Do It Yourself Messiah Concert

On Saturday, Kathryn, Tara and Annette took the train to downtown Chicago for our fifth annual visit to the "Do It Yourself Messiah" concert at the Civic Opera House.

This is the inside of the opera house. It's a bad photo taken with my cell phone but you get the idea.  It's huge!

Every year for the last 32 years the LaSalle Bank (now the Bank of America) has provided the concert free of charge to anyone who wants to attend (you have to have tickets but they're free). The orchestra is all volunteer and they hire in professional soloists for the Messiah solos.

For those of you who don't know Handel's Messiah, it's a beautiful oratorio that takes about 3 hours to get through - it has many choir sections as well as solos for soprano, alto, tenor and bass. The people attending the concert in the audience are the choir, so every time the conductor comes to a choir piece, he turns around to us, makes us stand up and directs us as a choir. 7,000 voices! It's pretty nice!

We took the train from Crystal Lake at 11:00 a.m. and arrived in Chicago about 12:30 for the 2:00 p.m. concert. Most of the families from our church go and we reserve a private car on the train, bring along our lunch and have a blast the whole day. After the concert we went out for Chicago Pizza and walked around the VERY busy city. Things were hopping in Chicago on Saturday night! Wow!

I'll upload some pictures to this post later but for now you can listen to the encore of the Hallelujia chorus which I recorded on my cell phone.

CLICK HERE to listen

The quality isn't that great but what can you expect for a phone?

Anyway, it was a lot of fun and we'll start practicing again for next year right away. The girls love the music so much we keep the CDs in our car all the time.

Anyway, just thought I'd share a family tradition of the Yen family.

News from Elja and Martin

Even een levensteken van ons,  als de email aankomt..............
Op maandag 3 december werd ik 's ochtends wakker en rook een brandlucht , ging naar beneden en toen ik de keukendeur open deed zag ik geen hand meer voor ogen een dikke zwarte rook zat in het hele huis.... Snel de kinderen wakker gemaakt en iets warms aangetrokken de deur uit de buren wakkergemaakt en de brandweer gebeld en dan sta je half zeven in de ochtend buiten in je pyama... De brandweer was er heel snel en de brand snel geblust

het brandje was erg klein, Ik had de dag ervoor een nieuwe vloer in de olie gezet en de poetsdoek in het washokgelegd. Martin was die ochtend vroeg weg en rook de olielucht en deed het raampje open voor ventilatie er was toen nog geen rook etc,de poetsdoek is  zelf gaan ontbranden en heeft een wasmand en een tennistas verbrand. was zo geblust.Maar ons hele huis was vol met rook en roet tot in de nok. Kortom alles is nu uit ons huis de hele inboedel en de plafonds gaan eruit om te vervangen. Wij hebben een week inen hotel gezeten en hebben nu een huis vlakbij wat leeg stond . we hebben alleen maar geshopt om nieuwe dingen te kopen van onderbroekies tot was machines en met de kerst zitten we dus hier. Het hele dorp leeft met ons mee en we krijgen vanalles aangeboden heel lief

Maar we hebben dus ook geen telefoon meer alleen mobiel Nu dus net weer een computer met internet en als klap op de vuurpijl vloog er afgelopen week een helikopter tegen een electriciteirsmast waardoor we 2 dagen geen stroom hadden.... erg koud... maar nu een noodvoorziening en we hopen dat het met kerst niet gaat waaien want anders zitten we weer zonder. Kortom eem hectische en chaotische tijd dus wij sturen geen kaartjes etc

Bij deze alle goeds en liefs en zodra we weer een beetje alles op de rails hebben stuur ik foto's etc

Kun je het doorgegven aan de anderen of evt op de website zetten..

Thanks take  care en hele fijne dagen
liefs Martin en Elja

A short note from us.

Monday Dec.3 I woke up smelling smoke. I went down and when I opened the kitchen door I could not see a thing because of the black smoke in the whole house.

I woke the kids right away put some clothes on fast, woke the neighbors, called the fire department end there we were, at 7 o'clock in the morning in our pj's outside.

The fire department came real fast and the fire was extinguished fast too. It was only a small fire (but lots of smoke damage). The day before I had oiled the new floor and threw the oily rag in the laundry room.

Martin had left early in the morning, smelled the oil and opened the window, but at that time there was no smoke yet. but it must have been a case of instant combustion and the cloth started on fire all by itself.

It burned up the laundry basket and tennisbag. It was extinguised almost right away. But the whole house was full of oily smoke from top to bottom, so to make a long story short everything in the house has to be replaced including the ceilings! We went into a hotel for a week and now are able to stay in a house close by that was empty.

We went shopping to replace a lot of things from clothes to washing machines  and a computer. So Christmas days we'll be here.

The whole village is helping us which is so nice and very much appreciated. We don't have regular phone service right now, just a mobile. On top of eveything, we just got a computer to internet and then the other day a helicopter flew into a power line tower and knocked out all electricity, so now we're in the cold too!

We have some small heaters and are just hoping it won't be too windy, so that'll be turned off too.

All in all very hectic and chaotic and we won't be sending out Chr.cards. So hereby everyone good wishes for Christmas and the New Year. We'll get in contact when we're back to being settled.

Love Martin and Elja

From Bert and Truus