20th Annual Nittany Valley Handbell Festival

I. Am. So. Stinking. Tired.

I think I'm busy in a normal week?  Nothing compares to this last week.  I honestly don't know how the kids do it.

Wednesday was Philadelphia for lessons.  No biggie there.

Thursday, I headed to DC to go to the temple.  I've needed to go for a while, but with all the snow we've had, opportunities to drive there have been few and far between.  Only seven hours roundtrip (versus eight to Philly and back).

Friday, I took a deep breath.  And John took me out to Texas Roadhouse (woop, woop)!

Saturday.  Saturday was the day of days (at least in my life).  I had a rare moment to do something for myself, and to finally be THE ONE performing.

My bell choir was invited to attend the 20th Annual Nittany Valley Handbell Festival!  There were 18 different choirs there, and we all participated in a "mass" ring.  We filled up an entire gym with all of the choirs.  There were some 3-octave choirs, some 4-octave and several 5-octave choirs (including ours).  Some of the bass bells were seriously two feet wide in diameter.

Hannie and I could hardly wait for the morning to come.  We had gone the night before to help set up (and to pick up our t-shirts).  The "store" was open, and we finally got our tye-die, bell-ringing gloves!

My stand partner, Michele, and I, showing off our new tie-dye gloves.
Michele is a dear friend, and I try to overlook the fact that I am almost double her size.
You can kind of see the bells set up behind us.

For eight hours, we rang.  That is a very, long time.  Standing and ringing.  Shifting weight on our tired feet, and ringing some more.  Even though we had practiced the eight pieces in our Tuesday night choir rehearsals, there was still so much to learn from our guest conductor.

We had a two hour break for dinner, but we didn't do much eating.  We just came home and collapsed. There's nothing like a good power nap to recharge!

We dressed in our concert blacks and headed back for the concert.

It was so much fun, and that's not something I can usually say about performing.

If I known when I was a child, what fun it is to perform in a group, I would never have chosen piano :-)  Playing piano always involves stress.  Either I'm playing solo, or I'm accompanying a group of people, and my part is still exposed.  If I make a mistake, it affects the performance for the person I'm accompanying.

Playing bells is like being the 5th chair violin in a large orchestra.  If I miss a note, no biggie!  Man, it was so nice to perform and just have fun!  There were several friends in the audience, and they said that I smiled the entire time :-)

Too, my children will be happy to know that I didn't miss the opportunity to take pictures.  Yes, I organized a group of acquaintances into a fun line-up and took pictures.  You better believe other people were jealous ;-)

The next night, the choir came to our church to perform for a Sunday evening concert.  I loved having these fabulous people in my own church (especially considering how much time I've spent in theirs!)  We only played the chimes (not the bells), but it was still fun to share our music with our LDS friends.

I love the choir.  I love the opportunity I have to play with them.  They are some of the nicest people.  I can hardly wait for Tuesday night rehearsal.

Just a few of us "newbs", along with our director Gail.

In the meantime, I have mounds of laundry to do, and emails to return, and dishes to wash.  I. Am. So. Very. Tired. :-)