Star Wars in Concert

Last night we went to see Star Wars in Concert. The girls have been begging us for two months to buy tickets, but we keep responding by saying how expensive the tickets are. Little did they know that Gma Carol had already bought us all tickets for our birthdays! When the girls found out they were ecstatic!!

The show started at 7:00pm, but at 5:30pm we were could go in and see a huge display of memorabilia and props from the Star Wars movies. There were displays of costumes, drawings, weapons, helmets, and much more! There were so many people there, the crowds were crazy, but everyone was polite and took turns. It was great! There were a lot of people dressed up in costumes. It was especially fun to see all the kids dressed up in their favorite characters! We saw a whole bunch of people that we know there!! Star Wars fans are a great bunch of people!

Katrina was a bit weirded out by the mannequins (she only had her photo taken in front of a picture of the Death Star and nothing else), and a lot weirded out by the crowds. Often there was a display of a favorite prop, like Han Solo encased in Carbonite, right next to a group of characters to have your photo taken with, so it would get really backed up. Katrina was disappointed too that there was no Princess Leia or R2D2 (we all were), so we waited on the balcony while sisters got their photos taken.

Amanda and Rebecca were thrilled to be getting their photos taken with all sorts of characters: Darth Vader, Rebels, Obi Wan Kenobi, Boba Fett, Stormtroopers, and much more! They even got an autograph from the actress who played the Ewok Tukkut in The Return of the Jedi. (She's the one who takes away Han Solo's gun.)

There were all kinds of mannequins of costumes on display from the movies, like Chewbacca, C3P0, Queen Amidala, Kit Fisto, Ewoks, Imperial Guards (one of Lora's favorites), and Yoda.

We went in to find our seats a few minutes early, and had something to eat. Katrina had been telling us about ever 3.5 minutes how hungry she was, so we coughed up $25 for hot dogs and a pretzel. Yikes!!

When the music started, the place erupted with cheering!! It was so cool!! The Star Wars music is so recognizable and creates such an emotional response. Kevin and Lora both said that it took them right back to when they were eight and experiencing all of it for the first time!! It was wonderful!!



The orchestra and the choir were amazing!! Perfect!! They played the music from the films while giant video screens showed clips from the movies. Anthony Daniels, who played C3P0 in all the movies, was the narrator, and he was very funny. (There was not nearly enough about Han Solo though!) The lights were all over the place and there were laser lights flashing that looked cool, but mostly just blocked your view of the videos on the screen. We could have listened to them play all night, and we were happy that they played an encore! Although, at the end the battery in our camera was dying, so it worked out okay.

We had a wonderful time and enjoyed it very much!! I think a marathon of Star Wars movies is next on the agenda! : )

See all our Star Wars in Concert pics HERE.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We have been seriously busy this last few weeks, so we haven't been able to stop and share all the fun stuff we have been doing!

Thanksgiving was great! That is one of my favorite holidays. No gifts, no decorations, just focusing on good food and what we are grateful for in life. Not to mention the fact that I have Mayflower ancestry. Isaac Allerton and his family. Kevin's parents were in Nevada with his sister, so we got together with the Molloys and Kaufmans. We each brought a part of the meal and then all got to take home leftovers. It was great! We all played games and had a fun time.

The weekend after Thanksgiving we put up the trees. This year we bought a new 6.5' pre-lit tree and absolutely covered it with thirty-two years of ornaments. You can barely see the tree! The other tree is all my nativity ornaments. We get a new ornament each year. This year I got a monarch butterfly ornament for the family. Amanda got a silver A, Rebecca got a pink tiara, and Katrina got a handmade Little Einsteins ornament (I just can't justify paying Hallmark $15 for the 3D one that plays the theme song).

On 2 December, we went for the opening walk-thru night of Christmas Tree Lane with the Molloys and the Kaufmans. We walked the two mile route in two hours (including a potty break with a very long line) and got to see all the displays up close. Many of the displays have been there since Kevin and Lora were kids, and others were brand new this year. We have many favorites that we look forward to seeing each year. The older kids were so excited to get to look for all of Santa's reindeer up close! They found Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph. When we got back to the cars, we had hot chocolate, hot Tang, and really yummy gingerbread cookies that Andrea had made. It was a late night, but a lot of fun.

On 4 December, the girls went to make gingerbread houses at the Library. We have been doing that since Amanda was eighteen months old. Amanda is glad that there is not an age limit so that she can still go and do them. I am glad that Amanda is still wanting to go and that it has not gotten too "cool" to do it anymore.

On the 7th, Lora and Andrea Kaufman sang a song called "Baby Christ Child" for the prelude in Sacrament Meeting. That night we went up to Mom and Dad's in Auberry and we helped Dad put the lights on the tree out in the yard by the driveway. They had a live tree about six years ago when they first were building the house, and they planted it next to the driveway. Every year Dad puts lights on it. This year it is probably 12-15' tall! We were going to take a few photos next to the tree so that we could play around with the ideas tat we had and and then retake them later. Well, as luck would have it, we actually got the nearly perfect photo! The tree looks great, we are all smiling, the sun had just set so there was a beautiful glow in the background, AND. . . there was a star in the sky right behind us! (It is actually Saturn, but at this range, it looks like a star.) It turned out great!

On the 9th Rebecca went to the library for a Christmas Storytime and got to make an ornament. It is pink.

In between all of this Amanda has been having meetings twice a week at our house with the Odyssey of the Mind group. They are just about to get their first trial structure made so that they can test it.

On 11 December the Relief Society had their Christmas Party and I was in charge of it. It went really well. We had a progressive dinner of sorts and the soups were especially delicious! The focus was on service and we had a Christmas decoration swap and a Service Swap. Each sister filled out a card with a service that they would be willing to give to another sister, and then the cards were drawn in a "White Elephant" type game. It was a lot of fun! We also had several really wonderful stories that the sisters shared about how giving and receiving service has affected them. It was a lovely evening, and, as we hoped, the fog delayed it's encroachment until after we were done and home.

On 12 December we went to the Ward Christmas Party. This year was a dessert party, so we made fudge. Yum! We took the photos of Amanda and Rebecca with Santa just like we did last year. (Katrina again refused to have anything to do with Santa, even when we offered to sit on his lap with her.) Members of the ward shared family traditions and memories of Christmas and we sang songs. The kids got to decorate cookies. It was fun.

On Saturday I got together with Andrea, Cory and Camille to practice "O Holy Night". I am really proud of myself, because the version that we are singing did not have an alto line, and so I figured out what notes I would sing and created the alto line for Camille and I to sing. I took it to my piano practice on Wednesday and Sister Moses was really impressed and helped me to tweak a couple of spots so that it sounded even better. We practiced really hard and got to the point where we could have sung it a capella if we had to. We got so many compliments when we sang it on Sunday. It sounded so good!

Now we just need to make our Christmas cards and get the last few presents taken care of so we can get things in the mail!

Primary Presentation

Today was the Primary Presentation in our ward. Amanda was the Narrator and Rebecca had a talk and sang the first verse of "When Jesus Christ was Baptized" with her friend Brooklyn Kaufman, who sang the second verse. The girls both did really well and the whole Presentation was really nice. The children did a great job. One of my kids from my Valiant B class gave a talk about prayer and told a story about how his family had prayed to find his mother's car keys. I was so proud of him for sharing such an important experience that he had.

Speaking of my Valiant B class, I was released today. I have known about it for a while, as they told me about the change a little over two weeks ago, but I wasn't going to be changing until after the Primary Presentation. So, today I was released and taught my last lesson. It has been a hard change for me. As much as I have complained about the kids and how much they drive me crazy, I was heartsick to learn that I wasn't going to be their teacher any more. I love teaching the Book of Mormon, so I was sad that I won't get to finish that either. Their new teacher is going to be great though, so I am not too worried. The release also means that I won't be the Activity Days leader any more either.

Change is the most unchangeable part of life.

Our "new" OLD piano

We had two sources that we were looking at to try to find out how old our piano is - BlueBookofPianos.com and the Pierce Piano Atlas. We used the online questionaire on BlueBookofPianos.com, and we checked the library system for the piano atlas, but it is a reference book so we can't check it out, and the nearest library that had a copy was in Coalinga. I called the library and asked if they could read the information to me over the phone, but instead the very nice librarian copied the information and mailed it to us.

Both the Pierce Piano Atlas and bluebookofpianos.com give us a year of manufacture for our piano of 1916. Wow! By comparison, the Biola Congregational Church building we received the piano from was built in 1921.

Our "new" piano

Okay, so this piano is NOT new, but it's ours! We finally have the piano that we have been trying to get for a few months now. Our piano teacher works with the choir director at Kerman High school who is also the choir director at the Biola Congregational Church, and they had this piano in one of their classrooms that has been sitting for years and they were offering it to anyone who would come to take it away. It took awhile before we had a weekend free to go get it, and today was it!

We had help from Ed Hagar, who brought his trailer, Eddie Molloy, Steve Kaufman and then Ryan Hergenroeder, our across the street neighbor, brought the keys to unlock the church for us.

We had never seen the piano before, so we weren't sure what to expect. Although it is obviously well used, with scratches and dings, etc., it is a beautiful piano. It was set on casters, so it was easier to move than we expected, and when the guys went to push it up the ramp onto the trailer, it went on MUCH easier than we all expected.

We all went back to Kerman and then unloaded the piano. This actually turned out to be the most difficult part of the process. Getting it over the threshold and then over the wood floors without gouging them was the challenge. We rolled the piano onto a rug and then pushed it across the floor, which worked out well.

We put it into the spot where it is going to sit for now and then got to cleaning it and taking a good look at it. It is really dusty but very pretty inside. It is BIG and takes up a lot of room. The living room just got quite a bit smaller.

We are now the proud owners of a Royal Cabinet Grand piano that was manufactured by the Krell Company. It is mostly in tune, and it is definitely going to need some work, but we are so glad to have a piano in our home now. We have been going over to the chapel as often as we could to practice, and that is difficult and time consuming. It will be very nice to be able to sit and practice here at home when it is convenient!

We have tried to do a little bit of research on the internet to try to find out what we can about this piano and how old it is. What we have found out is that the Krell Company made pianos between 1889 and 1949. We are hoping to get more information soon that will narrow down. We also are going to get it checked out and tuned soon as well.

We are very grateful to have this piano!

-Lora

See all the pics HERE.

Las Vegas - Nightwish!

Nightwish - Part 2! It was amazing! It was so much fun!

Kevin and I headed into Las Vegas yesterday (I will blog seperately about our whole trip) and went to the Nightwish concert at the House of Blues. We had decided we were going to be here after we heard the first two or three notes played at the San Francisco concert in November! This time we had purchased the VIP tickets which meant that we not only go to see the concert, but we got to go in early, AND we got to meet the band!

We picked up our tickets at 5:30pm and then hung around the casino (The Mandalay Bay) for a little while before we had to get into the VIP line. HOB Security checked everyone's bags and wanded everyone. At 6:30pm we were ushered down to the Music Hall and the band was sitting at a table signing autographs. We were the last ones in line so we got to say a little bit more to the band than those before us. (We were kind of being hustled along by the HOB security.) At the table was Marco, Annette, Emppu, Jukka and Thomas.

We had been given a poster to get signed, but it was an HOB produced poster, not an official Nightwish poster, so thankfully we had brought the "Dark Passion Play" CD booklet and we had them sign the center where all their pictures are. We talked to Marco and told him that we had seen the band in November at Slim's in San Francisco. Kevin talked to him for a minute about the pros and cons of playing a small club. Anette asked where we had seen them before and we told her how glad we were that she was a part of the band now and that she was fantastic. By the time we got to Emppu the CD booklet was all the way down at Tuomas, so I looked at Emppu and just said, "Hi!" Next was Jukka and I gushed about how great a drummer he is! Then I told both Tuomas and Jukka that we had seen them in San Francisco and that we were glad to get to see them again. I asked them if they were going to play "Planet Hell" and they said no, not this tour. Tuomas said maybe next tour. We told them that we would just have to come again. We started to walk away, and then we suddenly thought we should ask to take a picture of the whole band together, but the HOB security would NOT let us go back, even though we were only a few feet away from the band. I was really disappointed that we had not thought of that sooner. Arg!

We went back upstairs and stood in line again. We also had to check our camera, as HOB did not allow cameras into the concert. At 7:00pm they let us back down to the Music Hall. We went down and were the second layer back from the center of the stage. We stood there for about a half an hour before the opening band, Sonic Syndicate, came out. They are a band out of Sweden. They have a drummer, two guitarists, a female bassist, and two singers. I use the term singer loosely, as they basically screamed into the microphone for a half an hour. We might have enjoyed them more if we could have understood a word they said. Actually, they spent more time telling us to spend money buying their CDs than the did singing. I am exagerating, but not by much. Apparently the guy in front of me knew their music though, as he nearly head-butted me a few times doing his head-banging. The sound was weird too, the bass was turned up so loud that we could hardly hear the guitars at all. All we could hear was the bum-bum-bum-bum-bum of the bass. They were done and then there was a half an hour set change.

At 8:30pm Nightwish came out! The whole audience just came alive, jumping up and down, singing along with the band from the moment they started the first song! This time I knew a lot more of the words to all the different songs so I was able to sing along even more than before! It was great! Musically, the band had made some changes. One, I think Annette knows more of the older songs now, so there were quite a few more of the older songs in the concert (The Siren, Wishmaster, Dark Chest of Wonders, Nemo, Sleeping Sun, Higher Than Hope, I Wish I Had an Angel, and, I think, Ever Dream). She put her own voice to them, or in other words, it was obvious she wasn't trying to sing them the way that Tarja did. Annette did a fantastic job! (I recently heard that in the last week or so she had done her 100th concert with the band! Congrats to Annette! Here's to hundreds more!) Two, there were more keyboard in some songs, and more guitar in others. For example, Emppu was out playing an acoustical guitar with Marco on The Islander, instead of just Marco. They seem to have added a lot more SOUND! It was great!

From their newest album, they also sang Bye Bye Beautiful, The Poet and the Pendulum, Amaranth, Sahara, Whoever Brings the Night and The Islander.

It is obvious that they were having a blast! On the bigger stage they had a lot more room, and a lot more fun! It was really different being so close to the stage. In San Francisco we stood off to the side, but here we could see the whole stage and it was awesome! We got a few photos on our cell phone, which aren't as great as the photos we got in San Francisco, but at the same time, we got to enjoy the whole concert rather than focusing on taking photos.

Being down in front was a totally different for another reason. (This is my only negative comments about this concert!) Actually I had two separate experiences that were good and bad. I was actually amazed that we had not been crushed as the audience surged forward when the band came out. I was pleasantly surprised that everyone seemed to stay put. Kevin was standing behind me for the whole concert. But then after the first few songs a very tall, sturdy girl came pushing her way up to the front of the crowd, pushed from behind by a bigger guy. This tall girl completely squished a much smaller, petite girl who was standing next to me. The small girl was crying and scared. I turned to the tall girl and yelled to her that she was squishing this girl. She looked at me as if she could have cared less. It was frustrating to me, as I wanted to be able to help this small girl, but I had come to enjoy this concert, not referee a squishing match. The small girl texted someone on her phone and then disappeared. Kevin said that another guy had grabbed her from behind and had pulled her back a little bit behind him for the rest of the show. I really hope that she was able to enjoy it after that. As soon as that small girl moved though, the tall girl pushed forward to take her place. The next girl in front of her had to put her hands up on the barricades, around the shoulders of a girl standing in front of her, so that she didn't get squished as well. The tall girl kept pushing towards me, so I stood for the rest of the concert with my elbows out (which was hitting her right at her waist) and so if she pushed against me she got my elbow in her side. That didn't stop her from nearly hitting me in the head with her arm or from flicking her hair in my face when she was doing her head-banging. Kevin kept having to grab on to the straps of my backpack and put his arms over my shoulders so that the guy who was with her couldn't push in between us. It is really unfortunate that people can be so rude that they want to have things their way regardless of how it effects other people. (By the way, this girl did not have a wristband on, so she was pushing people out of the way who had paid extra to be where they were.) I don't feel that I got to enjoy the concert as much as I could have if I hadn't had to focus so much attention on keeping this girl from shoving me out of the way.

In contrast though, the lady who was in front of me, at one point in the concert turned to me and apologized because she thought she might have stepped on my toes. (She hadn't.) At the end of the concert I thanked her for being so considerate, in complete contrast to the rudeness I had experienced on the other side of me.

Okay, back to the fun stuff! Nightwish was out for an hour and a half! They said they were going to end, but then we all yelled and screamed and they came back out for a three song encore! I knew they couldn't be done because they hadn't sung, I Wish I had an Angel yet. They always sing that as their last song! Kevin always says, if the roadies aren't out there tearing stuff down, there is still a chance that they are going to come back out! When they all got together to bow they were RIGHT in front of us! Emppu was throwing guitar picks out into the crowd during the whole show, but at the end he was throwing a lot more and Marco threw some too. The big rude guy next to Kevin caught one during the show (which I think is a travesty of universal justice), but then at the end several went over our heads. When the room started to clear, Kevin looked down and one of them was right by his boot. Kevin picked that one up and then told me that he was pretty certain another one had dropped near us. When the row in front of us cleared, he looked under the barricade and there was the other one. We were excited, as each had Nightwish imprinted on the front, but on the back, one said Emppu Vuorinen and the other said, Marco Hietala. We got one from each!

We wanted to stand there and talk for a few minutes, but again, HOB security kind of hustled us out. (They were great, by the way, and very polite and professional.) Kevin and I went over to use the casino restrooms. We sat for awhile and watched people go by. That was a lot of fun. It is Vegas after all. After a few minutes we decided to walk over to the Luxor, for old times sake. (We stayed there twelve years ago on our honeymoon.) We walked through the shopping corridor which connects the two casinos and got a sandwich at the Luxor cafe. It was about 11:30pm when we walked back to the Mandalay Bay to go to our van and go back to the hotel. As we walked back through the shopping corridor, I kept having to ask Kevin to walk a little slower, as by now I had been standing or walking for six hours straight. I was wearing my mary jane 3 1/2" wedge heels. My feet were not killing me (I love you Rocket Dogs!!!), but they were on the painful side.

We got on the escalator to go down to the casino floor. When we had almost reached the bottom, I could see the entrance to the Music Hall and there were several people standing by the door. In amongst all the black t-shirts I saw a little bit of blonde. I let go of Kevin's hand and RAN across the casino floor. Kevin said it was like I had been shot out of a gun! Suddenly my feet didn't hurt so much any more. As I reached the door, I realized I was right. It was Marco standing there talking to some of the fans! As I got closer I saw Jukka too! (Don't tell any of the other band members, but if I had to pick, I would say that Marco and Jukka are my favorite members of the band!) There they were, right in front of me! Marco was getting his picture taken with a girl about Amanda's age and her mom, and when they moved, I motioned to Marco to see if I could come up and get my photo taken. He put his arm out and I stood next to him and Jukka stood on my other side and I got a picture with both of them! (This almost made up for the fact that we didn't get a picture of the whole band!) Kevin said he doesn't think I smiled that big at our wedding. (Kevin knows I love him more than 20 Marcos or Jukkas!)

With that we went to the hotel! It was nearly one o'clock, and I may have been acting like a teenager for the last six hours, but our parents-of-three-kids bodies were all tired out!

In September, Nightwish is going to be back in San Francisco (12th) and Los Angeles (13th) . . .hmmm! Need we even say it!

See all the pics HERE.

Nightwish!!!!!!!!

It's safe to say that Lora likes a symphonic metal band from Finland called Nightwish. "Likes" may be an understatement. This weekend, we went to see them in Las Vegas, Nevada. We got the VIP tickets and got to meet the band before the show. A highlight that was way too short. The show was amazing (which you can read about in the following post), but the best part came after the show. We found ourselves back near the venue about an hour after the show was over and saw some of the band members out by the door. Lora bolted across the casino floor like she was shot from a gun, in three-inch heels after standing in them for more than five hours! She likes the whole band, but she's partial to the talents of Jukka, the drummer, and Marco, the bassist/vocalist. Jukka and Marco were by the door and Lora was eccstatic that she could get a picture with them. Could you doubt that smile?

See our post about the November show HERE.

Piano lessons

Amanda and I have started taking piano lessons. We have been wanting to do this for quite a long time, but haven't been able to coordinate successfully. Recently, due to a shortage of piano players in our ward, the Bishop called one of the piano players in our ward to teach several of us. Amanda and I started taking lessons on April 2nd, and we will have lessons for nine months.

We are both doing really well for only one month of lessons so far. I had lessons for a little while eleven years ago, so I had a pretty good foundation to start with, but I am really impressed with how well Amanda is doing in such a short amount of time. We go over to the chapel almost every day to practice. We are trying to get a piano to have in our home (a church in Biola is trying to get rid of a piano that they don't use any more), but there is a line of about four people to get messages back and forth to, so we have not been able to get it yet. We are looking forward to that!

Here is Amanda playing Jingle Bells.

San Francisco - Nightwish!

On Friday afternoon we left our girls with some friends and we drove to San Francisco for a concert and some time together. It was the first time we've had together since Amanda was born. For those of you who may be counting, that's more than ten years. We LOVE our girls, but we had such a great time by ourselves this weekend! We left home later than we'd hoped and by the time we got to San Francisco it was dark. We did get to see all the lights as we drove into the City though. It was great.

We got to our hotel, and they had upgraded us to the 3 star hotel next door. We don't know why and it doesn't really matter. It was a really nice room at the Carriage Inn Hotel. We didn't have time to enjoy it right then, as we changed quickly and headed over to Slim's, a club where we were going to go see a band called Nightwish. The band is a symphonic/metal band from Finland and they are doing a six week American leg of their 2007 tour. Nightwish is: Anette Olzon (Vocals), Tuomas Holopainen (Keyboards), Emppu Vuorinen (Guitar), Marco Tapani Hietala (Bass & Vocals), Jukka Nevalainen (Drums).

The concert was AWESOME! The opening act was a band called Paradise Lost, and they were pretty good. We have to admit though, that we were so looking forward to hearing Nightwish that we really weren't paying that much attention. At about 10:30pm, Nightwish came out and they opened with "Bye, Bye Beautiful". It was amazing to see them live! Annette is great! The band was really tight and they were a LOT of fun! They sang a few songs off their last album "Once", but the majority of what they played was off of their new album "Dark Passion Play". The band played around with the audience, with each other, and it was obvious that they were having a lot of fun. It was easy to see that Anette fits in really well with the band. (Anette is a new singer to the band, replacing Tarja Turunen after ten years.) After they had been on stage for a little over an hour they said that the song that they were about to sing was usually the last in the set, but that they were having such a great time that they were going to sing some more. They sang another two or three songs, ending with "I Wish I Had An Angel". They also sang some of our other favorites: "Sleeping Sun", "Amaranth", "Sahara", "7 Days to the Wolves", and "The Islander". They played for an hour & a half, but it seemed like it was waaaay tooo short. We could have listened to them all night.

Nightwish is going to be in Las Vegas in May.

Guess where we are going to be.

See all the concert pics here.

Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's Soul 2 Soul Concert

Last night Kevin and I went to the Tim McGraw and Faith Hill concert at the Savemart Center in Fresno, CA. It was a REALLY good concert! We had a great time!

Tim McGraw and Faith Hill came out together first and sang a song together and then Faith Hill began her portion of the concert. She sang "This Kiss", "Wild One", "Mississippi Girl", "The Way You Love Me", and others, including an Elvis and ABBA song. There was a break and then Tim McGraw and Faith Hill both came out and sang two songs together and then it was Tim McGraw's turn. He is very charismatic and had the crowd on it's feet for most of the rest of the concert! He sang "The Cowboy in Me", "Real Good Man", "Indian Outlaw", "Something Like That", and a touching version of "If You're Reading This", and many others, including Lora's all-time favorite "Live Like You Were Dying". As he sang that song, the audience sang along with him louder than we did for any other song, and at the end, I thought I saw Tim wiping tears from his eyes. He said, "THAT is exactly why we do this every night! To hear that like that! It doesn't get any better than that! Thank you."

The concert began at 7:50pm with a warm up band, Lance Miller. At 8:20pm the Tim McGraw and Faith Hill concert began and it ended at 11:45pm. It was like seeing two concerts! We definitely got our money's worth! (technically speaking of course -- thanks for the tickets Mom!) We were up in the balcony in section 204, but it didn't really matter, as the stage was in the center of the arena with four arms that extended out to all the sides, so Faith Hill and Tim McGraw were often right below us.

Faith Hill mentioned at one point that they really like Fresno and that they would like to come back. We hope they do!

See all the pics here.