Tour in a nutshell

So I thought I'd be able to keep a blog on tour... That was a joke, haha, fat chance. First off I didn't have the internet most of the time, so I'd try to keep something on my computer then copy it later, but that wasn't working right with the fonts and stuff (look below), so I just kind of forgot about it. It did make my life a lot easier. :) But here's the quick recap:

Tour was, like always, incredible. We stayed with awesome families, some with full families, others just an elderly couple, but they all had wonderful insights and views of life that influenced me. There were a few in particular: the McDermot (sp?) Family in Rancho Cucamonga taught me how life is too precious a gift to be serious all the time. Yes, be responsible, but for pete's sake, have fun with life (but be responsible). The Hobbs in Palmdale basically lived off of a healthy dose of sarcasm that was hilarious and worked well with the family. Sister Wood (??) in Mesquite was an incredible example of the importance of geneology. There were many.

Our concerts and firesides were wonderful too, even if there weren't many people at some of them. Our tour motto was "You can be for them." And we were the right people at the right time for some of those people. The most memorable for me was not in a concert or a fireside, but rather at the City of Hope in Duarte, California, where we put on a short presentation. We sang for about 15 minutes or so, then just went out to mingle with the patients there. After 20 minutes or so of that Dr. Staheli (our conductor) began rounding up the choir back into the bus. I was chatting in Spanish with a woman from Guatemala who was there with her friend, an elderly woman from Finland, who was speaking Finnish to our quasi-Finnish choir member Brent. Well, those of us who were there decided to sing for her our one-and-only piece in Finnish, and only the first verse. It was wonderful and made her cry. She let us know that her grandmother was a friend of the composer, that she loved the music, and was all smiles despite her medical condition. Brent later told us that the last verse ends with "Behold the bliss of vanishing life." I started crying right there...

The rest of tour was just wonderful, of course. We ended in Las Vegas and that night had fun with other choir members on the strip. We didn't want Dr. Staheli to know, because he'd probably veto a late night excursion, so we went in "secret". Except that we ran into at least half the choir around the Bellagio, so...great secret. But it was a blast. :) Especially that huge keyboard on the floor at FAO Schwartz. That thing + music majors = very embarrassing moment. We did have a few sonatas going well, though, before it closed...

The next morning all the choir headed back to Provo in the bus (6 hours, gag), but Ben and I boarded a less-than-3 hour flight to Fort Worth, Texas and got home just in time to celebrate Mom's birthday (May 10).

It was a great 2 weeks :)