Last Game of the Season!

The Bountiful Braves celebrated the last game of the season with a big win over the Olympus Titans!  They got a touchdown on their first possession which was very exciting!  I have really enjoyed watching Sean play football this year and I am a little bit sad that the season is over (we do have a playoff game next week).  Sean has become such a great football player and his confidence has increased dramatically.  He has also made some good friends on the team.  It has been a great season and I am so proud of Sean and the rest of the Bountiful Braves!

Sean got blood on his uniform in this game!  His Mom was so proud!

Rach 3

Last night I attended a spectacular concert at Abravanel Hall featuring the Utah Symphony, guest conductor Juraj Valcuha, and soloist Andrey Gugnin performing the music of Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff.  It was so amazing that you really should stop reading right now and go here for a ticket to tonight's performance of the same program!  Trust me.  This is one concert you don't want to miss!  I've said this before and I will probably say it again but I love the Russians because their music is so moody, atmospheric, and emotional and tonight's program featured two pieces which are, in my opinion, quintessentially Russian.  The orchestra began with Prokofiev's Symphony No. 3 which is intense, to say the least.  It begins, very dramatically, with the chimes and continues with a big sound (I sometimes wish I knew more about classical music so I could describe it better).  I loved the pounding bass drum and the wild, maybe even violent, conclusion.  I thought it was brilliant!  After the intermission, the orchestra was joined by Gugnin for Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3.  I love Rachmaninoff (and so do many people in SLC because Abravanel Hall was packed) because I find his music to be hauntingly beautiful and filled with melancholy.  I don't know why that appeals to me so much but my heart almost bursts when I hear the romantic melodies and themes.  Gaugin's performance was unbelievable (I always think that Russian soloists play the music of Russian composers better than anyone else) and I've never seen an entire audience jump up for a standing ovation faster than the one last night.  People were not only clapping, but cheering and stomping their feet as well.  It was more like a rock (Rach on!) concert than a classical performance!  Get a ticket for tonight's performance!  You'll thank me later!

Hobbiton

Me in front of Bag End! (Yes, I am a nerd)

After several days in Queenstown, we flew to Rotorua on the North Island of New Zealand.  On the way from Roturua to Auckland, several of us opted to visit the Hobbiton set from The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  It was seriously cool!

Peter Jackson wanted a location with rolling hills, a water source, and no power lines to obscure the view.  He found a farm near Rotorua that was perfect and contracted with the owners to use the land with the proviso that he remove all of the sets after filming.  When Jackson decided to film The Hobbit, he asked to use the farm again.  This time the owners asked Jackson to leave the set so they could offer tours to the public.  Here are some pictures from the tour I went on.

I loved all of the hobbit holes!  Some of them are full size and some of them were made 3/4 size to make characters like Gandalf look much bigger in comparison.  Most of the hobbit holes are just doors (the interiors were shot on a sound stage) but there was one that you could go inside (I'm peeking out from it).

For The Hobbit movies, Peter Jackson wanted some smaller hobbit holes in the distance to make the Shire more realistic.  They are only seen in the movies for a few seconds!

The sign posts are really cool!

I loved this water wheel!

After the tour we were able to visit the Green Dragon which is a fully functioning pub.  We ordered some ale and sat by the fire!

This was such a fun experience!  I am so glad that I had the opportunity to see this magical place!

The Accountant

I saw the movie The Accountant on Saturday night and I thought it was a pretty good action thriller; in fact, it was better than I was anticipating!  Ben Affleck is not my favorite actor but he does a good job with this character (the irony is not lost on me that this character is unable to express emotion).  Christian Wolff (Affleck) is autistic but he is a mathematical savant.  His father, an officer in the military, believes that the only way to protect him from being taken advantage of is to teach him to defend himself physically with various martial arts and with every type of weapon (shown through various flashbacks).  The adult Wolff is an accountant who has dealings with with a number of underworld crime organizations, legitimizing their accounts.  When an employee (Anna Kendrick) finds a discrepancy in the books at Living Robotics, a company about to be taken public, owners Lamar Blackburn (John Lithgow) and his sister Rita (Jean Smart) hire Wolff.  When he runs the numbers (in some great scenes involving him writing figures on all of the windows), he discovers that the error is in the millions and suddenly people in the company are killed by a mysterious assassin (Jon Bernthal).  Meanwhile, Raymond King (J.K. Simmons) and his associate (Cynthia Adai-Robinson) at the Treasury Department are trying to track Wolff down.  How he hides is extremely clever and the action sequences are fabulous.  There are some pretty big twists at the end (one of which I probably should have seen coming) that add to the intrigue.  My only complaint is that virtually every character has a long and complicated backstory and this is sometimes confusing because it requires a great deal of exposition.  Overall, this film is quite entertaining and I would highly recommend it.

Three Cheers for Number 98!

Just like every other Saturday, my family was there to cheer on our favorite football player!  I hate to admit this, but I have actually started to enjoy getting up early on Saturday morning.  The air is brisk and invigorating, the games are a lot of fun to watch, and I really like going out to breakfast afterwards.  I will be sad when his season ends in a few weeks!  The Braves played the Stansbury Stallions and Sean had a great game.  He would get so pumped up whenever he would get a tackle and, once, we even heard him growl!  It was awesome!

Note:  I didn't get very many pictures of this game because I was trying, unsuccessfully, to get tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert!