Tonight we held a surprise birthday part for Brother Don Redd, who recently turned 85. It was a mini concert over at the Evans’ home put on by members of the ward. Kate Thurgood started it off by singing a medley of songs from The Sound of Music, followed by Eddy Ward singing Second-hand Rose. Next Janell sang Someone to Watch Over Me and Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Bryan and I sang a capella A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square and Copeland’s I Bought Me a Cat. Omar Salam followed by singing Ol’ Man River and Makin’ Whoopee. While Loren Stevenson got ready to play his cello, Julene Updike played the first part of Debussy’s Claire de Lune. Several of us were sad that Loren finished setting up before Julene completed the piece. Then Loren played a Scherzo from a book of Cello Competition pieces. Really fast.

JD Evans had been thinking of singing something, but decided not to sing Sweet Violets, a funny piece Bryan and I had sung for Winn Redd’s birthday before she died. After the prayer on the refreshments, he was saying he had always wanted to sing Some Enchanted Evening, which we started to sing together. It was really nice. Then a fabulous cake and fun conversation before we decided to leave.

When we got home, we shared some of the refreshments with the kiddies, then walked up to the dog park with the green laser pointer and the binoculars to look at the stars in the night sky (those we could see given that there was a full moon). We were able to see the Summer Triangle, the Winter Hexagon, Orion, Canis Major, the Pleiades, Auriga, Arcturus, Spika, Venus, Gemini, Taurus, Saturn, Leo, Ursa Major, Polaris, and several others. So fun.