Alex Boye

Today I had the opportunity to go to "Strength of Youth" with Archer.  S.O.Y. is something our church does once a year for the 12-18 year olds.  They bring in a speaker, have dinner, and the 14-18 year olds stay for a dance.  This year was Alex Boye.  He is AMAZING!  He started off with a song and then spoke for about an hour.  The time flew by!  He is such a great speaker.  He is funny, his smile is infectious, he is self depreciating, and he is very inspirational.  I really hope the youth that were there tonight really listened to what he had to say, as it was important. 

Some of the points that he touched on were:

• How important words are.  That you need to watch what you say and what you think. 
• That a song is a prayer, so is the music you listen to a prayer to God or to Satan?  He suggested the youth print the words to their favorite songs and if they can't read them in church, they shouldn't be listening to it. 
• He talked about no matter how bad things get, how hopeless it might seem that Christ knows and understands.  He went through worse and never complained.
• Scriptures and cell phones.  How often do you look at your cell phone every day?  How often do you open your scriptures every day?  We carry our cell phones with us everywhere, but what about the scriptures?  The scriptures are our life line.  No matter how many times we read them, we haven't really read them.  We will ALWAYS learn something new and different.  We can read them every day for our whole lives and still have them be applicable. 

I have to give props to Alex Boye's pianist - Mr Smith.  He did a fabulous job.  He added a sound track to different parts of the talk and did it effortlessly.  He just sat and played.  No music, just feeling.  I could feel his joy in playing that piano.  So hats off to you Mr. Smith.

I do have video of Alex Boye's final performance tonight, but it's still on my phone.  So in the meantime, here is Alex Boye, Jon Schmidt, and Steven Nelson Sharp in the Piano Guys version of Coldplay's Paradise (Peponi).  Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

I love Christmas.  Not because of the presents, though they are nice, but because of the magic of it all.  I love the beauty - the snow, the lights, the trees.  I love the music - the silly songs, the hymns, the choirs, the orchestras, my kids singing at the top of their lungs.  The Christmas movies; I'm a sucker for those.  I love Santa Claus.  I love the time spent with family.  The joy on my children's face. 

Picasso said his favorite part of our family Christmas party is the nativity.  All the grandkids get pieces of the nativity, baby Jesus being the coveted piece.  Then my step-dad reads from the scriptures of the birth of Christ.  The kids put their pieces on the hearth of the fireplace and their part is read.  It is one of my favorite parts too.  Afterwards we sing Christmas songs until we can't sing anymore. 

Christmas morning was fantastic.  It was spent at home with just us.  The kids were SO excited.  They were literally bouncing up and down.  Princess kept shouting "it's just what I wanted!" as she opened her gifts.  I was even able to surprise Archer, who at almost 12 is getting harder to surprise.  He's looking forward to building his Parallax Boe-Bot with his dad.  After presents we went to church.  The service was beautiful!  I did mention how much I love the Christmas hymns.  :)  My in-laws came for dinner and it was a blast.  My mother-in-law made the kids all amazing quilts!  We played card games and just enjoyed each others company. 

Our new day after Christmas tradition is going to be going to the water park.  We had so much fun today at the pool!  Spending so much time together has been fantastic.  Hubby has to go back to work tomorrow, which will be weird; we'll miss him. 

I hope your Christmas has been wonderful and that you enjoy the above videos from the Piano Guys, Jon Schmidt, and Steven Sharp Nelson.