Natalie Cole was beautiful, gracious and her voice sounded divine. If you closed your eyes it sounded like you were listening to a CD, the sound in there is that good. I think my favorite songs that she did were "Grown Up Christmas List", "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing", and of course "The Christmas Song". This song always makes me cry. It reminds me of Christmases past and especially of my Dad.

The story part of the program was beautiful. David McCullough narrated stories about "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "I'll Be Home for Christmas". With the orchestra playing behind him he told of how these two songs helped to bring hope to our nation during WWII. I read in the newspaper that the first time they rehearsed he almost fell of the stage when the Tabernacle choir started singing. He said their singing was so powerful that he wasn't ready for it. :)

I think my favorite song of all that night though, was "O Holy Night". This is one of my most favorite Christmas songs. There was so much emotion going on in that song, it was so powerful and the spirit was so strong. I wasn't the only one wiping away tears in the audience.

What a special night that was. I was scared I wouldn't have enough energy and that my stomach wouldn't allow me to go but I was determined. I went away feeling uplifted and full of the Christmas Spirit. Even though I had to lay down in the back of the car on the way home I was so glad I got the opportunity to go. Thanks again Tiff for the tickets!

The Opera

Last night we went to Hunter's 3rd grade Opera. Every year his teacher has her class make up an opera about anything they want to. They were studying the moon and the class decided that would be a fun thing to do the opera on. The whole class came up with the story, the characters and the songs. They had someone come in and listen to the songs and then go and write up the music for them. Pretty cool!

Here are the cast of characters- Astronauts, Aliens, Police Officers, Surfers and Ninjas. Only a bunch of 8 year olds could come up with a cast like that. The astronauts were stranded on the moon because their rocket blew up and the surfers had ridden a big wave to come and find the sea of tranquility, sadly they found that there is no water on the moon. The ninjas had been banished to the moon by the police officers because of their fighting and the police officers were there to keep the peace. The aliens were from Mars and they were searching for some humans to teach them how to make fire because they were cold on their planet. Talk about imagination! In the end they all helped each other and the aliens took them all back to earth in their rocket but took the ninjas with them to Mars so they could be the aliens' "ultimate fighting machine". Ha, Ha, Ha, ...

It was super cute and they all did such a good job with the songs and choreography. I got to be in charge of the costumes and had some great Moms who helped me out. We kept it really simple and the kids loved their outfits. Here's a picture of Hunter as a Ninja and his best friend Adam as an Alien.

Here's another one of Hunter sitting with some of the surfers before the show started.

Hunter is showing me some of his Ninja moves in front of the earth he helped paint for part of the scenery.

Can I tell you how much I am loving his new school and class! I've really enjoyed how his teacher is making learning so much fun and giving them so many creative opportunities.

What a fun night we had watching Hunter participate in something I never would have dreamed he would want to do. And the best part was hearing all the dads say how much they had enjoyed The Opera.

A Big Sigh of Relief

Did you hear my big sigh of relief yesterday at about 12:15? I was sure it would be heard around the world. :) We had our primary program yesterday and it went so well! The kids sang their little hearts out and everything ran pretty smoothly, except for one small hiccup with the music stands. Let me explain.

Before sacrament meeting started I grabbed one of the music stands and placed it where I would be sitting for the program. For some reason there were three music stands in the chapel. After the sacrament I went and sat in my place and started getting my music out and my flip charts for the kids. The day before I had figured out a great system for the flip charts. I had put them on big rings and used magnets to keep them from falling off the stand while I flipped the pages. Well, our primary president starts introducing our program and I go to put the magnets on my first chart. THEY DIDN'T STICK! There was some weird coating on the stand which made it impossible for the magnets to stick. UH, OH! So I slipped behind the primary president, while she was still talking, and grabbed one of the two remaining stands.

Seated back down I quickly put up my first flip chart. The magnets stuck! But as I tried to raise the stand up it wouldn't budge. I frantically started twisting the bolt and luckily it came loose. When I stood up to lead the first song I pulled the stand up and it promptly went right back down. The bolt was stripped and it wouldn't stay tight. So I lead the first two songs without the flip charts because I couldn't get the stand up high enough for the kids to see it. Luckily the kids knew the first two songs pretty well.

I needed that third stand but I couldn't jump up in the middle of the kids who were standing in line to say their parts. Luckily I got the attention of one of the primary counsellors and she quickly jumped to my aid. She quietly crept over to the remaining stand, grabbed it and headed out the side door of the chapel. She then ran around the church to the other side and carried it up to the stand for me. I swear I must have looked like a 3 Stooges routine or something with all those stands piling up around me. The Bishopric must have either been very confused or very amused.

After we got the music stand situation under control everything went extremely well. The spirit was so strong and by the last song the tears were flowing all around, including a very emotional song leader's. I got so many compliments how well the kids sang. How thankful I am to be working in the primary. I love those kids so much and am so grateful I get to spend time with them every Sunday teaching them inspired songs with the most wonderful messages.

No Doubt

This is what the card said that my sister gave me for my birthday.

Sometimes birthday presents are PAR

for the course, but I wanted to do

something A little MORE.

I have NO DOUBT that you will enjoy it.

Be ready to go tomorrow at 6:30 pm.

Isn't that so clever! At first when I read par for the course I was like, "are we going golfing or something? Who's birthday is this, mine or Mike's?" But I quickly caught on and then I was so excited! What a great sister I have! Thanks Tiffles!

Here's Tiff and I getting ready to go. Aria decided to join in the picture. She was convinced she was going with us.

We picked up our tickets at will call and went through the first door. Ends up we were on the floor. When we first walked out we noticed there were no seats and I thought, "Oh boy, what have we gotten ourselves into?" We ended up standing the entire night while being surrounded by people jumping and dancing around. It was so much FUN! We were probably 20-30 feet away from the stage so we could actually see their faces and everything going on. There was quite a mix of people there. There were teenagers, little kids with their parents, 30 somethings all the way up to a little old grandma who was down on the floor with us!

The opening act was Paramore, who I love, and they sounded incredible. The lead singer was so surprised that the audience knew so many of the words to their songs. She was tiny, but she has a huge voice. I tried to video some of the songs but the music was so loud that the audio on the videos didn't come out very well.

When No Doubt came out everyone pushed further forward and suddenly that 10 inches of personal space you were enjoying became nada. Haven't these people heard of personal boundaries? Holy Hannah, by the time we got out of there it was like we had been standing in a sauna for 3 hrs. with a hundred other people. Don't get me wrong though, it was totally worth it to see No Doubt back together again and live! They put on quite the high energy performance. This is the only picture of Gwen that sort of turned out.

She was so beautiful and so in shape to be bouncing around the stage all night. She even brought her son Kingston out for a minute so the crowd could sing Happy Birthday to him. And when they were introducing the band they were saying where people were from. They said this one backup vocal, keyboard, trumpet guy was from Richmond, Ca and Tiff and I started screaming. Then they said his name was Steven Bradley and we couldn't believe it. Steven Bradley? Steven Bradley that played the trumpet in band with our brother Kurt? I would have never recognized him. In high school he always had a flat top and now he has these really long dreadlocks. We wished we could have shouted out "E.C. Gauchos" but he would have never heard us above the crowd.

What a fun night and what a great way to end my birthday weekend. Thanks again Tiff, you are the best sister ever!