Chorale Concerts and Waterford Concerts
The Chorale that Alan and I sang with last spring performed a couple of Christmas concerts this month. One was at Waterford, which was nice and close for our family and friends, and then a couple of days later we performed at the Assembly Hall on Temple Square. It was very fun -- which is good, because it was a ton of work! Most of the fun is getting together every week and singing. We look forward to starting up again in January.
Another fun Christmas with the Grandparents. Aunt Shirley was well enough to come spend the morning with us and we had a nice time having breakfast and opening gifts. The highlight of the day was when Clark got a cowboy hat that matches his Grandpa's! Of course the yard of popcorn and the yard of licorice were especially fun too.
We enjoyed having Christmas Eve on Sunday this year. It seemed appropriate to begin the day in church worshiping our Savior. The whole event felt more religious to me this year rather than such a focus on the Santa thing. Alan's parents joined us for dinner with Pat bringing a batch of her famous (at least at our house) strawberry soup. The kids all decided to sleep together in the basement on aero beds and couches and since they did finally go to sleep, Santa came after all.
We always have a nice Christmas morning. We like to sleep in a little, open our gifts slowly and have breakfast along the way, so it pretty much takes all morning. The highlight of the day was talking to our missionary on the phone for an hour! Some of the best Christmas presents can't be wrapped....
So how is Loren doing? He seems to be doing great! We get good letters from him every week and just recently he sent us a camera card full of photos which we can now pass on to you. Of course we all loved gathering around a speaker phone to talk with him on Christmas Day. He sounded happy and healthy and not the least bit homesick.
He got our packages just fine and sent us a gift of Jamaica which is a type of flower petal tea/juice and some Mexican hot chocolate called Abuelita (which Elliot says means Little Grandma). Hmmm.... Also, several bumper stickers that say, "Don't mess with Texas." As fond as we may become of Texas, Alan refused to root for Texas over Iowa in the Alamo Bowl game!
Since New Year's Eve fell on Sunday, the church put on a special fireside for the youth early in the evening. Madeleine was able to get a ticket to attend in the Conference Center with her friends and the rest of us went down to the Stake Center to watch the live broadcast. It was a fabulous meeting with wonderful music and speakers that included Sister Tanner, Elder Holland and President Hinckley. What a great opportunity for the youth of the church! It was very uplifting and inspiring to all of us.
Afterwards we all headed home where we had the Lundgrens, our good friends and neighbors, over to bring in the new year with us. Tess invited her roommate Laurel and Phillip had his friend Ashley over as well. We did the ever-popular fondue thing and of course ate too much and stayed up too late! It's hard to believe that it was seven years ago that we were waiting to see what would happen as the year 2000 rolled around. Time sure seems to be going by quickly. I know, I know -- I sound like an old person.
The Colletes, our friends from New Hampshire, paid us a few brief visits this month as we were the pit stop between Arizona and Idaho. Melora's family celebrated her Grandmother's 100th birthday and they brought the whole family to be together for the holidays. They stayed with us three Thursday nights as they traveled near and far to see other friends and family. It was fun to have our kids all together -- four of whom will be back at BYU together. Another reason to feel old, since BYU is where the four of us all met each other and became couples and friends!