Pioneer Day Celebration

In this past week, we've had a few events to celebrate Utah's state holiday, Pioneer Day.
I was able to get tickets for the Pioneer Day Concert by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square. This year's featured artists were Lindsey Stirling and Nathan Pacheco, and I really wanted to see Lindsey Stirling. She is a very talented violinist with a very unique style of playing. Her music is not something I listen to, to be honest, but I admire her skills. How can she play violin while dancing and twirling? It is amazing!
James was not interested in going, so just Rio, Marcus, and I went to the concert. It was a beautiful concert, and we enjoyed it very much.

ユタ州の祝日、パイオニアデーのお祝いで賑わった先週でした。モルモン教会主催のコンサートに出かけたり、パイオニアパークに家族で出かけたり。
コンサートはバイオリニストのリンジー・スターリング(彼女についての日本語での説明はこちら→

アクロバティックなヴァイオリン奏者、リンジー・スターリング）が参加していると聞いたので、チケットをゲットしました。彼女の音楽はあまり興味がないのですが、バイオリンを踊りながら弾くのはすごい！と思います。

コンサートには、リオとマーカスと出かけましたが、なかなか良いコンサートでした。下のYoutubeで見ることが出来ます。

Here's the youtube video of the part of the concert.



On Pioneer Day, we went to This Is The Place Heritage Park. It is almost a tradition for our family to go there on Pioneer Day.

下の写真は、毎年恒例のヘリテッジ・パーク。

On Saturday, I was able to run the Pioneer Day Classic 10K Race in Provo, UT. It was a very challenging course with lots of hills, and I struggled. (Rio again, typing this up for Mom -- she's telling me what to type, thank goodness, I'm too tired to think for her right now, haha -- she was so upset that she walked a little bit during her 10K. But, hills are hard!! I say kudos to her for doing it when she didn't even know it would happen -- cause she had entered to win the race but didn't know she won in until Friday, the day before it happened. It was tough and you don't necessarily need to run a perfect race. That's what I think anyway. Mom the competitive one seems to disagree :P ) Still, I was able to win third place in my age group. But I'm determined to train more so that I can run more efficiently.

By the way, Rio and Marcus were asked to play for Sacrament Meeting a few weeks ago, and they performed the duet today. They played it nicely, and a lot of people commented that they did very well. Rio has already played a few times in church, so it was not a big deal for her, but Marcus was a bit nervous since this was his first time. This Sacrament Meeting was for a girl who is leaving on her mission, and the amazing thing was that the song Rio and Marcus chose to play happened to be her favorite primary song. Isn't that wonderful?

土曜日は、パイオニアデー・クラッシック10キロレースに参加。レース参加が当たったのです。坂道の多いちょっと苦しいコースだったので、所々歩いてしまいました。（涙）でも、年齢層(40－45歳）で3位だったので、メダルをもらうことが出来ました。記録は58分56秒。歩かなかったらもう少し早く走れたのに、と少し悔しいので、もっと頑張ってトレーニングしよう！と決意しています。（レースは朝早く、少し遠い所だったので、私独りで行ったため、写真は無しです。）

ところで、今日（日曜日）は、リオとマーカスは教会でデュエットを演奏しました。撮影は出来ないので、映像がなくて残念ですが、2人とも上手に弾けましたよ。教会のあと、たくさんの人に褒められていました。姉弟で一緒に演奏出来るっていいですよね。