The boys are all at their host homes after a busy day so I
have a minute to write to you all. I’m
sorry you had to wait a few extra minutes tonight. My wife went sky diving today and I wanted to
hear all about it. She had a blast.
Tonight’s concert was a pretty good time. The boys woke-up a little bit later than we
had planned, but they are pros and it all worked-out just fine. We took the liberty of washing their white shirts
last night and had the process of distributing them all back out to them
today. Thank you to those parents that
ensured your son’s number was in his shirt.
That helped us a lot.
On the way into the concert (literally, as we were going in)
one of the boys dipped his head in to grab a last second sip of water from the
fountain before going on stage. He got
his sip of water, but smacked his head on the corner of the wall as he stood up. I was concerned but he was tough and made it
through the first half of the concert fine.
He had a little welt on there which we iced at intermission, but by the
start of the second half you could hardly see it. Our boys are pretty tough when they want to
be, and so far they have wanted to be during the concerts. As far as choirs go, they are pretty good
about knowing when it is time to play and when it is time to work. So far, we have had only one boy miss less
than one half of a concert total due to illness (or any other reason.) That is pretty awesome.
The concert went along very well. The boys sang in good form and the audience
seemed to appreciate it very much. One
lady approached Aaron in tears after the concert and said she “sat in awe” of
the boys and their beautiful sound.
Another told him that “their parents should be very proud of them”. Overall, it was a very good concert. The boys cleaned-up about as well as I have
seen in some time too. It took 14
minutes flat to change, finish their jobs, unload the suitcases, clean-up the
dressing room and get to the sanctuary to meet their host families. A tremendous job. (I did have to bribe them with ice cream in
Dallas, however. The deal was if they
beat 15 minutes they got ice cream. If
they didn’t, I bought ice cream and ate it in front of them. I know they never like to see me happy, so it
worked like a charm.)
There were 13 host homes for our 14 sets of boys
tonight. The boys did an exceptional job
of introducing themselves to their host families tonight. Really good eye contact and firm
handshakes. I liked that. After grabbing their gear they were on their
way. Another successful day!
Tomorrow is Plano.
That is a beautiful church that we have been to before. Should be a great time!
I have a few minutes here for a little midday update. The boys are resting in the First United
Methodist Church here in Boerne (pronounced like “bur nee”) after a very successful
morning. Our first stop was at the
Catholic Mass in Seguin where we have been staying the past two nights. The host parents were all very happy with the
boys behavior and the staff heard many compliments about them. The boys had a good time from the sounds of
it as well. Two of the boys got up early
this morning to feed the sheep at the ranch they were staying at. I asked them how it was and they said “not
too baaaaaa-d”.
During the service, one of our tweets was retweeted on
Twitter. Nick Hoffman, a former Choirboy
that is now in the country band “The Farm” retweeted a picture we posted
yesterday. The napkins read “Home Sweet
Home”, which is also the name of the song they first released about a year
ago. They are touring the country right
now. When Nick retweeted the photo, it
went out to more than 35,000 people in an instant. If you are not following us on Twitter, you
can do so by searching for us at @thechoirboys.
The church service went very well and the congregation couldn't
have been more generous to the boys. In
addition to providing four meals for the boys, they also hosted for two days
and contributed to one of the more generous freewill offerings of the tour. They also asked Aaron to speak during the
service to the congregation on the subject of “commitment”, using the
boys/parents dedication as an example. As if that wasn't enough, the Priest asked the
congregation to take-up a special offertory during Mass this morning to support
our efforts bringing in almost $850 very unexpected, but appreciated dollars.
This was a fantastic stop on our journey!
The weather was much milder this morning as the clouds moved
in overnight and stayed throughout the service.
We saw our first measurable rain of the tour as the first service was
just finishing-up. (Sidenote: Ben C. is snoring underneath a table next to
me as I write this. I think he was
tired.) Rodney had just washed all the
rims by hand and put the new hub cab covers/lug nut covers on the tires before
the rain came and muddied them up. He
sure works hard to make sure the boys are riding in style wherever they
go. He cares a lot for the safety and experience
these boys get and it really shows. We
are very lucky to have him.
Once the rain was almost at its heaviest, it was naturally
the exact time Mass was being let-out.
The boys did a little running through the rain and made it to the bus as
dry as they could. We didn't have much
time however. Our second service of the
morning was at the United Methodist Church in Boerne, about an hour’s drive
from where we were at. We knew it would
be a rush, but when two places want you to sing at the same time, you do
whatever you can to help them out.
Especially when they are both hosting you. The bus rolled-out of the parking lot and we
began our trip in the rain which really helped to keep the bus
comfortable. I saw the “6” flicker on
the thermostat in the left-hand column.
I thought that was broken at the last 2 weeks…
With our next service starting at 11:00am, we made it to the
church by 10:40. We didn't need to
warm-up or anything, but we did need to use the restroom. By 10:55, the boys were in their seats
directly behind the altar, ready to go.
They sounded very good in this space.
(AGAIN, a beautiful space to sing in. I should have pictures later
tonight)
Immediately after service the boys had a pulled-pork sandwich
lunch with this very good creamed corn recipe that I hope I can get to share
with you all. The boys enjoyed it. I took the opportunity to have a little “wake-up”
chat with all of the boys that will be returning next season (the
non-graduates). I pulled just those boys
to the side and had them form a circle around me. This was our chance to physically show them
the leadership opportunities that lie in front of them by showing them what the
core of their choir will look like next year.
It’s going to be a young choir, but we find ourselves saying that almost
every year. A lot of good young guys
will have great opportunities to lead in only two months time.
I am thankful they have had some good mentors this year in
our graduates that are moving-on.
Hopefully, we can get most of them to stay in the Men’s Chorus this
Fall. At this point, it is looking like
that is going to happen. There is a very
real chance the Men’s Chorus will be 25 strong by September and 30 or more by
Christmas. The program is building now
and it is the result of a lot of hard work by a lot of dedicated individuals over
the past few seasons. This is fun!
Following lunch, the boys started some of their tour
jobs. With the concert being in the afternoon
today, we were able to take it easy after a busy morning. They are sounding very good now, so rest is
the main ingredient in ensuring the concerts are as good as they can be. Aaron and Lisa have them pretty much where
they need them by now, so it’s all about putting the polish on the program and
a little spit to make it shine.
I have one final thing to pass along from a few days
ago. We have never done this before, but
I think it is good to mention. The staff
held its discussion about the boy we would like to present with the Most
Improved Award. This is a very special
and important award for us, as we believe it rewards boys that are working
towards self-improvement. ALL of these
nominees this year are deserving. It was
very difficult to select just one and in all of the years I have been behind
the decision for this award it was the most difficult. The nominees for Most Improved were Sam
Strub, Joel Zimmerman, Dillon Nagel & Aaron Otten. The boys themselves don’t even know that list
yet, but if you would like to congratulate them on their achievement, please
feel free to. We intend to let those
four boys know very soon.
That is it. You are
pretty much updated. I am going to
throw a question on our Facebook Page to help stir-up some social conversation
on there. The question will be something
like “Do you have any questions for the boys about touring? “Things have died
down in the “likes” and “shares” department so I want to build that back up
again. If you would like to participate
but don’t have Facebook, you can send an email to mail@lolcb.org and I will include it on the
conversation.
Your boys are all pretty awesome. I don’t know if you knew that or not! ;-)
Today was a warm one, but you wouldn’t know it from talking to the boys. They had a great time today and did very
well. We had a couple boys that got a
little tired and cranky after several hours in the sun, but they were good by
the time we got them cooled off and fed.
That generally helps.
This morning started much later than any of the others so
far on tour this year. We met back at
10:00am which gave the boys plenty of time to sleep in. We didn’t waste a lot of time and got on the
road towards The Schlitterbahn. On the
way, we watched the first of what may be many episodes of “How the States Got
Their Shapes”, a History channel series about the different states in the
country and the history that led to their present-day shapes. As boring as the synopsis may sound, they
actually really enjoyed them and clambered for more on the way home. With all the traveling we do, it only makes
sense to have a series like this to share with the boys.
The Schlitterbahn was packed by the time we got there. By packed, I mean wall-to-wall people seeking
refuge from the 106 degree weather. Once
we found parking, we brought our lunches in and proceeded to eat right
away. No sense wasting perfectly good
sliding time with food. We were able to
bring our own lunches and cases of water in, so that was a big financial relief. After a thorough slathering of sunscreen we
let the boys break-up into groups based on the level of rides they wanted to
embark on. This meant some of them went
with a different tour partner for the day.
It’s a nice break for them to hang with a different person for a few
hours as well. The boys went from there
to the rides and many got on several before our first regroup time at 2:30.
At 2:30, we gathered them all at our central location and
did a check-up to make sure everything was going well, which it was. The boys really wanted to get back to
swimming so we didn’t waste much time in that heat. We did take the opportunity to move to a
better location on the other side of the park.
There is too much to do in one day.
We spent the day in the original Schlitterbahn park. There are actually three of them on the
grounds, but with the incredible heat they are experiencing (it’s even hot by their
standards) we elected to stay at the
park that allowed us the least amount of times spent in lines. This was a good move, in hindsight. Once we
were settled back on the other side of the park, we reapplied the sunscreen on
all of them and released them back out into the wild.
At 4:30 they made their way to our meeting spot and we began
the process of getting them all through the showers, changed, and through the
surprisingly inexpensive gift store. By
5:10 we were on the road and headed back to the church. We put another episode of “How the States Got
Their Shapes” in. Some of the boys fell
asleep on the way back. They played
pretty hard today. Early results show
the sunscreen worked very well. Only a
few spots on the cheeks where they didn’t get it enough. Much better than this past week at the pool
party.
Back at the church they had a great spaghetti dinner all
prepared and waiting for us with “enough to feed an Army”. They boys challenged that claim and put a
fairly sizeable dent in the food supply.
They didn’t reach the end though.
After lots of milk, lemonade and water to go with it, they rendezvoused
with their host families and were on the way home by 7:00pm. A much deserved early night for all of us.
Tomorrow is a busy day with three performances. We will need to be on our toes. The temps appear to be dropping some
overnight and some relief is insight for the old thermometer.
Aloha! The staff is
just settling into our hotel here in Seguin, Texas and the first thing I’m sure
any of us are doing is cranking the AC and enjoying it for a few minutes. My goodness it is hot down here! It hit triple digits again and it’s not
looking like we have any relief tomorrow with the forecast saying it should hit
104 degrees where we are at. It’s
alright though – these boys are tough and the temperatures really don’t faze
them as much as you’d think.
This entire day was pretty good. Probably not as much fun as yesterday, but it
was still a good time. We woke the boys
up around 7:45 and made our way back to the Texas-shaped waffles. Afterwards, we packed-up our belongings and
loaded the bus. We made it out of there
a few minutes later than we wanted, but it wasn’t too bad. (The perfectionist in me pouted about it for
a good 20 minutes, but I’m over it now.)
Our first order of the day was to retrieve Ben from the San
Antonio International Airport where he was scheduled to meet-up with us. His plane landed good and early in the
morning, but we weren’t going to be able to be there until noon or so. On the way there, we decided it would be more
fun to play a little joke on Ben. Josiah
fired-up the printer and each boy gave the name of an individual they wanted to
pretend they were waiting for at the airport.
The boys got fairly creative with it.
The plan was to have Ben go through all of them and find his name at the
end of the line. Watch the video to see
if we picked him up or not. J
After the airport, it was off to The Alamo. We tried to find some good authentic Mexican
food down here, but all of the restaurants were too small and the wait would’ve
been too long. We found a fun Fuddruckers
on the San Antonio Riverwalk that could accommodate us at a reasonable
speed. With the temperatures exceeding
100, the longer it took for our food to come, the happier the staff secretly
was to sit in that AC and wait for it.
They had one of the new Coke machines that lets you pick from about a
million different combinations. The boys
get such a kick out of those things. I
was pretty fascinated to see them change the syrup inside. It comes in cartridges that look almost
exactly like an ink cartridge you would find in a copy machine and they change
almost as easily. Quite interesting!
After lunch it was off to The Alamo. We elected not to have a guided tour since we
had already watched a video on the events that took place there. It was also ridonculously hot outside. Believe it or not, but The Alamo was not an
air conditioned structure back in the day, and it still isn’t today. We took some time and made our way through
all of the exhibits, including Davey Crockett’s long rifle. The history in there is remarkable, but it’s
importance probably changes depending on which side of the border you reside.
After our trip through the mission portion, it was off to
the gift store, which was full air conditioned.
I wanted to keep the boys in there as long as I could, but we also had a
timeline to contend with that required us to get on the road sooner rather than
later. The boys all had a chance to go
around and buy wonderful trinkets. I was
a little disappointed to only see one coonskin hat. Oh well.
The hot items of the store were these little Alamo pocket knives. Being that they were from the Alamo, fairly
priced, and engraved with their names, I gave them the opportunity to buy them
on the condition they stayed with me for the remainder of the trip. Only five of the boys took the offer up and
their parents will be receiving a nice pocket knife in about seven days to hold
on to.
Once we single-handedly helped pay for the restoration of
the roof, we made our 4 block walk back to the bus. Rodney shut the bus off to come to lunch with
us and peek in The Alamo since he had never seen it. He is big into Louis L ‘Amour and apparently
The Alamo is featured in his writings.
He ducked-out early to get the bus ready for us and said it was 98
degrees in there when he got into it.
Thank Heavens for the AC! He had
it down to 77 by the time we got there.
With only a short 45-minute ride to Seguin, we put the boys
down for an abbreviated rest period.
They used it very well. (This
group does quite well with rest period, but I am sure some of that can be attributed
to the busy schedules and the heat.)
Once in Sequin, we were greeted with some great signs. They were obviously quite excited to have us
in town for the night.
We woke the boys up and brought them inside. We were a little on the early side and we had
one more deadline yet to deal with today:
The Choirboy of the Year voting.
With the holiday weekend looming, we needed to send in the names for the
awards today in order to have them done by the Homecoming Concert. We conducted our first round of balloting
several days ago. From that, we produced
the following list of nominees that received at least one vote: Eli Nelson, Aaron Otten, Joey Leibig, Ben
Couch, Arteom Katkov, Grant Schumacher, Chi Asangwe, Jacob Rud, Thor Klein,
Jeremiah Shoemaker, Noah Carpenter & Jacob Gordon.
Today, the boys voted from the Top Five vote recipients on
the first ballot. Those were: Jeremiah
Shoemaker, Noah Carpenter, Jacob Rud, Jacob Gordon & Joey Leibig. From there, the selected their final
three: Jacob Rud, Jacob Gordon &
Noah Carpenter. Congratulations to all
of the nominees! I don’t think I am out
of line saying this, but I was very impressed that not a single one of the guys
nominated voted for themselves this year, even though they had the opportunity. I have never seen this before and it is very
telling of the character all of these guys posses.
The concert was great and these people were so
appreciative. Four times tonight they
stood and applauded for the boys. The
boys sounded pretty good to boot. The audience
asked during the Q&A session to here one of the songs again, so we did at
the end. Afterwards, there were some of
the most amazing cookies I have ever had.
The boys met their host families and headed-out for the night.
Tomorrow we are at the Schlitterbahn most of the day, so I
will try to take a lot of pictures for ya’ll. Sorry there were so few today.
Everything is covered in sand. Everything.
Fun is sure messy and a lot of work.
Remember how I said yesterday was the best day so far? This might’ve topped it. Who knows anymore? Seems like every day we
have is the newest greatest day. Maybe they are all just that good?
Today was all about relaxing, taking a break from music and
touring, and being boys. We started by
letting them sleep in and apparently, they needed it. Stewart has been increasing his
responsibilities as the tour goes along (and doing quite well, I might add) and
said most of the boys were still sleeping when he went in at 8:00am. That generally doesn’t happen unless they
were pretty tired. We ate breakfast here
at the motel. The boys got a good kick
out of the waffle maker that produced Texas-shaped waffles. Can’t make that up.
Shortly afterwards, I had an idea to surprise the boys with
mail tonight…lots of it. I would need
the help of all of you though to make the goal of 100 letters/emails a reality
by the end of the day. (Wow! Did you all respond well! We got so many letters I wasn’t sure what to
do. We seriously got about ½ of a ream
of paper worth. The stack was
amazing. Thank you. 25 of the 28 boys received mail, including
Ben who isn’t even with us right now, as well as Rodney. He sure enjoyed that. It was easily the biggest day for mail I have
ever seen.)
We had a morning tour scheduled on the USS Lexington, a
WWII/Vietnam era aircraft carrier that saw a lot of action and is now docked in
Corpus Christi to serve as a museum.
The weather was already hot, so we knew it had potential to be a long
day. Luckily, about half of the inside of the ship was cooled with air
conditioning. This helped
tremendously. We split the boys into two
groups for the tour because of the tight spaces and meandering turns of a naval
vessel. The boys learned about so many
things on the ship that I don’t even know where to start. Jeremiah was once again the “Tour Guide’s Pet”,
always having the answers to the tough questions. The tour guide was quite impressed with him,
and the rest of the boys. He had served
on the USS Enterprise and now serves as a volunteer tour guide for groups like
ours. We made it to all the important
areas. The flight deck, the bridge, the
hospital, the engine room, and of course the gift shop. There was also a wonderful air conditioned
theater where we watched a movie on rescue operations, including some amazing
footage of the earthquake in Haiti. It
was all in 3D as well, so the boys got to wear the glasses and had an awesome
time.
As we were making our way to do our shopping with my group,
former Choirboy (’91-’96) Joe Hayen, his wife and beautiful daughter “Lila”
were coming towards us. Joe lives in
Corpus and saw that we were in town from the Facebook post I made earlier as I
checked-in. He knew we were in Texas but
since we weren’t singing in Corpus Christi, it wasn’t on the concert
schedule. Once he saw we were in town,
he loaded the family in the car and came down to say “hi”. The boys all had the chance to meet him, do a
count-off with him (he was #29 as a boy so it worked perfectly) and we sang “America
the Beautiful/God Bless America” on the stage for him and his family. A number of other visitors and volunteers
gathered while the boys were singing and a very nice applause took place
afterwards. I tried to pull a fast one
on Joe when we posed for a picture, but he was ready for the “#3 Smile” and
struck his pose on cue. After all these
years, it’s pretty remarkable how many little things like that are still the
same. We said our farewells to Joe and
headed back towards the gift store to begin our shopping. It was great to see him!
Once all the shopping was finished, it had gotten to be
quite late for lunch. (Virtually zero
complaining out of the boys though.) Aaron made arrangements at the Golden Corral right by our motel. This place was amazing. Probably one of the biggest buffets I have
ever seen with the largest selection.
The boys all started with a mandatory salad and beverage (because they
needed the fluids), then it was pretty much up to them what they had to eat
from there. Boys had everything from
liver to chicken to meatloaf. For
dessert, they had their choice of the doughnut bar, cotton candy machine, or
the chocolate fountain with marshmallows or strawberries. Most of them did the responsible thing and
tried all three.
After lunch we swung through the Target next door and
replenished our water supplies with another 12 cases and a cart full of
Gatorade. We also stocked-up on more
sunscreen and after-sun lotion. With the
weather still being quite warm, we elected to take late afternoon naps since
the tours in the morning wore us out pretty good. NOBODY objected.
Around 6:30, we woke them up and had them get ready for
swimming in the ocean. Aaron scouted-out
a great spot on South Padre Island about 15-20 minutes away from the
motel. With all the boys loaded up, we
took the short drive out there. After a
few precautionary words of wisdom, they were off into the Gulf of Mexico,
jumping into waves and having the times of their life. 27 boys, swimming off South Padre Island in
the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, with the sun setting on the horizon behind
them and not a single care in the world.
It was a little surreal, and in thirty years I hope they realize how
amazingly lucky they are. (They will,
trust me.)
The sand and salt were everywhere so we brought them up to
the showers on the shore and began the process of cleaning-up this mess. They did very well getting their stuff
together and in no time we were on the bus headed back to the motel. It’s all north from here on out.
Since lunch was so late today, we ordered 10 pizzas and had
them delivered back to the motel so we could eat them before bedtime. I started the time consuming task of handing
out all of those letters. It took
virtually the entire ride home to get them all out and the smiles on the faces
of the boys made it that much more fun.
We got the boys back to their rooms and straight into the
showers. The pizza arrived and we had
them each come down to get a couple of pieces.
Stewart had them all down by 10:20 or so.
Another great day is in the books. It’s very hard to journal when you are taking
so much time to have fun! We will do our
best in the morning.
We are starting-up our annual fundraiser to help off-set the costs of touring. Last year was a great success and we are hoping for similar results this year as well. Please consider helping us reach our goal of $1 for every mile we travel. http://givemn.razoo.com/story/Fund-The-Drive-Trying-To-Raise-1-For-Every-Mile
The fun keeps
on coming! Those crazy boys wore me out
today so I need to get right to this or I will fall asleep on the
keyboard. If all of a sudden you see “hejrbnuicdilfndjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj”,
it means I probably did.
This morning we were on a mission. We moved the time of our arrival at the church
up ½ hour so we would hopefully have enough time to get Ben C. to the airport
so he could attend his brother’s graduation in Florida. The families of the Houston Boys Choir were
wonderful. They had a lot of great
things to say about the boys and it looked like many of our boys had made some
new friends. A lot of emails and
addresses were being traded. 24 of the
boys arrived and loaded the bus lightening fast. Four of them were on the pokey side of things
and put us behind by a good 15 minutes.
This put us in jeopardy of missing the flight on the other side of
town. Luckily, traffic was on our side
and we made it and sent Ben to meet-up with his family. Don’t worry though: we will see him again in two days.
With Ben taken care of, we all boarded the bus and headed
towards Corpus Christi. The drive wasn’t
real long, only about 5 hours or so.
This gave us some time to get the remaining letters and journals up to
date. It also gave us the chance to
watch another movie in the morning. We
selected “The Rookie” because of the fact it is located in Big Lake,
Texas. (Side note: I blubber like a baby at that movie. Seeing him realize his dream after all those
years gets me.) For lunch we stopped at
a rest stop that had some beautiful covered picnic areas. We probably would’ve needed to eat on the bus
otherwise with the temperatures 100+.
With a little extra time at our disposal they had some time to unwind at
a play area within the rest area.
We didn’t really have much of a rest period after lunch
since it was an “off” day. Instead, we
finished the movie and listened to some music, just sort of chillin’. By 3:15 or so, we were at our motel in
beautiful Corpus Christie. The oil refineries
are quite impressive as you make the drive into town. They are pretty much all around you down
here. I hope that translates into lower
fuel costs when we need to fill-up the bus tomorrow.
The motel is pretty average, but we don’t plan to spend a
ton of time here. We are not downtown
Corpus like we were a few years ago when we were here. Instead, we are inland a few miles. I can only imagine that helped the price
substantially. With our own bus, this is
no issue whatsoever. We gave the boys an
hour and a half to chill-out in the nice AC in their rooms. They have a lot of fun during these times,
just them, their friends, and their games.
While they were relaxing Aaron was lining-up dinner plans.
Once per tour we like to try and do something a little more
special for dinner. A few years ago when
we were in Corpus with the Nordic Choir, we brought the boys to “Joe’s Crab
Shack” located right on the water downtown.
To this day, that meal is still regarded as one of the best we’ve ever
had. (In my 24 tours, I would put it Top
3). The only drawback of having a meal
like that is the obvious cost, but the experience of eating this kind of great
food is too much to pass up. We do our
best to make it work financially so we can offer the boys these opportunities.
Aaron was able to get our seats “saved” while I got the boys
dressed in their collared play shirts and play shorts. We wanted them looking casually nice so I
made them wash their faces too. This isn’t
Whataburger for crying-out loud. We
boarded the bus and drove the 10 minutes downtown. We took the slightly scenic route so the boys
could get a good glimpse of the palm trees, waterfront, ships, and amazing
houses that line the shore. It was
pretty fun to watch them pressed-up along the windows looking at all the cool
and unfamiliar sights. We found parking
right along the beach and walked the 5 minutes out on the pier to “Joe’s”. They were all set-up for us so the boys made
their way right to their seats and began with their drink orders.
We prepped the wait staff with our intentions. We ordered pretty much 1-2 of everything on
the appetizer menu and asked to set it up on the staff table as sort of a buffet
to get them started. Then the boys order
pretty much anything they wanted to try from the menu, within reason of
course. We really talked about sharing
food with others to try since this was about the experience as much as it was
filling their bellies. Lots of sampling
took place over the course of the night.
Once the appetizers arrived, we had each boy go through the
line with a small plate and try little bites of anything they wanted. We had calamari, mussels, coconut shrimp, cocktail
shrimp, fish, crab cakes, crab legs, and several other items. I was very impressed with the boys and their openness
to trying new foods. As far as I could tell,
the only thing that didn’t go over well was the jumbo cocktail shrimp. They did look a little slimy, but that is
kind of what they are supposed to look like.
They are shrimp, after all.
I had a little too much fun “playing with my food”. The pincers on the crab legs were too fun not
to play with. I scared a couple of the
boys pretty good and got “Tex” (Dillon) with them as well. (Dillon is now Tex. Not sure why we started calling him this, but
when you look at him, it just fits.) Don't worry moms - this picture was 99% staged.
The boys demolished a lot of food tonight with virtually all
of them finishing some large plates of food.
The sharing helped finish a lot of it.
25 of the 27 boys ordered seafood entrees! Following dinner, we had one unfinished piece
of business to take care of. Our very
own Arteom has a birthday today and nothing would make us happier than to make
it as memorable as possible. With the
help of the “Joe’s” staff, we made sure Arteom got the proper birthday song he
deserved.
Apparently the thing to do at this establishment is to put
on a big cowboy hat and ride an inflatable horse around the dining room while
everyone sings to you. Arteom misunderstood
this and took this to an entirely new level by exiting the dining room and
riding around the entire restaurant! It
was hilarious and I can only imagine what the people in other rooms must have
thought as he went riding into the room wearing this ridiculous hat. He loved it though.
After corralling Arteom, we said our goodbyes and went for a
short walk along the water. It was
pretty windy, but the breeze coming off the water felt pretty great. We saw a replica (not sure how authentic it
was) of the “Nina” along the shore.
Rodney was pretty impressed with it so I took his picture in front of
it. We followed the shoreline back to
the pier, which led us back to the bus.
The short ride back to the motel was filled with lots of laughter and
happy times. This was a great day.
Everyone took a shower and had a little time to get their
thoughts down in their journals and perhaps write a letter home. Then it was lights-out. We plan to let them sleep-in a bit in the
morning, but I am sure they will be rearing to go by the time we get around to
waking them up. Another big day is
scheduled for tomorrow with a trip to the USS Lexington in the morning and a
trip to the beach in the afternoon.
Be sure to follow our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/lolcb for all the
updates throughout the day. We do try to
limit our updates some because there is a point of diminishing returns, but 1-2
posts a day shouldn’t put us over the limit.
Our social media footprint has been doing very well this past eight days
and we have made many new “likes”. It
would be pretty cool if we could hit 900 “likes” before we get home. The more you share, like and comment on
things, the more it goes out to your friends.
Thanks for all that you folks have already done to help spread the
accomplishments of these great boys!
Aaron is chatting with his sweetie and Stewart is running to
the bus for more water so I have a moment, just us, to talk about the day. I need to make it quick though because beauty
rest doesn’t just happen.
This morning we met at the Carpenter’s Church and said our “goodbyes”. A bag of cookies was stowed away for our
journey as well. A lot of good reports
came in from the host families, so that was a good way to start the day. The first beads of sweat started forming while
we were loading the bus but it never got too bad on the actual bus the entire
day, despite the temperatures pushing 100.
The drive wasn’t real long today, so we didn’t even bother changing
them into their play clothes. The boys
updated their journals and wrote nice letters home for you. I dropped a whole stack of letters in the
mailbox. I think there was only two boys
that didn’t finish and I have an extremely good feeling those letters will be
in my hands before they put a single toe in the Gulf tomorrow.
We made it to the Johnson Space Center and had lunches under
some trees on the grounds. For boys the
age we are carrying on board, this is a pretty cool stop on the tour. (There have already been about a half dozen
of those so far, but this was the “big” stop for a handful of them like
Jeremiah that loves this kind of stuff.)
After lunch, we went right in and boarded the tram for the semi-guided
tour of a few of the buildings. We had
to wait in a line for the next tram for about 15 minutes, so it got a little
warm, but they didn’t complain too bad.
They’re tough.
The tour was pretty sweet. We pretty much waved to every single person
that was out and about as the tram went by.
We did our best to convince the boys they were all astronauts. The boys were able to see the training
facility with all the simulators and some of the futuristic things NASA always
seems to be working on. One was a “Robonaut”
that looked exactly like “Ironman”, but they were adamant that it wasn’t “Ironman”. Whatever.
First NASA copies Star Trek so they can feel cool, now Ironman.
We also were able to go into the first Mission Control for
the Gemini, Apollo, and early Space Shuttle missions. There was an awful lot of history within
those walls. It looks so much larger on the pictures but it
really isn’t a whole lot bigger than Fitzgerald hall with a taller ceiling.
A quick trip through “Rocket Park” was also on the itinerary
for us. This is where we got to see the absolutely
enormous Saturn V Rocket booster. I took
a picture, but it and all the others on the camera are still on the bus. You’ll have to close your eyes and imagine it
this time. The weather warmed-up even
more during the trip and now we were all pretty miserable in the heat while we
waited to head back to the main building.
The tram came and whisked us away to air conditioned glory.
The gift store has become the new funding source for NASA
once Neil Armstrong first tracked lunar mud into the LEM. The Johnson Space Center has one of the
larger gift stores around. Spoiler
alert: most of you are getting moon
rocks as souvenirs. After we funded the Orion
Project, we had a few minutes to play around with the exhibits before boarded the
bus for our joint concert with the Houston Boys Choir.
The boys conked-out right away and the majority slept pretty
hard. It’s been a busy few days for them
and they are starting to look a little worn-out. We have two days in a motel on the Gulf coming-up
where we can relax, sleep-in, take naps by the pool and just “be boys”. They need it.
We found the church, nestled right in the shadow of Rice University
Stadium where the football team plays.
Who knew they had such a big football field? It’s impressive. The boys had some time to work on their joint
piece with the Houston Boys Choir before sharing dinner with them. We have never done anything with the HBC
before and only stumbled across them by chance on a choral message board about
a trip to South Africa they have coming up.
We have a lot in common with them and the staffs of both of our
organizations seemed to hit it off well right away. This was a very good find by Aaron.
The concert went very well and the boys sounded pretty good tonight. I promised video yesterday so this will have
to do for now. Forgive the poor quality,
as it was recorded on my phone from the back of the church, but I figured something
was better than nothing. I will still
try to go back and get some of the older footage from earlier in the tour to
share with you if you’d like and I have the time. Following the concert, the boys were given a
pin from the HBC and we took a fun picture together. The boys met their host families and went
into the night.
The boys are on stage singing their concert so I finally
have a free minute to break-away and begin this blog post. It’s been a busy day. For those of you keeping track at home, the
term “free day” means absolutely anything but that for the staff. Apparently, boys are not that good at
supervising themselves.
This was a tough morning.
In addition to having numerous fine amenities, the Best Western had
amazing beds to rest in. Our two Mr.
Carpenter’s and a Mr. Goepferd did not have that luxury however as they were up
by 4:45 am in order to make it on the KBTX Channel 5 news broadcast this
morning. To help promote this evening’s
concert, they were asked to go on television and give it some publicity. They did great. You can watch the interview in its entirety
here: http://www.kbtx.com/bvtm/headlines/Land-of-Lakes-Chiorboys-212735381.html
The rest of us got to sleep in and arrive at the church at a
peaceful 9:30am. We didn't waste much
time and headed straight to the Carpenter residence for some relaxation and
“scheduled mandatory fun”. We knew it
was going to be a scorcher today with highs again in the upper 90’s and plenty
of sunshine so we didn't even bother with uniforms. It was play clothes all day. It also gave us the opportunity to have our
host families assist us with the critical task of laundry. To go with the play clothes was a massive
supply of sunscreen and bottled water.
We wanted to get them in the pool for an extended period
today, but we kind of wanted to trick them into thinking they were there longer
than they were at the same time. With
sunshine like this, their little bodies would sizzle in this sunshine,
particularly since we Minnesotans don’t get nearly this much sunshine and
especially not this year with all the rain we've been having. To help with the trickery, we put them in the
shaded porch and held the first round of Choirboy of the Year voting. This is the nomination round, where each boy
is instructed to vote for the boy they feel absolutely personifies what it
means to be a Choirboy and represents us well at all times. The battle for this title is fierce every
year and is something the boys do not take lightly. I will have to share the nominees tomorrow
since the list is in the wash with my shorts at the moment. #prefectfail
Once nominations were complete, the boys changed and bombarded
themselves with sunscreen. That was the
theme of the day, for sure. “Drink water
and wear sunscreen”. I felt like I was a
gunslinger in the Wild Wild West the way I was firing those spray cans around,
one in each hand. To the best of our
knowledge we got to everyone. Time would
tell if we missed any of them…
The boys swam most of the morning away, with a few breaks
thrown in there to get them in the shade for a while. The sun was very hot, but the water was a
refreshing change of pace from a warm bus.
The Carpenters have a wonderful home with a pool and a large deck for
the grilling that was going to take place for lunch. A Prefect is never comfortable bringing 28
boys to a residence. (Think bull in a
China shop). We had a few minor mishaps
throughout the day, but thankfully it was nothing major. For the most part, the
boys did well. (We are still working on
organization and cleanliness. For all
the good things this choir has going for it, picking-up after themselves and
being organized is not our forte. You
can easily see which boys are being introduced to this concept for the first
time and after six days it is beginning to get frustrating with some of
them…but we will get there.)
Before lunch, we split the boys up so the ones that wanted a
stomping in basketball could get it.
Stewart and I took on six of the older boys that wanted to play. We almost had to call the authorities because
it was such a thumping, but they kept smiling and having fun, so we
didn’t. It was nice to get on the court
for a while and I think they had a great time as well.
Lunch was a BBQ-style spread with chips and delicious
burgers and brats. I thought Rodney was
going to fall in love with his brat. He
enjoyed it very much. You can tell when
the boys enjoy their meal because they get very quiet. They were very quiet and only made noise when
they were going back for seconds. After
lunch, we relaxed a little bit to let our food settle. The boys clamored for a duel in the pool
between Stewart and I, and to keep them in the shade for a few minutes longer,
we agreed. It was fairly scripted
however, with each of us winning alternate bouts until Stewart emerged
victorious in sudden-death. (I let the
kid have this one…)
We applied another coat of sunscreen and jumped back in the
pool for about 25 more minutes. Rodney was very impressed with Sam's "Harlem Shake" at the AAA baseball game but we told him it was nothing compared to his worm. This is Sam "mid-worm". (Rodney still thought the Harlem Shake was better though.) After
drying-off and getting changed, Mrs. Carpenter presented each boy with a Texas
A&M “Aggies” pen. It was very thoughtful. The boys had a wonderful time that they will
likely remember for a long time and we owe it all to them. Thank you, Conrad and Connie.
The boys were pretty tired at this point and none of them
put up a fuss when it was time for rest period back at the church. We planned on this being a long one too,
probably close to two hours. We pumped
more fluids in them and spread them out in two Sunday school rooms. The majority of them conked-out right away and
slept the entire time. They were tired!
Just before dinner at 5:00pm, we got them-up. During rest period, Rodney and I ran up to
the local truck stop to fuel the bus. I
dropped him off at the motel so he could rest the remainder of the afternoon
and drove the bus back to the church which was only a few miles away. No sense in Rodney hanging-out in the heat
with the bus today. On the way back, I
stopped at Target and picked-up some soothing Aloe Vera spray for some of the
boys that got a little more sun than they planned. (Okay, I picked it up for myself, but I
assumed there were others that could feel the sting of summer their skin.) Vaseline makes a pretty sweet product if you
ever need it. I am now a fan. When we woke the boys up, we sprayed any of
them that wanted it. None of them were
too reddened, but you could tell they had been in the sun for a good amount of
time today. Some of the boys got a
chuckle out of two of the boys’ backs where you could see they didn’t properly
apply the sunscreen and very distinct spray patterns were visible.
Dinner was again awesome.
(We have eaten very well in College Station.) A Philly Cheese steak buffet was set-up and
the boys got to create their own sandwiches. Our first mandatory salad of the
tour happened as well without any complaining to my knowledge. Some of the boys wanted seconds on salad, but
I figured-out they were putting whipped cream on it. I let it happen, as long as they ate it,
which they did. Weird boys…
Warm-ups and the pre-concert routine were a little rough
given how tired they boys were, but they pulled it together in time to perform
a very good show. I hope to have the
time to get some video posted in the coming days for you to watch. The boys enjoyed a snack then made their way
to their host homes for the evening.
Tomorrow is another big day with the Johnson Space Center in
Houston and our being hosted by the Houston Boys Choir. Should be a great day!
The boys are all settled in their host homes for the night
and the staff discovered a new level of “nice” when it comes to Best
Westerns. Did you know there is a level
beyond “Best Western Plus”? It’s called “Premiere”,
and the best part is it is cheaper than the regular ones! I’m hooked…
This afternoon’s drive went well, but it took just a little
longer than we had first anticipated. We’ve
been pushing the bus pretty hard the past few days so we wanted to go easy on
the old girl. She does have more than three-quarters
of a million miles on her. Rodney knows
when to let up on the reins, so that is what we did. The timing was no problem though, because we
didn’t have plans right away when we got there anyways. The AC did pretty well on the drive with the
temperatures in the upper 90’s with lots of sun.
College Station is the home of Aaron’s parents. When we arrived, a wonderful fajita dinner
awaited us. The boys filled-up pretty
good on the wonderful chicken and beef selections. The peach dessert was well represented in the
boy’s stomachs as well.
The plan tonight was to give a workshop for some children in
the congregation. About 15-20 children
showed-up and participated in a workshop led by Aaron and supported by the rest
of the boys. I wasn’t able to hang-out
in there much, but it looked from all accounts that it went very well. I was there to see young Mr. Eli lose a
tooth. Following the workshop, the boys
were introduced to their host homes and disappeared into the night. The boys get to sleep in a little in the morning,
as they don’t need to be to the church until 9:30am.
Tomorrow is a semi-free day, with a BBQ/pool party at the
Carpenter home. They live in close
proximity to a good park too, so we hope to get the boys over there for a while
to run around. It’s good to have a day
to catch-up on rest, clean the bus, relax and get some laundry done. We do have a full concert tomorrow night so a
rest period will be in the plans for sure.
I’ll try to get a good amount of pictures home for ya’ll since there is
something to take a picture of, other than the inside of a bus. (Thought I was going to get some outside
pictures today but the camera was sitting on the AC vent for the ride and when
it got outside it fogged-up big time. J)
I never know how to start these posts. This part of each post probably takes 25% of
the total time it takes to write each one of these. I try to pretend I am always in a sunny and
happy mood, despite the muggy temps on the bus or the continuous flow of obvious
questions from the boys. Well…that worked pretty easily.
At the present moment, we are heading south into Dallas on
35W. We’ve passed some pretty impressive
sights so far here in Dallas, including the unbelievably enormous Texas Motor
Speedway. Unfortunately, only the staff
really got to see it. The boys are having
their rest period at the moment. Typically,
I would strongly consider waking them so they could see such a sight, but
knowing we will be coming back this way in a week or so, it was a little easier
to pass it up this once.
The boys did very well this morning getting up and out of
the hotel. The original plan was to
potentially go swimming in the morning, but we thought it would be cutting it a
little close on time and elected not to attempt it. All the boys needed to shower this morning
because there just wasn’t time to last night after the game. They also all needed to pack their belongings
and eat at the great full breakfast buffet at our motel. The BW we stayed at last night was great. Very accommodating, very responsive with any
needs we had, and the breakfast was first-rate.
I would certainly recommend them in the future.
UH-OH! It JUST
happened! I didn’t want to say anything
for fear of jinxing it, but somehow, someway, for some reason, it took until
THIS moment in the tour for a boy to come-up and ask to go to the bathroom at
an inopportune time. Generally, this
happens so early in the tour that we almost stop the bus in the Choir building
parking lot and let them run in to go, but for some reason this year the
bladders aligned. Aaron and I wouldn’t
even talk about it with Lisa for fear of jinxing it. The only wood on the bus, an umbrella handle
behind Rodney has been knocked more than an arrow at Choirboy Camp. All was for naught though. I’m sure ya’ll’d (yes, I just created my own
word consisting of “you” “all” & “would”) like to know who the boy that
broke the streak was. Well, just assume
it was yours.
Every year, the choir has a personality of its very own that
differs from year to year based on the boys and the leadership involved. I can’t recall a choir that gets along as
well as this one has. (Knock on the
umbrella.) There are the usual
disturbances from mile to mile, but on the whole, they do very well. I think the more remarkable aspect is the way
they chose their rooming. The older boys
are very open to the idea of hanging-out with the younger boys. This has maybe clouded the inter-choir
hierarchy some, but I think it has helped to facilitate a more mature and
relaxed choir than usual. I like the
direction this is headed and in the coming days I hope to work more with the
leaders in the choir on honing their role in the organization to help it
function better.
We managed to get out of the hotel basically on-time. We made a quick stop at the QT station to
resupply our water. You will be happy to
know that we are going through a lot of water. This is already the second time
we’ve had to buy water on the tour. 10
cases later, we were back on the road.
We put “How to Train Your Dragon” in the DVD player. That was a petty cute movie. The boys enjoyed it, mostly because it wasn’t
educational like the others we have been watching. They are certainly in “school’s
out for summer” mode, but we are good about tricking them into learning when we
need to be. Down the road, we also
handed out the couple letters we had and the 20 or so emails we received in the
past day. We are down to only two boys
that have no received a letter, so that is good. I plan to contact those families today and
let them know. If you don’t hear from
me, you’re not one of them. J
We ate lunch at McDonald’s and that pretty much brings us up
to now. The weather is good and warm, but
we aren’t going to dwell on that much.
The bus is running very well.
(Knock on the umbrella). The boys
are in generally good health. (Knock on
the umbrella). The staff is in a
generally good mood. Things are going
well.
I have a pile of receipts to make purchase orders for, so I
need to end this for now. Have a
terrific Sunday, and KEEP those letters coming!
I will try to include some photos tonight if there are any good photo
ops.
It's very late, but we all made it back to our hotel safe
and sound. The game was a great
time. The boys ate at the Sonic housed
in the company headquarters which is based here in OKC. The place was packed to the gills and the
line went out the door, but we waited anyways because the tots are that good.
With our $7.25 ticket for the game, we received a voucher for a value meal at
Sonic and a free hat at the game. You
can't beat that! (This just further
cements Aaron as a terrific tour planner.)
The home team won by a wide margin and there were many great
“web gems” in the game. The weather probably could not have been better for
summer outdoor baseball. We got our name up on the Jumbotron. The boys had a
fantastic time and everyone got to make a trip to the concession stand for some
junk food and the souvenir stand for some trinkets to bring home as a reminder
of the great evening. There was even a
foul ball hit to our row during the game, but because half of the choir was
shopping at the time, it hit the ground and bounced a few rows away to someone
else.
Traffic was pretty intense afterwards, but Rodney got us
home safe and sound as usual. He’s the
best.
I’m writing to you from the road somewhere near Tonkawa,
Oklahoma. I want to get as much of the day done now because I know it’s going
to be a late night tonight when we go to the ballgame. We just did something
(for the first time in our history, to my knowledge) that I think is so cool,
but you have to read on to figure out what it is. The boys are resting right now while we make
the final leg of our journey into OK city.
The quiet time is much needed about now.
This morning we said “goodbye” to our friends with the
Kansas City Boys Choir. From all
accounts, it was a great night for our boys and I think we have made a friend
for a longtime. They provided bag
lunches for all of us and also sent us on the road with a box of doughnuts for
the boys. It was pretty awfully nice of
them. One of their dads is a transplant to the area from Minnesota. Big Vikings fan who enjoyed the fact that
Matt Blair was a donor of our program. We
reminisced about the 1998 team and both ended the conversation wishing we hadn’t
deliberately relived those memories.
We made it on the road in good time and started heading
south. I like to get as many miles as I
can done in the morning when it is much cooler.
This old bus is great – but it does like to hover around that 80 degree
mark when it’s loaded with boys, pretty much no matter what the temperature
outside is. When we were on the road, we
gave the reports for the day and handed-out last night’s mail. Through four days, mail has been light. (Rud Family – You are doing great. I can’t keep up with printing all your
emails. J) We also took the time to formally check all
the journals, which are looking really good through three full days. These boys should have nice stories to tell
you when they get home.
About a half-hour down the road, we threw in a video about
the “Texas Rangers”. This got us a ways
into Kansas. While we were driving, I
received a text message from the mechanic of our bus, JD Dickenson from C&J
Bus Company in Bloomington, MN. He was
headed north on I-35 and passed us. That
was pretty cool that he saw our bus on the road this far from home.
Friends from home was kind of the theme for the middle part
of the day. In addition to passing JD,
we saw a number of cars from Minnesota, including a pretty sweet Mustang with
the top down carrying an older couple.
They waved enthusiastically as they passed us. We probably get hat every couple days on the
road and it always helps a little to see Minnesota license plates. The boys don’t see many of those though,
mostly because they have their noses buried in iPads and Gameboy DSs every
possible second they are allowed to. For
some of them, I am pretty sure they are going to start shaking and going into
withdrawal if they don’t get them for hours each day. It’s fairly annoying.
Back to our theme of “friends from home”. The Minnesota Boychoir is finishing-up their
tour to Texas in the next couple of
days. They do things a little different
than us when it comes to touring.
Instead of meandering to our furthest point like we do, hitting places
along the way, they elect to travel to their destination in large chunks, spend
more time at that location, then make it home in large chunks quickly. Each way has its benefits. They are on their final leg of the tour,
traveling from Dallas/Ft. Worth to Des Moines today (picking-up fresh drivers
in KC). We knew they were in the area so
we started texting their director Mark Johnson back and forth to see we could
facilitate a meeting. Our best guess was
that we would be at the same place, on the same road somewhere near the
OK/Kansas border, so we both did our best to time-up our lunches for the same
neighborhood.
We were having bag lunches today while their plans called
for a stop at a group of fast food establishments. We swung into the rest area to eat our
lunches and the boys ate much quicker than usual in the hopes of getting to
meet the other choir for a brief photo opportunity. Once lunch was finished, we hopped on the bus
and headed to the next exit where we saw the pair of Northland Coaches that the
Minnesota Boychoir was using parked at the McDonald’s. We pulled into the parking lot around the
corner came a little slice of home – about 40 of their boys and their director,
Mr. Johnson. We knew we only had a few
minutes, but we gathered all the boys together so they could say “hi” to the
friends they have made over the course of our two previous meetings with them
this season. It was great. We put them all in a group photo and said our
goodbyes. The entire exchange took 8-10
minutes, but that is all it took for this very cool, very rare,
opportunity. You can read about the fun
they have had here on their blog: http://www.boychoir.blogspot.com/
Back on the bus, we crossed the street and decided to use
this chance to fuel-up before hitting the road (and it was cheaper than most
places we’ve seen along the way). Since
we were just under half a tank, it shouldn’t be much, right? haha.
$400.00 later we were just about full.
This is the most painful part of tour, especially when you are in a bus
that gets a whopping 6 MPG when it is fully loaded.
And that pretty much brings us up to the present. We will probably let the boys sleep for
another 25 minutes or so as they will be up pretty late tonight. The plan is to check into the hotel around
3:30, relax for a bit in the pool if the timing works out, then eat at Sonic
nearby before heading to the baseball game.
These tend to be a lot of fun for the boys, but I can almost guarantee
they will be exhausted when it is over. As an incentive to try and get more Twitter
followers, I will post special content on our twitter feed that you can only
get if you follow us at @thechoirboys. Check it out! We have a chance to sleep
in a bit tomorrow so I hope we can take advantage of that.
Don’t expect another post tonight, but I try to give a quick
update with some pictures if I can.
When we last left our sweater-vested heroes, they were
eating lunch at a rest stop south of Council Bluffs. I wanted to get this picture of Sam
delivering his daily report in the blog but I was having issues with the
connection and couldn’t get it uploaded.
It’s incredible to think it’s already his fourth tour.
Time flies.
We took a rest period after lunch like we typically do. We have continued a new deal that we started
last year by allowing the boys to have MP3 players during rest period. It’s worked pretty awesomely for us and we
intend to continue it indefinitely. The
boys also seem to really appreciate the option.
The old adage does apply though:
If you give a mouse a cookie, he’ll want a glass of milk. They enjoy
pushing the limits the best they can, but then again, they are boys.
We made some good distance up today, about 340 miles. (360+ is expected Saturday). When the boys woke-up from rest period, I
threw an A&E Biography about Davy Crockett on the TV’s. With the Alamo coming-up soon, I figured we
need to get them up to speed as much as possible. Davy was a pretty cool dude. I foresee the boys buying several coonskin
caps while we are there.
The bus started creeping up towards that 80 degree mark for
the drive with the external temps in the mid 90’s. There is really no way around it – it’s going
to be a little warm on the bus in sunlight and temperatures like this.
We made it to Kansas City a few minutes early and that was
good, because it took us those extra 12 minutes to figure-out how to get into
the parking lot of the Frank Lloyd Wright designed church we were singing
in. It was very unique and wonderful
church. There were very few straight
walls in the building and the ceilings were very low. It sort of looked like an adobe structure,
crossed with something you might find on an episode of “The Flintstones”. It was very cool and they boys enjoyed
singing in the space.
Our hosts for the evening were none other than The Kansas
City Boys Choir under the direction of Ah-li Robinson. They sure know how to host a choir! In addition to the space they provided for us
to sing in, they provided a full spread of Kansas City BBQ for the boys to
enjoy. It was great and the boys kept
eating and eating and eating. I don’t
think there was a single boy that didn’t have at least a full plate, if not
more. Pretty sure most of the boys had
another plates worth on their face by the end of the meal. See Arteom (Exhibit A).
Following warm-ups, we shared the concert with the KSBC. They sang about six spirited pieces to open
the concert. They are a bit older than
us, with largely TTB arrangements and a little more movement in their pieces. It was very good and more importantly, it was
great for our boys to experience another boy choir that doesn’t do things like
we do. The brotherhood of boys choirs is
a great group and we are happy to have made another connection today. There is a very good chance they will come
our way October, so I hope we can reciprocate their kindness with a full spread
of lutefisk and lefse.
Following the concert the boys completed their jobs and met
their host homes for the night. We knew
ahead of time that there was only housing for 20 of the 28 boys, so we arranged
to have 2 rooms at the hotel. From
time-to-time when we have the chance we like to “reward” the older boys with a night
away from some of the younger boys. It
generally helps us build report with them and goes a long ways towards
establishing them as leaders in the choir. This was that opportunity.
We also said our goodbyes to Taylor who was ending his tour
with us here in Kansas City due to commitments with his other job. It’s been great to watch him grow into this
program and take on the expanded roles.
I couldn’t imagine a better fit with an incoming director than we have
found with both he (and Corrine) over the past 18 months. He is great with the boys, a wonderful
addition to the artistic staff, and a genuinely great person to bring into the
fold. The tour will have a small hole in it tomorrow when he is not on the bus
with us, but the tour goes on.
Since our hotel was only 4 blocks away from the church, I
brought those 8 boys with me to the Office Depot right by our motel so we could
buy some replacement ink for the printer.
Boys are weird. I think these
boys had as much fun going through this Office Depot as they will at some of
the actual planned attractions later on the tour. While we waited for the bus to arrive with
our luggage, we hung-out in the parking lot and watched the lightening bugs
play around. I didn’t teach them how to
rip their tails off and become a giant glow-worm, but the thought did cross my
mind.
Once the bus arrived, they brought their luggage up to their
rooms and I ran to the convenience store to pick-up some Chaco Tacos to finish
the night off right. They hit the hay by
about 10:15 and here I sit, writing to you all.
It was another great day.
Tomorrow is off to Oklahoma City and the AAA Baseball game with all the
boys in the motel. Pretty sure there is
a swimming pool, so I better make sure Stewart gets some good rest.
Tonight’s concert was a pretty good time. The boys woke-up a little bit later than we
had planned, but they are pros and it all worked-out just fine. We took the liberty of washing their white shirts
last night and had the process of distributing them all back out to them
today. Thank you to those parents that
ensured your son’s number was in his shirt.
That helped us a lot.
The concert went along very well. The boys sang in good form and the audience
seemed to appreciate it very much. One
lady approached Aaron in tears after the concert and said she “sat in awe” of
the boys and their beautiful sound.
Another told him that “their parents should be very proud of them”. Overall, it was a very good concert. The boys cleaned-up about as well as I have
seen in some time too. It took 14
minutes flat to change, finish their jobs, unload the suitcases, clean-up the
dressing room and get to the sanctuary to meet their host families. A tremendous job. (I did have to bribe them with ice cream in
Dallas, however. The deal was if they
beat 15 minutes they got ice cream. If
they didn’t, I bought ice cream and ate it in front of them. I know they never like to see me happy, so it
worked like a charm.)
