Zach's Choir Concert Videos

Here's just a couple of short clips from Zach's choir concert. They did lots of traditional and sacred Christmas music, but I filmed the two that were exciting and different. Sorry about the videography in the second one, I was trying to film my friend's son who is standing behind the cute older couple that fill the frame. Also, all of the choirs were joined for the second one and surrounded us in the hall, so that's another reason for the crazy movement. Just close your eyes if it makes you dizzy. ;-)

P.S. Zach is on the right side, middle row, three in.

****** Note: I had to remove the videos because the concert material was copyrighted. :( *****

It's that time of year...

It's that time of year when our community trucks in a couple tons of snow and we pretend it's winter. Winter is just weird when you live in Arizona, but we make the most of it. When we've attended the Winter Wonderland in year's past, we've really bundled up and then got immensely overheated in the bright sunshine. This year we did less bundling then the weather turned colder, we got rain then HAIL and the boys froze! You just never know what you're going to get around here.

Here's some pics of my littles enjoying the white stuff. :)

Jazzy Zach

It seems like it's just been a Zach-fest around here lately. The latest was totally unexpected, but thrilling nonetheless. We attended a Jon Schmidt concert on Saturday night (he's a very popular, funny,  new age pianist and composer) and about half-way through the concert, Jon asks the audience if there are any professional jazz pianists out there. Nobody raises their hand. Any college jazz band players? Nope. Okay, any high school jazz band pianists -- with the caveat that if there are and they want to come up and jam with Jon, they have to yell out the notes in a C blues scale. Well, we were on the VERY back row of the second tier of seats and Zach yells out, then bellows the notes of the scale and Jon tells him to come on down!

I was floored...having no idea that Zach felt confident enough in his skills as a jazz pianist to get on a stage in front of a packed theater and jam with a professional musician. Oh my gosh! He was amazing and the crowd went wild! Curty had followed me down to the front to record it and while everyone was applauding, he yelled, "THAT'S MY BROTHER!!!!" So cute.

Afterward, Jon wryly said, "You didn't give me that much applause on any of my songs." =D Wow, what an experience for all of us. I'm so glad I had a phone with video on it! (Thank you, thank you Ren for buying me an iPhone 4s!) Zach, you are amazing and I was proudly thinking, "That's my boy Billy!"

Here's the video:

Lunar Eclipse

So we had another Byers nerdfest this morning. Six of us woke up at 6:00 am and braved the arctic Arizona temperatures (hey, it was only 39 degrees!) to watch the total lunar eclipse.
We had learned from our research that the moon should become totally red from the shadow of the earth and the refracted light through the dust in our atmosphere, so we were excited to witness the event.

Unfortunately, competing against city lights made the effect much smaller and less impressive than we had hoped. Then the sun rose in the east before the moon was completely covered in the west, making it harder to see.

Still, it was an "experience" and we were there to witness it. My camera couldn't capture it at all...frustrating! So here's what I got, plus the shots I took when I got distracted by the sunrise over the railroad tracks. :)

 

Zach and the East Valley Mormon Choral Organization

I am always thrilled to play the part of proud Mama, so last weekend was a good one for me. Zach is a member of an amazing audition-only adult choir in the valley. We attended their Christmas concert Friday night and loved it. I video taped one number from my seat -- we were up fairly close so it's an odd angle but it was a super cool African piece called "Betelehemu." Zach is in the bass section on the second row, way up back on the right. Way to be awesome Zach!