Utah Symphony for FHE

It's not often that we get a chance to see the Utah Symphony perform in Abravanel Hall. It's just too expensive and the little kids would never sit still that long. So when Princess and Prima Donna were looking for another another classical concert for their music class, I jumped on the idea of seeing the Symphony play at the Draper Amphitheater. The show was free and outside so it would be much easier to keep the little ones kids entertained. Besides, the music would likely be more fun than traditional concert fare.

We decided to make an evening of the event and we took the kids to the new Firehouse Subs for dinner. They let kids eat for free on Monday nights. It was a little crazy and for a while I was worried that we were going to be late for the concert. Then Baby Doll decided to fill her diaper and we had to make a quick trip back home since I never remember to bring a diaper bag any more. One of our goals for next week is to get her potty trained. But I digress...

When we arrived at the amphitheater, there was NO parking anywhere. People were parking clear down the hill on the street, so my sweetie pulled into the parking lot and generously offered to park and walk while we all went in and found seats.

The Draper Amphitheater has an interesting design. It's like a kiva with graduated seating about six feet wide and each step of the kiva is covered with grass. We were really glad we remembered to bring blankets, but next time I'm definitely bringing a hat. Sport was the only smart one among us. We spread ourselves out on a seat near the top and waited for the show to begin. It only took about 10 minutes before the Symphony started to play. My sweetie got in the theater just as they began playing the Star Spangled Banner.

I was not disappointed with the program! We got the Armed Forces Salute which brought tears to my eyes as veterans were asked to stand during their respective songs. I loved the tenderness I saw on the row behind us as a son helped his aged father to stand during the Caissons Song. I was kind of wishing we had thought to invite Grandpa.

We got the fun stuff tonight too, including West Side Story and part of every song from The Music Man. The kids were mostly good and right before the intermission my sweetie sent a couple of the girls to the snack bar for otter pops. They were delicious. The bees thought so too and we had a few tense moments when we thought Baby Doll might get stung, but all turned out well and Crafty took all the wrappers down to the garbage can so the bees soon left us alone.

The sun was just setting as the intermission ended. I snapped a few pics for you because it was so beautiful, but I'm afraid my cell phone camera just didn't do them justice. I was sure wishing we had brought the good camera with us.

We enjoyed the second half of the program.so much that the audience gave them a standing ovation, but I guess they didn't have another piece prepared for an encore, so they just played their last song again which I thought was a little weird.

We only had one casualty when Scout slipped on one of the retaining bricks and scraped up her leg. And the kids only made about 10 trips up and down the stairs for the restrooms. That must have something to do with the fact that they had to try all the soda at Firehouse Subs since they had one of those cool soda machines with about 50 different flavors in it.

It couldn't have been that they were bored...