Miska loves LaDiDa

I've never seen such an amazing dog. This one keeps on tune while she sings. If you can't see the dog in the video, click on the title and it will link you to youtube.
have a great day.
~a

John Rutter's For the Beauty of the Earth

This is one of the songs we are singing in our concert this Spring. March 27 for any of you kids who are interested. Call me for tickets.
xxoo
~a

Hard times

Tuesday at choir, our Director, Sterling, told us that the American Fork Music School had unexpectedly closed their doors when the investor who was funding the school announced they could no longer continue.
This school was for High School aged children. It had been compared to Juilliard and was even called it's Younger Sister in the West. Juilliard had even advised and helped this school's founder.

Our choir hired different bands and orchestras from that school to play in several of our concerts. These kids are really talented and it was fun to have them perform with us. They were scheduled to accompany us at our Next Concert. The Posters have already been printed advertising them. This left Sterling scrambling to find a band. The concert is the 17th of October. His wife said dinner "was awfully quiet tonight."

But true to his upbeat nature, he smiled and said:

"This world seems to be falling apart. We are worried about our retirement, our jobs, our bank accounts, our debts, the government, the war, cost of gas and many other things. But we still have our voices. We can still sing."
"And if all our funding falls apart (we are non-profit and depend on grants and donations), we will still be able to sing. No one can take that from us. We can always meet in a church building to practice and perform if we cannot afford to pay to rent a concert hall. And we will continue to sing through it all, because it lifts our spirits."

As long as he can lift his arms, he will continue directing this choir and we will continue giving concerts. His positive attitude is contagious and lovable.

Now you know why I drive 150 miles one way every Tuesday to sing in this incredible choir. I always come home uplifted and find myself singing all week. Even in my sleep. It gives me great joy to sing with such a talented group under the baton of such a talented man.

I hope in these hard times that we can stop to appreciate a sunrise, count our blessings and remember to continue to sing.

~a
ps I changed my play list so it sings when you click on my site, to sing to you. Hope this doesn't bother you.

One Of Those Busy Weekends

On Friday, my sister, her husband and I traveled to St. George to watch their grandson sing with the Phoenix Boy's Choir. Their director was once a director for the Vienna Boy's Choir. He was very strict and they were very disciplined and very good. He was trying to be very good so he could qualify for the next tour group. And when I say "be good" I mean follow all the rules.

They really did well and I had a fine time getting to visit all my sister's friends who live in that area and with her grandson. He would be my grand nephew. He is 11 and a very fine young man.


After spending the night, we went back to Salt Lake where we performed in Murray Park Amphitheater for Armed Forces Day. We had a packed "house", which has never happened before, and we had a good concert which ended in fireworks. Two of my girls came with their husbands and family. My husband had gone to a boat builder's mess-about at Starvation Reservoir and got there after the concert, then we went to D2's for ice cream and strawberries and visiting. We left pretty late and got home by 2 and finally in bed by 3:30 which made for a really hard Sunday. Needless to say we took naps after Church, but mine turned into a 4 hour nap. Which is bad later because it is hard to go to sleep after such a long nap.

That Friday morning, I found out after the fact, my chiropractor, Rodger finally died.
I will make that another post, I want to dedicate a whole post to my friend.
~a

sleepless in utah

it's been one of those nights. We started for bed at around 9:00. We watched the early news, brushed our teeth and then settled down. The lights were turned off by 10:30. We should have drifted off to sleep pretty easily, but that didn't happen. I played Bejeweled on my palm pilot, Sailor began to breathe regularly. But Sailor has a hard time sleeping almost every night, and gets up several times in the night. True to form after about 45 minutes of peaceful sleep, he was up, I was still awake and making an impossibly high score, somewhere in the 250,000's. Again after a bathroom break, Sailor settled down again and drifted off. I decided to shut off the light and pray for my mind to shut off. But I continued to sing the song in my head that three of us women had performed in Sunday School today. And I continued to give the lesson I gave in Relief Society about serving the Sisters. It was a successful lesson, but I was still thinking about it and how much better I could have ended it by quoting a line the opening hymn:
"His adorable will,
Let us gladly fulfill,
Enter into my joy and sit down on my throne,
Enter into my joy and sit down on my throne."
What a better way to motivate the Sisters to serve than to think about the Lord telling us such a sweet thing, to sit down on His throne.
And so I sang this hymn intermingled with the one I sang in Sunday School. I had been sort of talked into singing the tenor part, which I didn't know. In practice I had it down cold, but notsomuch when we were up in front of 75 people. It still turned out OK, since we blended fairly well, but I am sure my mind was correcting all the mistakes.
And so it is now 3:45. I am watching an E-bay auction too, and maybe my mind was aware of an alarm clock going off at 3:55, so I couldn't get to sleep. Maybe it was because I was twitching, my knee giving me pain, I don't know. All I know is the two of us have been up practically the whole night. I wish my sweet husband could have gotten the rest he needs, since he has to go to work today. Me? I hope I get some rest as tomorrow I must head up to Salt Lake reallllllly early to be there by 8:30 so I can babysit my darling grandson while his brave and faithful parents go out into the world to earn the living, fulfilling the prophesy the Lord made when Adam and Eve were sent away from the Garden: "By the sweat of thy brow, shalt thy eat bread all the days of thy life."
It is not hard to babysit when I know they are both doing the very best they can possibly do.
Only 19 minutes until the auction is over, I hope I win those zig pens that normally are $108 at JoAnn's. My highest bid is only $50, but I was able to get another set for myself for only $31 plus shipping. This set is for D1. She saw her sister's Christmas gift and decided she didn't want to wait for next Christmas to get herself a set, so I promised her I would bid for them for her. And she will pay me back. Oh what a mudda will do for her kids. Wish me luck
Then maybe I will be able to settle back into bed at 4:15 in the morning and hope for some sleep.
***yawn***
a
PS I won the pens. yw D1

Cutest Ever!

I came across this cute little 3 year old singing this cute song and fell in love!

Here are the Lyrics:

You’re my Honeybunch, Sugarplum
Pumpy-umpy-umpkin, You’re my Sweetie Pie
You’re my Cuppycake, Gumdrop
Snoogums-Boogums, You’re the Apple of my Eye

And I love you so and I want you to know
That I’ll always be right here
And I love to sing sweet songs to you
Because you are so dear

This Is Amazing!

You all know how much I love music and especially vocal and choirs.
This is an amazing video. Now I want the DVD!

This explains the origin.
Hope you enjoy. I could listen all day to this
a