S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night!

We had a pretty exciting Saturday. My mom called me in the morning to see if we were doing anything special since she happened to have a couple extra tickets to the MoTab Christmas Concert. We immediately called Steve's parents to see if they could watch Josh (since you have to be 8 years old to go to a MoTab concert...) and they could!! So we got all ready and left Ephraim carpooling with my parents.

So, anyone who lives in Utah and Salt Lake Counties will probably remember the snow storm on Saturday. It was lovely. My poor dad had to drive through the snow (thanks dad!) and he kept us safe the whole way. Just after getting on the freeway at Nephi, we saw a truck that had flipped over in the median. My dad stopped and he and Steve ran to see if they could help- since it looked pretty recent. They came back and said the cab of the truck was completely flattened, but everyone in the truck got out just fine and they were on the phone with 911 getting a police officer there. Wow- what a miracle. I'm glad nobody was hurt!

The roads stayed bad all the way to about Lehi. In Payson, there was a stretch of road where at least 15 cars had slid off- some of them crashing in to other cars. The police and firetrucks were there helping people get un-stuck and back on to the road. Pretty scary travelling, but my dad did great driving us in the snow. I kept thinking to myself "Good thing Steve, Josh and I are with them to make their car heavier!" We were the equivalent of putting a sandbag in the back of your truck I guess.

Anyway, after slow moving traffic and a ride on trax to downtown SLC, we didn't have time to go anywhere to eat- not if we wanted good seats (since the tickets are just for sections- not specific seats). Oh- Steve's mom met us at the trax station and picked up Josh... that was super convenient. OK- back to Salt Lake...

We got to our seats and got settled in and I finally looked at the program to see who exactly the guests were going to be. Imagine my surprise when I saw the guy who played Richard Gilmore (the grandpa/dad) on Gilmore Girls, which is like one of my favorite shows! I was so excited to see him in person. Turns out his wife is LDS- he met her many years ago while he was in Utah working on a movie- she was on the crew. Anyway- he did fabulous- he was the one who read the Christmas story out of the bible- and he read a story about the song "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day". Neat. The singer was fantastic as well! His name is Brian Stokes Mitchell (the one on the left) and he has a great stage performance! He sang some incredible songs- you will just have to get the CD when it comes out next year. But for me the highlight of the night was one of the MoTab organists who did a solo- Go Tell it On the Mountain- on the organ. He arranged it himself. It was great. He was playing 2 separate parts with his feet on the foot pedals as well as grooving out on the keyboards. Way to go Richard Elliot!

All in all- a very wonderful night. Except for one thing. When we called Steve's parents to tell them the concert was over and we were on our way to pick Josh up, they told us he had been crying for all but about 15 minutes of the night. That is like at least 4 solid hours of crying!! We felt so bad- darn that stranger anxiety! But he was happy when we picked him up. We stopped at Denny's for dinner at like 11:00 at night and he was all smiles, so I guess he isn't traumatized too badly.

So- thanks Mom and Dad for a great Saturday! Even though we got home at about 2 in the morning- and my parents probably pulled in about 3:30 (and my dad has stake meetings at 6:00 on sundays...) it was well worth the trip!