Afternoon & Evening with Madrigals

Lunch
We left Primary Children's and while waiting for the bus, the kids had a big snowball fight. Yep, in dresses and tuxes. Quite the scene. We ate lunch at "The Pie" on University Campus. And I have to tell you, it is REALLY good pizza!

Following lunch, the kids had about 45 minutes of free time before reporting to the Assembly Hall for practice. I wandered with Julie Wiest and Kristen Risener. It was chilly, so we walked to the North Visitors center to visit. As we were walking, Kristen was telling us that she was called as the Stake Camp Director and she was having trouble getting a counselor on board with her. She said that she saw this iron rod idea on the internet that had a "Hold On" song with it. I chuckled and said, "that was ours." She said, "What?" I said, "that was the song I wrote when we did the iron rod." Needless to say, she had a lot of questions, so I told her all about it. Another cool thing happened as we were walking to the visitors center. Over the sound system, we heard, "And it came to pass that in those days, there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed......" There was a big nativity between the North Visitors Center and the Tabernacle. Julie hollered, "Hey wait a minute!" We all stopped. She said, "That's my dad!' It turns out that her dad had recorded a lot of things for the church before he passed away. I thought that was a neat tender mercy. Probably just to let her know she was being thought of!

Afternoon & Evening
As we arrived in the Assembly Hall, the kids were practicing some songs. They had ended a song and a gentleman stood up, clapping, and yelled, "BRAVO! BRAVO!" We found out later that this was the composer of the song. He was Clay Christiansen the organist for the tabernacle choir and that was the arrangement he had written. He told the kids that they had sung it so beautifully.

Also seated in the Assembly Hall was B. Murphy who had conducted the choir the night before. He went up the kids when they were done and talked to them and took pictures with them.Following rehearsal, they sang in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Boy is that a pretty place??!!

Then they headed to the South Visitor Center. They had the most beautiful backdrop to sing with. (Actually it was to their side) but it had these HUGE glass windows that looked out at the temple. The temple was lit up and so were all the lights on the trees. It was the most picturesque setting! During the last song, the boys just started laughing. I was trying to figure out what had happened. I later found out that one of the boys sang, "Do you see what I hear?" Mr. Reimer mouthed to them, "For The LOVE!" because he had lectured them earlier on the bus about singing the right words because Jadon had sung the wrong ones earlier in the day.
We had a few minutes to wait until the last concert in the Assembly Hall. Jadon and a few of the kids decided to carol on temple square on their way to the Assembly Hall. People honestly stopped and listened to them. It would have been better if they knew what they were singing.

When we got in the Assembly Hall, we came in just as another group was finishing. They were singing the "Hallelujah Chorus" and didn't sound very good. When we started the guy who opened asked the congregation to not take photos or videos. The kids began singing. Adam Hansen played the Organ. The kids sang their hearts out. It was a flawless performance. I thought it sounded like a mini MoTab. At the end of the performance, the gentleman who conducted went to Mr. Reimer and asked him if he knew anyone who had a camera. Mr Reimer was thinking that I was out there taking pictures and we were in trouble. Finally, after asking a couple of times, he said that someone needed to take a picture of the group. He came to the microphone and said what a great performance this was. I'll bet there's some parents out there who are proud. I think you need to get a picture of these kids." So we were able to get some pictures. (Well, I didn't because I didn't get my camera out quick enough.) As we were leaving two different people that were working there told Mr. Reimer that they weren't supposed to say anything to the groups, but said that this was the best performance they have had all year. Bear in mind they said that there were over 500 performances on Temple Square between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Isn't that cool???

Saturday
It was snowing when I left Salt Lake. I tried to hurry and get ahead of the storm. It actually snowed until just after point of the mountain, then it was clear all the way home. Very windy, though. The choir didn't leave until 1:00 pm. They stopped at SouthTowne Mall for lunch, then got back on the road at around 2:30 pm. The roads were so bad that they had to drive really slow and I think actually got stopped at one point. Jadon said there were cars off the road all the way down to Nephi. I think they were in snow until past Cedar. They didn't get home until 10:30 pm. That is 8 hours from SLC to home. Crazy!