North Las Vegas Stake Christmas Fireside

Tonight was our Stake's Christmas fireside in which Meghan and I were honored to participate in the bell choir. Two and half months ago, we were invited to play in the bell choir. The requirements for the bell choir was to know how to read music, count music, be able to follow music, and be committed 100%. That meant no missing practises if you could help it. "How hard can it be to ring one or two bells when your note popped up," was my thought at first. After the first practise, I had very different thoughts. It was harder than I could imagine. The second practise we were given a solo piece that included mallets, plucking,and marts. My bell choir vocabulary grew over night and I began to play bells in my dreams as well. Meghan did very well being the youngest of the bell choir. She held her own and even had a couple of solos that just included her bells and chimes. Meghan played the C5 bells which was middle C, C# B5 bells which included B and B flat. She played the same notes on the chimes too. I was given C6 bells and D6 bells. These are an octove above middle C. I played the same in chimes also. The songs that we accompanied the choir and orchestra were "Away in the Manger", "Joy to the World", and "I saw three ships". We also played our bell solo "Steppin' up with Rudolph" which we split between some of the orchestra members. We played on Saturday night while orchestra members played on Sunday night. I am so glad I was able to participate. It was an experience that I will never forget. I hope in the future, I will be able to participate again. It was well worth the hard practise and dedication we had to have to perform in such a short time. Jim was very proud of us as he supported us both nights. The first night he was chasing Parker and trying to keep him in his seat, but on Sunday he was able to listen to the whole preformance since we left Paige home to babysit Parker and Madison. Thanks Paige for your help we appreciated it.