Mom & Dad RETIRE from CHOIR!!!

Today was bittersweet. My wonderful, talented parents have been in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir since April of 2002. Since 60 years old is the cut off for the choir, Mom and Dad had to say their goodbyes today. It's been so wonderful watching and listening to them sing with the choir for all these years. What a blessing it's been to them and everyone who's had the blessing of hearing this choir perform. They've sung with Sissel, David Archuleta, Natalie Cole, Audra McDonald, the King's Singers and more. They've rubbed shoulders with many influential people and they've traveled the country on tour many times. It's been a VERY busy journey for them. They've made over 15 CD's, performed at over 20 General Conferences, Sung in "Music and the Spoken Word" every Sunday morning and have practiced every Thursday night, and many Tuesday nights during their time in the choir. I know they'll be sad to let go of such a HUGE part of their lives. But I know my parents, and somehow, all the time they're about to free up will quickly get filled with other busy, wonderful things. Thank you for your amazing examples Mom & Dad. We are SOOO proud of you!

Here they are saying goodbye to good friends, and standing up as they're announced as "the retiring choir members". I could see them staring at eachother all teary eyed. Yes, we were all crying too.





Here's the choir singing.




We sat on the second rown and the prophet was RIGHT in front of us, just staring down at everybody. Nixon was quite the ham, dancing when the choir would sing and celebrating every time people would clap. I saw President Monson staring at him and laughing a couple times. Here are my parents being honored by Mac Wilburg while he spoke about them each for a few minutes. There were 23 people retiring today, so it took quite a while for each person to be aknowledged.





They were given a beautiful plaque and had their picture taken with Mac Christensen, President Monson, and Mac Wilburg. There's also a picture of the retiring choir members and the current choir members singing, "God Be with You til we Meet Again" to eachother. Another tear jerking moment.





Here they are, high-fiving all their fans ;)



We took lots of family pictures, of course.





And the grandkids gave Grandma and Grandpa flowers, and a BIG present! This was a symbolic present that has been being passed around since 2007. Tammy scored this plate at a garage sale, and Bryce snuck it onto our mantle when we were out of town. The back said, "No Give Backs". We then snuck the plate into Holly's house, and it's been circling the family ever since. It's a Mormon Tabernacle Choir plate...and it's tacky (I'm sure you can imagine ;) ). Anyway, this plate was FINALLY gifted back to the people who REALLY need it. They both died laughing. We've asked them to proudly display the plate in their home.





Here are a couple SHAKY videos I took. Nixon was on my lap. sorry. (youtube videos MAH01308, Choir Retirement)