Nathan and I were lucky to attend a benefit concert for Stephanie and Christian Neilson Monday night in Provo. The musical improv group, The Thrillionaires, was the opening act. They were very funny, especially since everything was sung! Hysterical. Next, Mindy Gledhill, a friend of the Neilsons, performed. She has a beautiful voice and a talented band. She sang some songs that she wrote for Stephanie and Christian and sang a song with two of Stephanie's super adorable daughters. There were a couple of guest performers as well. Ryan Shupe, I'm guessing, is a local LDS musician. We had never heared of him, but the rest of the audience was thrilled when he came on stage. He sang a funny song about a two-year old, played the Nintendo Mario Brothers theme song along with the bass guitarist (which was a riot), and played some serious fiddle during The Devil Went Down to Georgia. David Osmond also sang a song at the end of the show. Apparently, he was on last week's episode of American Idol, but we missed watching the Salt Lake City auditions last week. He is a really good singer - I'm not surprised that he had received a golden ticket to Hollywood! The auditorium we were in was smaller than a high school auditorium, so it was a very intimate concert. We were in the 10th row and all of Stephanie's family were sitting in the rows in front of us - LOTS of bright orange hair in that family - so cute! I got a really sweet picture of Stephanie's little Claire sitting on CJane's lap (too bad it was taken with Nathan's cell phone camera). What a nice family. Overall, the evening was entertaining and inspiring. And successful. The silent auction raised quite a bit of money. The photo session that I donated ended up going for $126, I think.
After the concert, on our way out, Nathan and I ran into Mindy Gledhill. We told her how much we appreciated her generosity and her beautiful voice and then she autographed my ticket stub. Cool.
To read more about the evening, see http://haywusup.blogspot.com/2009/02/love-for-nie.html.
For a small glimpse into Stephanie and Christian Nielson's story, see http://ldslivingonline.com/article.php?articleId=72688 To see how Stephanie is doing now, visit her own blog http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/
To see more on David Osmond, go to http://davidosmond.com/ I came home and looked him up on the internet. He also has quite an inspirational story!
And buy Mindy's CD's! http://www.mindygledhill.com/
1 comment:
Suzi and Nat went to the concert that Mindy did in Mesa. They said it was good. I saw the little girls sing on a video somewhere on the web. Hope they made good money for the Neilsons. I read it was the last one they are doing. I have read some of NieNie's blog since she started blogging again. She is a remarkable person and is blessed with a wonderful family. Hug your kids an extra time today for me.
Post a Comment