Happy Birthday, Benjamin!

Those of you who pay attention to Benjamin's preferences know that his favorite color is green. So today, for his 19th birthday, he got three ties, and two of them were green. We don't have any announcements to make on the mission front, but he has started the paperwork (all online, so no paper is involved, but you know) so we hope to know before we move when and where he'll be going.

His preference for green apparently extends to flavors, and the brave young man repeated his request for a lime cake, and we also had mint chocolate chip ice cream. I have tried before to make a lemon chiffon cake, just substituting lime everywhere it said lemon, with pretty awful results. If I recall correctly, that had something to do with not reading the recipe carefully enough. Well, I've now made this recipe four times and it gets better each time. And I think I can say it was a success today! No dense, chewy layer in the middle. I frosted it with whipped cream flavored with a little lime juice, and it was ok, not overpowering like whatever I tried last time.

Anyway, Benjamin has now finished his freshman year at the University of Utah, majoring in Computer Engineering, and he's getting ready to move on a bit. Happy birthday, Benjamin!

Benjamin's Concert

On Tuesday I played hooky from the second half of my research design class and went to Benjamin's concert at the high school. I'm not being biased when I say I was blown away!

The first thing I liked I already knew about, and that was new uniforms. Hooray! In the past the uniforms have looked like the picture on the left (the same uniform for boys and girls), but this year the new directors decided the orchestra should look like an orchestra, and the picture on the right is Benjamin's (I didn't corner a girl for the picture, but they had actual long black dresses, in a flattering style for a variety of sizes):




Every year one of the feeder middle schools plays in this concert, and this year Midvale's came. they had a new director, too. And I was impressed with his ability to keep those kids moving. The William Tell Overture galloped along nicely! Then the Hillcrest band came out, with a new director fresh out of college, and their first piece is what made my jaw drop. They played a really ambitious piece of program music called "Gettysburg: The Third Day" by Jay Dawson, which started with a Trumpet Quartet hidden in the back of the room for a surround sound effect. The whole thing was quiet and loud and slow and fast and very well done!

After the band the orchestra took the stage. They played the Brandenburg Concerto #3 (1st & 2nd movements), a pavane by Jay Welch, and something called "To Tame the Raging Rapids" about a river rafting trip by Brian Balmages. The orchestra director was new last year, and she also gets a great sound out of these kids.

Benjamin is working hard and pulling his weight as a senior (really? a SENIOR?). The whole thing, start to finish, sounded great (the jazz band, too). I don't think I've ever heard a high school instrumental concert with more ambitious music and fewer sour notes. Definitely worth missing class for!