Games and Music

  David had to do a lot of running around to deliver his immediate family members various places, but then he was able to play a game with the rest of us in the early afternoon. This is a cooperative game called Forbidden Island. The island is always in danger of flooding and disappearing under the sea. Your team has to try to collect the four treasures and leave the island by helicopter before the island sinks. The longer the game goes on, the quicker the water rises. We had played it years ago, and I remembered it was fun. We tried it again today and agree that it's still fun. We won both times we played. It's different every time because the playing board consists of dealing out the game tiles in a random manner.

The main event of the day was a concert. Rachel sings in the Mendelssohn Chorus (celebrating its 150th year). For this concert they teamed with the Pennsylvania Girl Choir and the Keystone Boychoir. There were about 250 singers.

I liked this concert quite a lot. Because there were kids involved and also several guest conductors, more than the usual number of songs were more upbeat and less solemn. My favorites were an unusual arrangement of "Loch Lomand" and an African song "Nda wana" that translates as "I found the children playing while the birds were singing by the river Mulambo, as they resisted sleep."

Here is Rachel.

One thing that was pretty special to me was that the concert was held at Temple University. This is my mother's Alma Mater, but I'd never seen any part of the campus before.

Since these are all old buildings, I'm sure Mom spent time in all these places.

You know I love to learn new things. I'm thinking maybe I should try to include one thing in each blog post since there is something almost every day. Today there were several things, but I choose to tell you about the ocean drum, an instrument invented in 1972. It is a drum filled with metal beads. When slowly shifted, the sound is similar to waves on a beach or sand blowing. It was used during my third favorite song, a brand new piece called "We Are Waves." An example of words are "We are waving; we are waves; we are particles; we are sparkles; we are waves of sound and light, sound and life."

Here is the ocean drum being played.

Tomorrow- Flower Show!

See Walking Rachel to Work