Utah part 2

Saturday was the kids' big day. They had done one concert on Thursday but were doing two on Saturday. Thirty-five minutes before their call time, we were still swimming with friends at their hotel! While I was off getting lunches at the fanciest supermarket I've ever been in, Nicholas had managed to get in the hotel pool while still wearing his underpants under his swimming shorts - so he was a little soggy under his choir uniform but he didn't seem to care! 

The first concert on Thursday was good, the second was great, and by the time we got to Saturday we were absolutely rocking. It was incredible. I'm so grateful that the kids got to have this experience. I've never experienced a concert like that last one in the Tabernacle on Saturday. We were so practiced after days of recordings and concerts; everything was nuanced and polished and went perfectly.

At one point we were in the middle part of Come Come Ye Saints, which was a fantastic piece to be singing in the Tabernacle under any circumstances. The choir was singing 'we'll find a place which God for us prepared, far away in the west...' and I looked around and thought it cannot be just us making this sound. There were choirs behind me and choirs in the loft on either side of me so there were several hundred people singing but it sounded as if a whole other choir was joining in singing too. The sound was so full, the building was just ringing with it. It sounded amazing. I'll never forget that moment.

By the end of the final concert I was spent. Playing the bassoon for a long time is physically quite a strain - by the end of a concert my neck and shoulders just hurt. So I was sore from the waist up from four days of recordings and concerts and sore from the waist down from hiking up a mountain the day before! I can't remember the last time I felt so utterly exhausted. But... as always the trade-off was worth it. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

On Sunday morning the final thing we did was go to see Music and the Spoken Word in the conference centre. As Nicholas isn't eight yet he wasn't allowed in; so he and I went to the cry room where I found my two previous best friends, both of whom live in Arizona now, and both of whom are in MCO and have little kids who were also banished to the cry room. So I didn't even mind that I was missing out! It was so lovely to see them.

(We'd got back so late the night before and were so exhausted that Nicholas actually slept in his choir clothes. So all I did to get him ready for the conference centre was throw a different tie on! Result.)

We spent some time on Temple Square saying goodbye to friends and then as our last hurrah we drove out to the 'This is the Place' monument, which I had never done, despite lots of trips to Utah. It was a beautiful day.

And then at about lunchtime we packed everyone back in to the car and set off on the twelve hour drive home as Jeff was due at work at 9am the next day!

It was one of those 'vacations' that you need another vacation to recover from when you're done!