Monthly Archives: April 2010

Tonight we went to a concert at East Aurora High School put on by the BYU Idaho Sound Alliance and Vocal Union.   This was presented to the community through the help of the Public Affairs arm of the church here, of which Angela is a part.  She has worked very hard over the last couple of months to help make this happen.  She has done everything from helping select the site, market the concert, and her main job of finding places for all the members of the group to stay overnight after the concert!  It has been very stressful for her, but the concert turned out GREAT!

Sound Alliance and Vocal Union combine to create an instrumental and vocal concert that will entertain and inspire audiences of all ages.  Both groups represent what is best in the students at BYU-Idaho. The group presents a multi-faceted program with both ensembles interwoven to present inspiring vocal and instrumental jazz selections.

Sound Alliance is composed of 17 jazz  musicians selected through a highly competitive audition process. Their repertoire ranges from the artistic to the “just-for-fun-of-it.”

Vocal Union, an ensemble of 12 singers, performs a variety of styles which feature the tight harmonies of vocal jazz in a performance of popular, big band and classic jazz tunes.

There were over 1000 people in attendance and everyone who went absolutely loved it!  The groups did jazz numbers together playing instruments and singing, and they each had separate numbers as well.  It was VERY entertaining!  It was a great way to spend a Friday night as a family.

We found out that my dad has to have open heart surgery next week!  🙁  For awhile now he’s been having chest pain, but ignored it somewhat. He told my brother Greg about it (who is a cardiac PA) who then listened to his heart.  Dad  has always had a slight murmur (rheumatic fever twice when he was a kid) but this time the murmur was way worse. Greg told him to have it checked immediately, which he did.  Bad news… he has critical aortic stenosis, which means the aortic valve is just a tiny little hole right now for the blood to get through.  That would explain the pain and him being so tired (not enough oxygen getting out to his body).   The scary thing is that at any time, if something were to block that off, he would die.  Today, he went in for an angiogram and with the exception of the valve, everything looked OK.  No bypasses will be needed, but it’s still a major surgery that will take 6-8 weeks of recovery. They’ll completely open him up and put in a bioprosthetic valve (from a cow).  We are all very thankful to Greg for his experience and insight into this.  He probably saved Dad’s life.  Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

Today was Zach’s first day of spring soccer!  He was so excited that he got up way early and got dressed and ready to go.  At 7am he was ready to get in the car to go, and we didn’t have to be there until 10am!  🙂  It’s fun being his head coach and we have a fun team.  There are 10 kids on the team and they vary a great deal in talent.  Some have played before, and others have not.  The important thing, however, is that the kids have fun.

The trainer for the kids this season is much better than in the fall.  He didn’t get too technical with the kids and kept things very fun and simple.  He seems to really like doing what he does.  It also helps that I have 2 great assistant coaches who can help me keep things in order.

The kids practiced for the first half of the hour and then we scrimmaged another team.  It is so funny to watch kindergartner’s play!  🙂  Zach had a ball and can’t wait until next week!

Sorry, I didn’t get any pictures!  🙁

The other day, Brittany was given a photography assignment in school and she came home very excited.  She loves taking pictures and was excited to see what she could do.  Some of the pictures she took came out wonderfully well and we were all very impressed.  Check them out:

I think she loves outdoor photography the most!  It was fun to watch her out taking pictures!  Keep up the great work, Brittany!  🙂

Tonight Angela and I went to a reception of some friends that we have known for a long time.  We usually only see them anymore at the wedding receptions of their kids.  🙂  It was at a mansion near where I work.  It was a beautiful setup and the food was amazing as well.  What really warrants this blog entry however, is the bar.  No, not the alcohol bar (this is an LDS family), but the CANDY bar!  The wedding collors were green and purple.  Near the door was a table with every kind of purple and green candy you could imagine…  M&Ms, Jelly Belly beans, chocolate wrapped in purple and green, gummi bears, and all sorts of other things!

The picture above doesn’t even show everything that was there!  They had plastic bags with twist ties there for everyone to fill up a bag before they left as a gift from the bride and groom.  We thought that was AWESOME and put that in our bag of ideas when our daughters get married!  After all, you can’t get drunk on candy!  🙂