Lyceum Festival 2017 and our Trip to St. George/Zions

Josh had the amazing opportunity to participate in the Lyceum Philharmonic's Summer Fest again this year.  He had an incredible time and was able to have several solos in the concert.  He spent the week learning and growing from several people, including Nathan Pacheco.  The concert was absolutely one of THE best I have ever seen.

Here are a few pics I took before the concert started.  The concert was held in the beautiful outdoor amphitheater near Zion's National Park.  I sang in this venue when I was a Senior in high school, so coming back here when Josh was a Senior brought back some great memories.

It is a breathtaking backdrop and hearing all of the talented kids in the orchestra and Nathan Pacheco's gorgeous voice made the night truly a blessing.

I'm so proud of this kid.  He works so hard and it was wonderful to see his hard work and dedication to this instrument that he loves pay off.

Here are the videos of the performance...

Josh with the fabulous, Nathan Pacheco

Stunning backdrop for rehearsals and performance

Action shots and Josh's fan club.

Pictures from Josh's phone

While Josh was living it up in Zion's National Park for the week, we spent the week at my parent's house...well, everyone except for Emma who was in San Jose for her National Showcase Competition.

Family all over the place.

The first night we were there, Mark and I went to see "Newsies" at Tuachan.  

We went with my parents, Brittany, and Sharise.  While we were there, we got a text with this picture...

All it said was, "Hi!"  It took us all a minute because there was a problem with this picture.  These cute kiddos belong to my sister, Danette, and her husband, Chad.  They live in Texas.  The kids are standing in front of my parent's home.

We were all like, "What the heck is going on?  Are Chad and Danette really at mom and dad's house?"  

Yep.  That was the case.  They surprised us.  No one had any idea that they were coming.  Best surprise ever.

It was actually really wonderful that they ended up being in St. George because they were all able to say goodbye to Josh before he leaves on his mission.  There were a ton of hugs and a few tears shed.  (Especially when Eli threw a pretty good sized rock and it came back down and hit him on the head...lots of bleeding, as well as lots of tears.)

 But, before the whole rock incident, we were able to get this great group shot.  It was awesome.

Here are a few more shots of some of the fun times we had while in St. George...