Twas the Eve Before the Celebration

SO much happened between waking up on Thursday morning, the 3rd, and going to bed on Sunday night. the 6th.
Thursday morning my brother and I accompanied my dad to an underground cave storage area. The KC Symphony has a storage room there and we just happened to be borrowing their old choir risers. We met a few other men from our ward at the storage center with two pickup trucks for hauling.

While the men loaded the platforms, my brother and I counted out the riser legs.

After most of it was loaded, we headed over to the Municipal Auditorium.

We unloaded everything onto the arena.

Next stop, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. We still needed some more risers from there.

Then back over to the storage unit. We picked up the loose ends that didn't fit in the first round.

 And one more time back to the Municipal.

Dad studied the map he had drawn and we started setting up the risers.

We got a few of them up before we ran out of time.

After all that, this is what my hands looked like.

Friday morning we got up early and arrived at the Municipal at 7:30am. My dad had to be there early to start setting up the AV equipment with the rest of the crew. My brother and I tagged along to help with setting up the downstairs area where we would be spending most of our time the the next day, unfortunately the committee members wouldn't be showing up until about 10am. So we sat at the top of the auditorium for 2 hours waiting. This is a time lapse of what we saw up there while we were waiting.  

Finally some of the leaders started showing up and we went down to help. The first job was to rearrange the massive amounts of tables and chairs.

Meanwhile the floor upstairs just kept getting more and more crowded with boxes and other lighting and sound gear.

Just before lunch break, large pink "telephones" showed up, along with ladders, a couch and other props. Everyone that had a spare hand helped with the unloading.

We had other little assignments throughout the day that kept us busy. There was plenty for everyone to do!

For lunch, we walked down the street to a food court. I got a Philly cheese steak sandwich. It went down my throat quite quickly. I was hungry! When we got back, one of the leaders asked me if I could take her back to where we had eaten, so I did. She got a few orders from some other people and she, her daughter and I set off down the street. Everything went smooth and we made it back, bags of sandwiches hanging from our arms. But a few minutes later her daughter came up to me and asked if I could take her back...her mom had left her phone on the counter there. So the two of us hiked back, this being the third time in two hours for me. We went to security and got the phone back no problem. Mission accomplished.

After lunch, but before that adventure of hiking around the block 3 times, my brother and I ran back to the car and got our white shirts, the most basic but vital piece of everyones costume, and brought it back so it was already on location for the next day.

My last job was to cut ribbon for the balloons. They were just for decoration, but they added a nice touch to the room. After the ribbon was cut, a few other people helped me blow the balloons up.

A quick dinner break and all the youth started showing up.

It turned out the we didn't get much done that night, but we did take a short tour up to the arena. When we got there, most of the AV stuff was finally up.

The last event of the night was a quick fireside and a musical number by Kenneth Cope, who would be in the Joplin segment of the performance the next day.

Only a few more hours and we would be back!