Music, animals and dinosaurs — Oh my

Wow — it’s been unseasonably hot the past couple of days.  It’s funny how quickly things have gone from winter and snowing (last snow day was around April 23rd) to nearly 100 degree heat (yesterday and today).  Of course, with the thawing from winter to summer (I guess we are skipping spring this year), comes many more activities that get the family out of the house and onto the road. 

Today we combined two of those activities.  The first was the Community Bands Festival at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon.  I personally have no musical talent, but my wife happens to be a very good flutist.  The band that she plays in (Willamette Valley Concert Band) is one of many community bands that participates in this event.  The format is simple — each groups gets about 45 minutes to play (what works out to about 6 arrangements) before letting the next band play.  For my wife’s band — this is kindof like a rehearsal for their Memorial Day event.

So with that in mind, we packed up the kids and headed up to Newberg and George Fox.  Now, we have active little boys so when they come, I rarely get to see an entire concert and today was no exception.  I got to watch about a 1/2 hour and decided to try recording some of the pieces and uploading them to Youtube for a few family that missed the even.  Now, the video might make you see sick (I had Nathan wrestling with me on my lap) and there’s a pretty good chance you’ll here us whispering a few times — but other than that — I thought that the short clips turned out ok.  Maybe next time — I’ll bring a video recorder (rather than just using my digital camera).  Anyway — here are the pieces:

1. FanFare for Freedom; Morton Gould
2. William Tell Overture; Gioacchino Rossini/Erik Ledzen
   • Pt 1 (first 5 1/2 minutes to transition)
   • Pt 2 (last 6 1/2 minutes)
3. Folk Suite for Band: Deep River and Get on Board Little Children; William Grant Still

The band played 3 other arrangements:

1. Sandpaper Ballet; Leroy Anderson
2. Big Band Bash; Bob Lowden
3. Pathfinder of Panama; John Philip Sousa/Frank Byrne

I thought that the band played well — so hopefully that comes across on the recording from my little digital camera.

After the band concert — we decided to drive into Portland and take the boys to the zoo.  This year, Portland area attractions are doing kindof a year of the dinosaurs theme.  Earlier this year, we’d went to OMSI when they displayed about 40 full dinosaur skeletons from China.  Well, Saturday was the first day for the Portland Zoo’s Dinosaur exhibit.  Basically, it’s a dinosaur walk where you see robotic dinosaurs and get to hear and read a little bit about the dinosaur.  I’m pretty sure the boys loved it because we got to hear all about the dinosaurs on the way home.  And while I was there, I snapped a few pictures of the dinos as we made our way around.  Don’t ask me to spell or tell you what they are.  I have no idea.

There are actually quite a few more dinosaurs (something like 48 or 50 I think) — so these are the highlights.  Let me tell you, Nathan didn’t want to take his eyes of the T-Rex (above).  When we went to OMSI, they had a robotic T-Rex and it scared him — made him cry (though, I might have had something to do with that too).  So, as we rounded the corner and seen the T-Rex at the zoo — he kindof froze.  He recognized it immediately as his nemesis, the dinosaur from OMSI — only bigger.  We told him it was a robot — that it wouldn’t eat him — and that made him feel better — but you’d better believe that he never had his eye off that dinosaur for very long.  I don’t think he completely believed that it was going to come out of the trees and start chasing us.

We seen lots of animals too — but I think that the dinosaurs won the day today.  And the boys — yeesh.  They have a lot more energy than I do.  After spending all day in the heat — I was ready to take a nap, while the boys played and wrestled all the way home.  A nice way to start the weekend, for sure.

–TR