What an awesome day!
This could be a record length blog post, so I will see if I can tone it
down a little for the sake of your eyes and free time.
I always love mornings like this one. The weather was perfect. The birds were singing. But perhaps the best part was the glowing
reports from the host families about the boys.
I saw a few teary-eyes as the boys loaded the bus and said their goodbyes. This is a wonderful church community and I
really hope we are able to make it back this way in the near future. (To my knowledge, nothing was left behind in
a host home either! Key words: to my knowledge.)
After counting-off and going over a few details of the day,
the boys had the opportunity to work with Mr. Charles Bruffy, whom I spoke
about yesterday. What a great treat this
was for the boys! Mr. Bruffy worked with
the boys for about an hour and really helped to reinforce so many of the things
Aaron is working to teach the boys. Mr.
Bruffy mentioned how much he enjoyed our choir and how good we were. It was a great experience for all of us and
it is one of the many things we hope the boys take from their time here in the
organization. (I hope to upload a video
of our clinic with him, to our Facebook page.
I apologize for those of you that do not have Facebook, but I cannot
seem to figure-out how to get the video from my phone to the blog, so I figure
this is better than nothing. This
particular video actually has him playing the top part on the piano with Lisa,
just at the conclusion of our workshop.)
After saying our goodbyes to Mr. Bruffy and the rest of the
Rolling Hills Presbyterian Community, we hit the road for a nice “relaxing” day
at the Arboretum in Overland Park. It is
an amazing complex, complete with wonderfully manicured grounds and miles of
walking trails. The boys first ate lunch
outdoors amongst the birds. Our lunch
was provided by the church and each boy had a hand-decorated lunch bag for
their enjoyment. You could tell a lot of
work went into making just the bags for the boys, let alone the actual food
inside that was equally deserving of mentioning. After we destroyed two cases of water like it
was nothing, we hit the trails.
Over the next two hours, the boys hit numerous trails and
exhibits along the way. I am sure they
will have thousands of pictures of show you in a few short weeks when they get
home. I apologize in advance for having
to act interested while you watch all those photos of random trees, rocks, and Koi
Fish. (Sp?)
Today’s rest period was a great one. I estimate that just about every boy was
sleeping today for a good 45 minutes – they were exhausted. When they woke, we were in the parking lot of
the hotel at about 3:15 in the afternoon.
We quickly unloaded the bus, checked into the hotel and had every boy
shower and change into a clean set of travel uniforms. By 3:58, we had 34 fresh smelling boys loaded
on the bus headed for dinner reservations.
It was one of my prouder Prefecting moments. (By 4:19, we had just about all of their
journals checked and a letter was turned in from just about every boy as
well. I hope to get them out on tomorrow’s
mail, so expect them mid next week.)
Dinner was outstanding.
The boys were treated to authentic Italian at V’s Ristorante, just a few
blocks from the church. A plethora of
different dishes were tried, and quite a few salads too, I might add. Of course we had the “challenging eaters” to
contend with, but I think it was relatively lower at around three for this
meal. We had our first lost tooth of the
tour from Tristan. He wiggled that thing
until it came-out. We don’t really have
a policy on losing teeth at the dinner table, and since he wasn’t really able
to eat anything because of it we let it slide this one time. By 6:00, we were back on the bus, headed for
the church.
Warm-ups were rushed a little more than usual due to our
decision to check into the hotel and shower the boys. It was the right call to make though. The rushed warm-ups didn’t seem to bother the
boys one bit though. They gave one of
the finer performances I have ever witnessed from the Land of Lakes
Choirboys! They had energy. They sounded great. They were entertaining. It was everything we expect from them and
some – you really need to get everyone you know to that Homecoming Concert on
July 6 – it is going to be special!
In the crowd was Mr. Ah’Lee E. Robinson, who is the CEO of
the Board of Directors, Founder, and Musical Director of the Kansas City Boys
Choir/Kansas City Girls Choir. He seemed
to be quite delighted with the boys performance when we were able to talk with
him during intermission. He had members
of the Kansas City Boys Choir with him to take-in our performance as well. We love being able to meet other musicians, particularly
from other boy choirs when we have the chance on tour.
Also in the crowd were a few other people. An elderly couple was celebrating their 66th
wedding anniversary. They told Aaron “they
will remember this night forever!” Landon
Owen’s grandparents live somewhere in the area and were able to make the short
trip to see the boys. Our good friend
and LOLCB Associate Director Taylor Quinn was also here, visiting old friends
and bringing several of them to see the boys.
Some of you may know that Taylor lived in the Kansas City area before
joining the LOLCB. The boys really
seemed excited to see him. (We kept it
somewhat of a secret from them.)
The only real low point of the day was the end when we had
to break some hearts that were set on swimming at the motel. In all the rush of getting the boys
cleaned-up and moved into their hotel, I may have promised them a dip in the
pool if they were able to get finished with the concert at a reasonable time. They did a good job at the concert and we had
plenty of time afterwards. Only problem
is, we didn’t realize there wasn’t a pool at this motel. #prefectfail
To make up for it, we went across the street and bought them
out of Dilly Bars – literally. That
seemed to make most of the boys forget. It’s
probably for the best though, as we have a very early start in the
morning. Tomorrow is 410+ miles on the bus before a 4:30 Mass and 7:00 Concert in Evansville, Indiana.
Until then,
P.J.
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