Our family is now home after a very busy, but very satisfying day. This afternoon Stellae Boreales had their second fundraising concert for the China tour. It was a wonderful concert, the musicians played to an almost full auditorium, which was very encouraging for them. Our family felt blessed to look around the room and see many of our friends. The group has been practising very hard to master some new repetoire for today’s concert, the most interesting piece being an arrangement of part of the Butterfly Concerto, a Chinese piece.

In the lead up to the concert, the girls have put in hours of practice. Andrew has been working hard keeping the website updated and preparing the program. This morning I was able to finish work on a scrapbook I am making which includes all the performances of the 2007-2008 season so far. I will keep on adding to it as they complete their Ottawa performances and then fill it with China photos and memorabilia when we return. All the families involved with the group worked very hard to make today a success. For weeks people have been procuring donations of goods and services for the auction which followed the concert.

After the last auction item was collected and the remains of the desserts cleared away, we packed up and headed to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, tired but very pleased with the day. Needless to say Andrew and I were very proud of our girls and very impressed with the group’s performance. Andrew recorded the concert, and it is playing as I write this. L13 and A11 have been sitting listening, commenting on the little things they noted as each piece was performed and reliving the whole experience.