Third Week in October

While the rest of my family is enjoying crisp autumn temperatures and beautiful fall color and raking leaves......here is what I get to rake - 

bougainvillea petals on my back patio

Anthem celebrated their Autumnfest at the Anthem Park over the weekend so Steve and I hopped on our bicycles and checked it out.  First of all, this past week is the first time that we have had bikes to ride since coming up to Anthem.  While in Surprise, we used the bikes that the Johnson's left.  After moving away, we had to find leftover bikes from mission storage and first, it was finding a comfortable seat for my bike (which never happened - we just eventually got a different bike) and then it was getting a bike pump (found one in mission storage) and then it was getting a tire fixed and then it was buying bike lights.  Sigh.  

Anthem Park is about a mile away from our place.  It has a cute little railroad you can ride (Quinn!!!)

 And lovely lakes and waterfalls....

There were dozens of free bouncy houses set up.  This one was cute because it was so "Arizona".  Behind the cactus were cows and a barn.

There was an area of assorted booths - not much art - just crafts. And there was a food area where Steve and I each bought a shaved ice. (no icecream and sweetened condensed milk, though, darn it)

In the afternoon, we drove down the Carefree Highway (don't you just love that name?) to Cave Creek (about 15 miles from Anthem) to a lovely church built in the mission style...

where I played in a trio (flute, violin, cello).  Christ Anglican Church has a strong music ministry with a director who encourages and supports young musicians and composers.  This concert featured all original compositions by adults, teens, and even children.  There was a very talented string quartet comprised of  ASU students who played four of the pieces.  Our trio played a piece called Three Rivers composed by a man who is returning to college for a music degree.  It was pretty enough - not very long and not too challenging.  

In the evening, I played my cello again with two singers and a pianist for the evening session of Stake Conference.  We did the Rob Gardner version of Savior Redeemer of My Soul that is so beautiful.  I had to transpose a violin part into bass clef which produced a bit of drama since our printer seemed to be out of ink but when I got a new cartridge, it still didn't print.  I had to take a photo of the arrangement with my iPad and rehearse with that Thursday night.  Thankfully, we figured out how to make a PDF version of the music and print it with the seminary teacher's printer here at the house on Friday morning so it all ended well.  

Then, after Stake Conference, the core string players for ProMusica (meaning the non-contract players) were asked to play a movement from one of the Mozard Divertimenti for a Rotary fundraiser at the Anthem country club.  We were the last of a long list of performances and I was a bit late arriving (I went to the wrong gate into the country club part of Anthem) so I couldn't find my string people anywhere.  I was just told to go to the patio with all the other musicians.  But, the only people out there were a bunch of men in matching polo shirts who looked like they were with valet parking!  Well, they were actually a men's choir from a half-way house program.  Eventually, a high school madrigal group all decked out in medieval costumes joined us on the patio.  So, it was just valet guys, me and the madrigal singers for about 20 minutes until I finally found my group!  The core string players are just a shade better than the string section of the Mid-Missiouri Community Orchestra (a.k.a. RTO) so this performance was just a shadow of my Prairie Strings glory days when we also played the Mozart Divertimenti.  But, the kind Rotarians donated $500 to ProMusica so it was all worth it.  

We enjoyed a great Sunday morning session of stake conference today.  And that is our news....