Children for Children Concert

At Christmastime, when our kids were little we got a little worried about the fact that they were thinking a whole lot about what they wanted to get for Christmas and not too much about what they wanted to give.

One year, a neighbor who was working with a humanitarian group to build a new elementary school in Bolivia mentioned their desperate need for funds and a new idea was born. Why not have the kids in the neighborhood put on a concert and charge the parents, neighbors and friends to watch them perform with all the proceeds going to help build this little cinderblock school in Bolivia. In those days the entire two-room school could be built for $2000.

We held a meeting with the kids and their parents and the kids were delighted to think that their talents could help build a school for kids their age in Bolivia! The kids practiced, showed up and performed and the parents (some who had more available funds than others) dug deep and with some matching funds we somehow managed to raise $2000 that night! The kids were over the moon!

And so a new tradition was born: The Children for Children Concert which has taken place every year in some form or other for the past 30 years. Now all these years later, our children have taken this good idea and made it even better as they have involved their own friends and neighbors where ever they live, from Arizona to Boston with good causes of their choice.

In Ogden Utah last night, our oldest daughter Saren, her husband Jared and their family organized their 7th Annual Children for Children Concert in a beautiful old church in their neighborhood which has been turned into a Community Center. They filled the church with eager participants and their parents.

Their oldest son Ashton conducted the festivities and oldest daughter Eliza (in the red on the right above) announced the numbers.

First, a short, heart-wrenching video accompanied by the beautiful music of Kurt Bestor, Prayer of the Children was shown to let the audience know that the money this year (as always for them) will go to orphanages in Bulgaria where Saren had worked and served as a missionary many years ago. A foundation called One Heart Bulgaria has now done wonders for the beautiful children in orphanages all over Bulgaria.  The light was low and the pictures are pretty grainy but you’ll get the message. They were taken by Saren when she was there, eight months pregnant with twins many years ago. 

This year half of the proceeds also go to the I Love Lucy Foundation which is working to create a registry for children with the rare Bardet Biedel Syndrome which our seven-year-old granddaughter Lucy (Shawni and Dave’s daughter) is struggling with.

Family after family came up with clever ways to entertain the audience. From delightful poems to songs and dances as well as lovelyl violin solos. Complete with the usual technical difficulties, the program had the audience was smiling about both the entertainment and the glitches. Everyone was thankful for their coats and scarves as the old radiators in that lovely old building brought the temperature up to almost 50 degrees, a welcome relief from the frigid 10 degrees and freezing smog outside.

The kids had a ball presenting their adorable “acts”! The light was so low that all the following pictures are blurry but it was the best my little iPhone could do under the circumstances!

At the end of the program, all the children leave their parents’ sides to participate in the largest Christmas Pageant Ever!  The shepherds and angels go through one door to bedecked, the wise men through the other. Then the narrator tells the simple Christmas story, revised from the Joy School lessons while the kids act it out! It’s quite a site!  This year Joseph was about two feet shorter than Mary which created a bit of ripple through the audience!  Mary is sitting in the picture below!

 

These handsome wise men brought their own costumes and treasure boxes for the spices:

And we had the best little three-week-old “Baby Jesus” ever!

Grand tradition and wonderful way to get kids excited about giving and making a difference at Christmas time.  Below is a picture of the money that Ashton posted on instagram that the good people in the audience left for the cause. The kids were over the moon! 

James Taylor, State Fair and Comic-con

What a stupendous weekend we had last week! Because Saren and Jared’s Fifteenth Wedding Anniversary fell on September 8th, we had the fun chance to take care of their" “Fabulous Five” kids for a couple of days. They are a raucous bunch of fun kids!

Their oldest, awesome Ashton and I had the opportunity to go to the Tanner Gift of Music Concert at the Conference Center where James Taylor thrilled an audience of 21,000 along with the Tabernacle Choir and the Utah Symphony. Ashton may have been the youngest person there, but it was such a joy to spend some one-on-one time with that very creative and gifted young man. I loved every minute. He seemed to like it a lot too, especially since he is a guitar player himself! Note that this cute guy is now taller than his grandmother! 

Meanwhile, Grandfather took the other four kids to the State Fair. The twins absolutely adore him and Isaac and Eliza think he’s pretty cool too!  The kids had a great time. Although carnival rides aren’t his favorite, Grandfather enjoyed himself watching the kids’ delight!

The twins with their new buddy….

Eliza on the Ferris Wheel….

It was also an enormous Comic-con convention in downtown. Characters from the comics (and movies) saturated the streets of Salt Lake City.  Below see Gandalff with Silas!  You just never knew who you’re going to run into on the street! It was as least as fun as Halloween!

 

We had such fun with the kids at our home in Park City, including pulling a few weeds  (which is always fun for me), riding horses and making the first pumpkin cookies of the season! We also loved going to a wonderful event in Bountiful called Kisses for Cami. Cami is my sister’s little grand daughter who has just had a relapse of leukemia and has a truly remarkable story.

Isaac and Eliza loved being part of this incredible event for this irrepressible little girl!

Post on that stellar event as well as the media coverage coming next!

Quick Update on the Homefront

I missed a couple of fun pictures that I want to have on record. First, this guy below and his brother, exactly the same size, keep showing up on our property. Rick ran into this one on his way home from the mailbox. When Rick looked up and realized that this guy was less than 10 feet away munching on leaves, he turned around and ran (Rick, not the moose….good choice). But when the moose didn’t seem to give him so much as a nod to acknowledge he was there he went back and snapped a picture. Pretty awesome fellows (both the moose and Rick).

The next is a snapshot of the fun we had while Saydi and the kids stayed for an extra week for Saydi’s high school class reunion. How could 20 years have whizzed by since then? She was in charge of some of the activities so the I got to have fun with the kids! 

Fiesty and adorable Emmeline gathered wildflowers on a hike.

And Peter enjoyed watching Peter eat apples…..

And we had fun visiting temple square with the kids…

Putting the last of the reunion bodies on the plane to Boston was bitter/sweet. How we have loved having these kids around. From our first arrivals from Hawaii at the end of June to August 3rd we’ve had the privilege of being drenched in family. But going back to our world “for real life” wasn’t bad either! 

Eight!

In our church, eight is a very important age! It’s then that kids reach what we call “the age of accountability”,  are formally baptized and become official members of the church.This is a choice they make on their own and they take it very seriously! Last Saturday our little twins Oliver and Silas who just turned eight, went through their own very serious right of passage. And were they ever excited and prepared for that commitment!

Oliver

 

Silas

Even though we knew they were well-prepared for the big event, we brought a book about baptism to read before we went to the church which grandfather promptly read to them. There is a scripture reference on every page and the cute guys scurried to get their scriptures to look up the references and read them to each other. So cute!

Luckily we had our little Annina (Tal and Anita’s baby) with us since her parents are in Hawaii. She is adored by her cousins and she was delighted to see them too.

Finally the big moment arrived.  Since the twins’ Dad is a brand new bishop of their ward he had the opportunity to interview them, give a talk, baptize and confirm them and pretty much everything else, including rescue his sister whose car broke down at 2 a.m.as she was trying to get to the baptism from Northern Idaho.  Jared got up and traveled about an hour to rescue them which included getting a new part and getting the car to the shop before the baptism. Crazy day! That Dad is a true champion!

 

 

Their Mom, Saren is way past amazing! She had these brilliant little guys ready in every way plus accomplishing the small task of not not only getting their other three kids to their basketball games and birthday parties before the baptism (at 4:00) as well as preparing her home and a wonderful meal for about 40-50 friends and relatives after the baptism. 

It was a pretty amazing day! One that we’ll never forget! There were about 30 members from the Loosli Family, since our kids are all over the country as well as four couples who just happened to be in Hawaii. One family lives there and the others were sent there as a reward from their company (Imagine Learning) since they all reached their substantial sales quotas this year (along with several other people in the company). Anyway, the bottom line was that Grandfather and Grammie had to hold down the fort the Eyre Family.

Silas (on the left) is wearing the baptism outfit that Richard’s mother made for him 60 years ago when he was baptized. That’s because his whole name is Silas Richard Eyre Loosli. Oliver is named for his Dad’s father who passed away a couple of years ago. They were both happy with that arrangement! 

What fun we had reconnecting with the Loosli family though. They are a stellar bunch!

The food was scrumptious (desserts especially appreciated by the boys) and everything together made it a wonderful day to remember!

To see more and read the adorable letters that the twins wrote in their journals that night about their special day click here.

Leonardo with Looslis

It was UEA weekend in Utah last week and it was fun to join the Looslis for a few hours on Friday. I caught up with them at the wonderful new Leonardo Museum where the kids were entertained for six hours creating things, disappearing on TV, dancing like a skeleton and thoroughly enjoying learning made fun! They had to be dragged out! Here they are (in low light) with their creations.

 

The beautiful fall day brought out a frolic with the statues on the lawn.

A walk up the stairway which resembled a modern “great wall” at the award-winning city library next door was bliss.

The view was spectacular!

Grandfather joined us at the top!

The lush grasses on the roof made for a beautiful family picture. Can you see why those kids adore their grandfather?  What fun we had!

It was a day to remember, especially because on the next Wednesday (this morning), this is what we saw out our windows at Baliwood:

Alas! Farewell to fall…on to winter!