Libera Official Canada Pictures

Wow! What a busy Libera day! So many goodies for us to enjoy! Libera posted lots more pictures of their fun times in Canada. Go to their blog here to view them all. Next up should be a video! =)

Jude playing a game in the Hockey Hall of Fame. He has such a nice smile!

Jakob, Ralph, Barney, mini James, and Jude in their hotel,

the Royal York in Toronto...I love this one so much!

Eoghan at Niagara Falls Skylon Tower observatory. Cute!

Sammy with a rainbow at Niagara Falls - I think

this looks like a profile picture for Facebook. :)

Daniel and Jakob at Niagara Falls. See the rainbow? Such happy boys!

"Serious tree climbing" day! I'm liking Barney more and more! Such a ham for the camera! :)

Luke up in the tree...for some reason this picture makes me

want to listen to mini James sing Touch the Sky... :)

Oh this picture is amazing...of course I mean the city! I didn't even notice

the three extremely good-looking boys standing in front of the skyline! :) lol

Ben, Ralph, Alex, Matthew, and Jakob! This is an amazing picture

of the boys and of the cathedral! Glad they had such fun!

My Canada Trip

Here's some of my other pictures from the Canada trip. Just pictures with no people in them. =)

I have NEVER seen this! They sell milk in a bag! It's actually 3 little plastic

bags of milk inside 1 big bag. They take it home and pour it into a pitcher!

After running around like moles underground, we did find

an above-ground mall in Toronto called Eaton Centre. Awesome!

We ventured out in the cold and discovered Dundas Square

and that Yonge Street is the longest street in the world!

The drive to Chatham was very rural with lots of farms.

Reminds me of the Midwest in the US. :)

There's a lot of traffic in Toronto!

You don't see billboards like this in the US.

Wrigley's Field?! Am I in Chicago?! lol 

Horseshoe Falls on Canada side. And everyone knows

the view on the Canada side is better.  =) 

Bridal Veil Falls on US side. On the right you can see

people walking down stairs to the river level!

Skylon Tower. Libera was at Niagara Falls the

same day we were! Some other fans saw them and us!

Pretty Japanese garden in Niagara Falls.

View of the falls through garden door.

Niagara - Burger King and Curry Queen!

Criminal Hall of Fame?!

Library in Hamilton. It's just fun to say.  =)

Hamilton is the waterfall capitol of the world!

Who knew?! This is Webster's Falls.

Tew's Falls. There are over 100 waterfalls in Hamilton!

Toronto skyline.

Hockey Hall of Fame, obviously.

Cows stuck to the side of a building in Toronto.

Canada's mailboxes are way more colorful than ours!

CN Tower. I know this pic isn't as good as Libera's.

That's because they aren't in front of it. lol

Rogers Centre where the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team plays. My dad wanted to

take a tour of the stadium, but there was actually a game going on at the time.

Winner of "Funniest Name for a Restaurant!"

Building on stilts - Ontario College of Art & Design.

SQUEEZE in Canada = MERGE in US! lol

All the McDonald's signs have a Canadian maple leaf in the center!

Buffet in Guelph! Our day for "over-intake of food."

Going Home! Line at the border.

Chicago!!! Woo-hoo!!!

Libera Canada Blog Parts 2 & 3

Well, all of the concerts in Canada went really well, and now that I am recovered from the trip and back to my normal schedule, it's time to finish writing about the boys' blogs! You can read their blogs on Libera's website www.libera.org.uk

The second blog was really funny, and the part about "We...had our regular over-intake of food" made me laugh pretty hard. I agree with the boys; the underground mall in Toronto was amazing! It was huge and went on forever. We had the same experience as the boys, wandering around it and trying not to get lost. It was the weekend, so none of the shops were open, and no one was there! Spooky is right! We said we were like moles running around underground! "When we finally found life, we discovered that we were slowly creeping back up to the Earth's surface from the mantle. And also that Big Ben's scarf could swallow Barney completely whole." Lol! Sorry that it rained (and even snowed) so much. At least Libera still had some things to do - movies, underground mall, bowling, etc.

At Music Plus in Kitchener "some people bought manuscripts and novelty music things," (probably the older ones) "while others decided to get the loudest percussion instruments they possibly could" (definitely the younger ones). "The noise in the coach afterwards was deafening. Anyway, after that musical interlude," (lol) "we drove to the Centre in the Square theatre to perform our only theatre concert." And now comes the phrase that I have never heard before until now! Am I just a crazy American, or has anyone else heard this phrase - "Any road up"? I guess it means "anyway," but I have seriously never heard it before!

Any road up...I agree with the statement about the instruments being in the balcony giving the Chatham concert a really cool effect. I loved that! Poor older boys! I'm an only child and have to wear my earbuds to not get distracted in my own house! Can you imagine trying to study in that bus with the "musical interlude" going on and boys talking and laughing?! I wouldn't get anything done! Good for them for doing it though. We're glad they came.

Only 22 boys. Where's Jude?

They got to go to Niagara Falls! yes, I got that extra A in there. =) The revolving restaurant sounded pretty fun, as long as you were careful not to lose your camera as you spun around the walls! Gosh that picture of Mini James with the seagull is cute! I love that kid! Apparently birds do, too!

Blog number 3! They got to go to the CN Tower! (which I've taken to calling the Cartoon Network tower). Whoever is writing this blog, and I have it from a very reliable source that it is Liam ;) , is obviously not too fond of heights. The elevator being like "reverse sky diving" did give me a laugh. =) This made me laugh too: "on our way back down from the lithosphere we saw signs for record-breaking attempts from the tower - for example, one person yodeled for 7 hours 29 mins from the top of the tower! How useful that information's going to be to you I don't know..." lol!

Great picture!!!

They went to Central Island to do some "serious tree climbing", and then back to the hotel.

And another great picture!

The service on Easter Sunday went very well! As the writer said, they did get great applause after they sang the Hallelujah Chorus in church. The concert that night was really great, too. But they didn't get back to the hotel until "half-midnight-ish, only to get up again at four to go to the airport." Wow!

They ate breakfast at Tim Horton's in the airport. While in Canada we saw a great commercial for Tim Horton's with some people coming out of a wedding and talking about how they needed something light like a sandwich before the reception. The punch line of the commercial is when one of the women asks, "Do you think there's a Tim Horton's around here?" Then everyone starts cracking up laughing. Being from Illinois where we have NO Tim Horton's anywhere, we naturally thought that that was extremely funny. =) But there really IS a Tim Horton's on every corner! lol.

I love the little reference at the end of the blog to Jude's speech where he said, "That last song was called Going Home, and soon it will be time for us to be going home - well back to our hotel anyway." The blog says, "and soon it will (be) time for us to be going home – well yes, really!" lol! So glad they had a great time in Canada! It was great that they could come! Thanks Libera!

PS - I still don't know what Orange Squash is...  =)

Guelph Concert

Since this was Easter Sunday, I guess I should start from the beginning of the day. When you drive to the church, this is the stunning view.

The church seats 1,200 and was so packed for the 11:00 am Easter morning service that 100-200 people were standing in the back! The church choir was above and behind us in the organ loft. And there were some extras singing with the church choir. The "really big people" (as Kavana calls the ex-members) got to sing as well! I saw them all being herded up there before the service started. :)

Inside the church obviously AFTER Easter morning service

View of organ loft. Left of organ had timpani, strings, trumpet &

trombone. The Libera boys & choir were all to the right of the organ!

The service was really nice, with the boys singing three numbers during the service on the platform, and then walking from the front to the back during communion (right past us!) to get to the choir loft in the back. I was watching Ben and Stefan before they started singing and they were totally cracking up the lady next to them. :) They joined the choir in singing the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. It was great! The entire church stood and turned around to look up at them. After they had finished the whole room burst into applause! It was magical! It was a really great service and a lot of the church people seemed very excited for the concert that night!

View from organ loft

You can see how small the organ loft is!

This is a CTV News report on Libera at the Easter morning service. Thank you to karrak57 for uploading it!



Ralph describing the church - "It was amazing, cause we've never been in, well we have, but not in such a colorful, lovely, just amazing church."

Kavana - "And the size of it is actually mind-blowing."

Joe Carere, church music director and organist - "To know that they were coming to be with us today was a big honor." Of Libera's talent - "It's out of this world really. Pure English boy-choir sound. There's nothing like it."

Ralph on traveling to Canada - "It was the most amazing experience of my life. We went to the top of the CN Tower and wow!"

Arriving early at the church for the concert - parking area in back

Front door of church. Premium tickets entered

early through right door. General admission

after that through left door.

That night the concert was awesome! There were 900-1000 people there! My mom and I got to sit in the front row, and my dad sat in the row right behind us. This was his 2nd Libera concert. He says he's a good fan. lol. I asked him what his favorite song was later and he said it was "How Shall I Sing That Majesty." It IS an amazing way to end a concert.

Stage with Steven & Simon back left, strings back right

The church doesn't have a piano, so Mr. Prizeman used 2 keyboards.

Love the old man waving to me! Photo bomb! lol

People sat all the way over to the sides!

All of the boys seemed to be really "on" for their last concert. The solos and harmonies were so great. I didn't want it to end. The only really different thing that happened was that Liam tripped over his tongue a little during his speech. He said "sometimes our voices change quidramatic..blebleblebleble." But what great stage presence! He just kept going and said his next line, "It's exciting to discover your new voice, and to learn the lower parts...and to get all your words right..." he added. That got a really big laugh. :D Way to keep your head, Liam! :)

At the end when all the boys were waving I gave them all a thumbs up, and Daniel gave it right back to me! Then when they walked off, Daniel stopped at the side of the stage to wave to my mom and I who were still waving. Ralph bumped into him and then turned around to wave to us too! :) This has been a really great tour! Can't wait to see them again! USA! USA! USA! :)

Now you can see Carlos!

Bye Libera! Hope you had a good trip home! And hope to see you again soon!

Here is an article in the Guelph Mercury newspaper about the concert. It is short, but there is a picture of Ralph, Stefan & Daniel.