Susie's Leaning Tower of Chocolate for 2016 April 22

Last night our stake hosted a fireside by Gladys Knight and the Saints Unified Voices choir. It was a missionary effort, and to get (free) tickets you had to give the names of the people you invited to the ward mission leader. That was no problem for us as I immediately thought of the mom of one of Maggie's friends who is a voice teacher. She was thrilled to go (and impressed it was free). In the end, she also invited a former do-worker of hers, so the three of us went and John stayed home with her daughter and all our kids.

I went to line up around 4:45. She was coming straight from work and made it just in time to be let in to be seated. And then we sat there for nearly an hour while the fireside started 45 late for some unknown reason.

But it was great. The choir was pretty good and there was a short explanation of the Restoration, which somehow was given without saying "Joseph Smith", and a couple short testimonies. But the stand out part to me was Gladys' stage presence. She walked in from the back, all sassy, conducted the choir with such spunk, told jokes, I just loved it. Can't believe she is over 70. You could tell everyone involved loved being there, and that made me smile the whole time.

Probably the longest I've left Arthur - nearly four hours. John didn't even try to feed him, and he didn't really nap and stayed up too late, but was happy being held the whole time.