Aloha from very sunny College Station, Texas!
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!
-P.J.
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