Canada was amazing! It was a really neat trip, I wish Mike could have come too, and then it would have been perfect! The Symphony Band sounded beautiful, and it was so neat to get to know everyone over the course of the trip.
These aren't all the pictures I have, but here's a couple to give you a bit of an idea of what it was like.
Here's the border into Canada, it took 45 min. for them to check all our Passports, but it was definitely worth it. :)
Here we are getting ready for our first concert in Canada. We also gave one in Montana the night before. We gave a concert every night but Sunday and Monday, and sometimes we did two. I think it totaled 12 or 14 concerts? It was great. Sometimes they were in gyms, sometimes in Performing Arts Centers, sometimes in Auditoriums. Each one was a special experience, and I always felt the spirit with us. It was especially strong during the arrangement John Barker, one of our band members, made of "O Canada," and when we sang "Go Ye Now in Peace," at the end of each concert.
One of the neat things we got to do was perform for an Elementary School. After we finished, we all spread out and the kids got to come up and see our instruments and ask us questions. They were so cute! A bunch of them went around and got our autographs, haha, we must be famous!
In Montana, we got up early and joined the seminary kids to sing and play for them. We had prepared some spiritual pieces just for this and the fireside we gave on Sunday. Here we are singing "Go Ye Now in Peace."
Getting ready to warm-up together... We all had matching tour clothes that we wore each day. They were cute, but I was definitely ready to go back to wearing whatever I wanted to and not matching anyone else when I got home! Haha!
We put together a woodwind quintet and played at the early morning seminary fireside. We played a beautiful arrangement Mike made for us of "I Believe In Christ," it was perfect.
One of my favorite stops was our temple trip in Cardston. It was so neat to go through a session with so many of the other band members, as well as Sister Soelberg. She is such an amazing example to me, each of us are so blessed to be in her ensemble. We all went in, those who are endowed did a session, and everyone else did baptisms, what a special experience. It was a gorgeous temple, it's a smaller, older one, so it had neat coloring on the inside, kind of different, but so beautiful!
The rest of the pictures I have up are of my other favorite part: Banff. It's a cute little town nestled into the side of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. We had the great opportunity to ride the gondola up to the top of the mountain and take pictures. It was so gorgeous! I want to take Mike back there someday and show him.
Haha, Kim and I became great friends on tour, we can't believe we haven't before! We always sat by eachother on the bus, and took naps on eachother's shoulders since our husbands weren't there, and just got really close, it was great! Here we are taking pictures of eachother taking pictures, lol!
The gondola ride up... it was pretty high.
Canadian flag! :)
Brooke and I. We were heartbroken that this was our last time to play together since she'll be off track for my last semester on campus, but it was so fun to get to know one another!
Haha, Kim and I after we climbed to the top of the mountain next to the one the gondola was on, such a gorgeous view!!
Well, we did so much more, but the truth is I only took pictures at Banff, haha! So the rest of my pictures are coming from Shawni, our official assigned tour photographer. She doesn't have any more up right now, so maybe I'll get you some more later. Until then, have fun!
Getting ready to warm-up together... We all had matching tour clothes that we wore each day. They were cute, but I was definitely ready to go back to wearing whatever I wanted to and not matching anyone else when I got home! Haha!
Other than our plants growing and work, not much has been going on. We both got on at different hotels in Idaho Falls. I work nights on the weekends and Mike's been working maintenance. He started his training for Night Audit last night, it'll be nice for him to get some more hours. We're hoping to make a trip to Bear Lake for Sarah's graduation, and then maybe to a couple reunions this summer, but we'll see. Love you all!
Now he's started cutting out the river that will run along the top left of the layout and really planning where his town, industry, and everything else will go. Unfortunately, then the expensive part of model railroading comes in... the track. So, I guess he'll have to save up his railroad budget for the next couple of months to start purchasing all the track he needs. I'm kind of excited about it, too though, it's going to be really neat when he gets it all done!
Here's Sarah with her new laptop for college next year...
Austin got a new hat and some sweet lime green snow pants...
