Toronto Tour - Day 1 highlights

Toronto Tour Day #1
Monday, June 17
Submitted by Mrs. Treadway

Started the day bright and early at IPFW and the buses pulled out at 8:15am.  We have Concert Choir on one bus and Youth Chorale on the other.  Chaperones are with their respective choir but Mr. and Mrs. Busarow, Mrs. Ator and Mrs. Treadway started on the Youth Chorale bus but plan to switch back and forth!  The singers, oddly enough were fairly quiet….still sleepy maybe??

Each singer has a number that we use to count off when we re-enter the bus after a stop.  We expected Youth Chorale to have the quickest time counting off since most of them had been on tour before and knew the drill.  They counted off in about a minute.  When Concert counted off for the first time they did it in less than 30 seconds.  The contest was on!!!  They are trying to outdo each other now!

Each singer is given a tour booklet that has the itinerary and information about the sightseeing places we are visiting.  There are also reminders and a few rules that are listed in the book that we cover with the singers once we get on the road.  We covered the booklet with Youth Chorale and one of the rules is that they sing only at designated times!  (They need to save their voices!!)  Mrs. Treadway and Mrs. Ator switched buses after the first restroom stop and shortly after we started traveling again several of the singers started singing but they were actually practicing some of their music!  Mrs. Ator and Mrs. Treadway didn’t have the heart to stop them because they were practicing well!  At the next stop Mr. Busarow came on that bus and we started obeying the “only sing when asked to” rule!!
We made a very quick gas stop near Lansing and headed on the road for a couple more hours when we stopped at a rest area for lunch.  Singers were enjoying the stretching of the legs and some wonderful sunshine.  Gavin had a surprise for dessert.  There had been leftover donuts from his church on Sunday and he brought them along.  He shared those with those who wanted them and they were a hit!

After lunch we all seemed to settle in for awhile.  Lots of singers are reading and quite a variety of books.  Sarah C.  was smart and brought a large book that includes three books!  We’ll see if she finishes them all.  Hayley offered to start reading the second one while Sarah wasn’t reading and maybe the book would get done faster!
Youth Chorale bus has a section where four seats face each other.  Jacob S. Cecelia, Katy and Grace are in those seats and they have created an interesting place for discussions of various topics.  Later when Kyle changed spots with Grace they began playing a game called Beef and Bottacilli (sp?) that Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey had taught Katy.  Not sure of all of the rules but one person thinks up the name of a person and the others have to go through a series of questions to figure out who the person is.  Mrs. Treadway got pulled into the game for awhile.  Very confusing with the rules of the game but fun.  Great way to pass the time.
The Concert Choir bus has two areas with four seats facing each other and they have tables.  Youth Chorale is jealous!!
On the Concert bus, Kennedy, Kenny and Rachael were playing Disney Trivia.  Kennedy is very knowledgeable about Disney and I was impressed.  She stumped me with a Peter Pan question.

Laysha was watching Nathanael play a game on his phone and she was non- stop laughing at the creature in the game that she said looked like jello landing on logs.  Nathanael couldn’t stop laughing at her laughing!  I couldn’t tell you what the game was but they were having fun!
Luke and Riley were sharing headphones and trying to watch a movie on a very little screen across the aisle from each other!  They are very resourceful on these buses!  Sarah C and Mrs. Ceckowski were showing Mrs. Chamberlain how to play Flow on her Kindle and when they got to a difficult level, Mr. Busarow helped them achieve it!  What teamwork. 

Crossing the border went well.  We gave the singers their passports a little while before the border.  Once we got there, each bus had an officer board the bus and everyone had to have their passport open as the officer went through the entire bus to check them.  We had told the kids not to talk unless spoken too and Katy said the woman officer looked at hers really close and Katy made a comment about the picture not really looking like her.  The officer took the time to tell her that there are many ways they can check a person with the picture and one way was by checking the distance between the eyes!  She mentioned a few others and was very nice to Katy.  She was surprised.  The Concert Choir had a male officer and he did they same on that bus too by checking each passport.  They asked the adults a few questions and the bus driver a few questions and off we went!  Once we were in Canada, Mollie was so cute commenting on things she was seeing out the window…”Look, there a Canadian person”, or “Look, there’s a Canadian building”.  You get the picture!

We unfortunately missed having the clinic with Linda Beaupre.  It took us longer to get here than we had planned.  Her choir is leaving on tour tomorrow and were having a rehearsal this evening so she couldn’t do the clinic later.  She is actually retiring after this season and she has put us in contact with her successor and he might be willing to work with us at another time in our schedule.

We went straight to the hotel and had Concert Choir check in first, drop off their bags at their room and went straight to a mini rehearsal with Mr. Busarow while the Youth Chorale checked in.  Youth Chorale followed with a short rehearsal and then we left for dinner.

Our dinner was at the Hard Rock Café.  If you have ever been to one, you know that there is Rock and Roll memorabilia all over the restaurant.  I had told the singers that I’m a big Elton John fan and there was supposed to be an Uncle Sam red white and blue hat of his there and told the kids whoever found it let me know!  Delaney was the first to find it!  As Mrs. Ator was going around taking pictures of the singers she noticed a sign above the area where most of the Concert Choir members were sitting.  It said “Peace without the quiet”.  We thought that fit for the Concert Choir!!  We had a good meal and they got a chance to shop in the gift shop before we went outside to a plaza to wait for the buses.  There was a magician doing a show in the plaza.  I guess he had a tennis racket with no strings and told the audience he would set it on fire and put his whole body through the hole in the racket. Didn’t seem possible and he didn’t do it by the time we left so who knows???

Jacob A.’s birthday is today.  It is very hard to be away from home on your birthday so we try to make it a special day for that singer.  The Youth Chorale sang to him early on.  During one of our stops, Sarah J. and some helpers decorated Jacob’s seat and the area around his seat with streamers balloons and a Happy Birthday sign.  Kyle was given strict instructions to keep him away from the bus for as long as possible! We sang Happy Birthday to him and in choir, the birthday boy or girl skips around the choir room after they have been sung too.  Mr. Busarow had him skip around the bus!! Sarah also had a card that all of the Youth Choral members had signed.  Once we got back to the hotel we had a short meeting and at the end of   we all sang to him again.  His parents had sent wonderful cupcakes along and we gave one to each singer as Jacob’s “birthday cake” and dessert for everyone.  He got one more card signed by all of Concert Choir and a gift from the FWCC staff.  Jacob thanked us for making it a good day! 

We are now all settled in.  While checking rooms after lights out times we only had two rooms that we had to remind to get quiet and go to sleep!  Not too bad!  We think they are travel weary! Tomorrow will be an early start as we head to the CN Tower, a choral clinic, some shopping and finishing our night with a performance, dinner and show at Medieval Times!

Good Night!
 

Posted on Wednesday, June 19, 2013

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