Merry Christmas Surprise!

On Tuesday I received a wonderful Christmas surprise - a trip to go see my favorite pianist, Lorie Line, in concert! For those of you not familiar with Lorie Line, I invite you read about her story here

Lorie is a very gifted musician. Her music is so beautiful and she is an inspiring performer. I especially love her arrangements that include instrumentals. She has a violin/piano arrangement of Silent Night that my mom and I have played together for years. I loved it so much when I first heard it that I trascribed the violin part from the CD, listening over and over again until I got it just right (I've even recorded the piano part so that I can play my violin along with myself). Yep, I'm one BIG fan.

Lori Line performs about 100 holiday shows across the country in November and December, but doesn't often come to Utah. Every year I'm excited to review her holiday tour schedule, then disappointed to see that she's not coming to Utah AGAIN! A few years ago Dana gave me one of her concert DVDs as a Christmas present and I just loved it. I played parts of the DVD for my music students last week as an example of how practice pays off. But I'm always sad that the holiday concert does not come closer to us. Well, this year she was playing in Denver. Dana figured this was close enough and decided to surprise me with a trip to the concert.

Tuesday morning he woke me up early and gave me the concert tickets in a little gold bag. He then told me he had arranged plane tickets and a hotel close to the concert hall. My sister would be coming over after lunch to stay overnight with the kids. We would catch a plane at 3pm to Denver and arrive just in time to eat dinner and get to the concert. What a great surprise!

With a few minor airport delays, everything went just as planned. Hayden and Emma enjoyed spending time with their favorite aunt (Thanks a million, Carrie!). The concert was wonderful. When the lights dimmed and Lorie walked on stage, I started to cry right in my seat. I was so excited to be there and so thrilled that my husband had arranged such a great gift and kept it all a surprise! The show was wonderful, every note was perfect. The costumes and sets were breathtaking, all the musicians complimented each other so well. I came away with some Lorie Line CDs and music books (yes, I've been playing from my new books non-stop since we got home!). We flew home Wednesday morning, right on schedule. Thanks Dana for such a thoughtful gift and for lovingly arranging it as a surprise. It was fun to get away together and enjoy such a great concert.

Moon, Moon, Moon

Did any of you see the beautiful moon last Friday? You can read about it here

Hayden is very interested in space, the universe, most anything to do with astronomy. He loves to visit the planterium often and is always looking to the night sky. This month's full moon occurs when the earth is unusually close to the moon so the full moon appears even larger than normal. On Friday night we drove out to view the giant moon! It was a clear night and SO cold, but it was a beautiful sight! The moon was so big and bright. We drove to the "west benches" of SL county. We could see white clouds in the sky, even snow glistening on the eastern mountains. We wished we had a better camera to capture the view more precisely. We were glad we got to experience such a beautiful night sky!

The Christmas Box House

Last Wednesday I got to travel with Hayden's school class to the Christmas Box House for a field trip. It was such a good experience! The Christmas Box House is a safe place for children who may need to spend some time away from their own homes. You can read more
here

The class had prepared some gifts to take - lap quilts that they had tied, and original story books that they had written and illustrated themselves. A few days before the trip, Hayden's teacher had provided each student with a hard bound book that they could use to write a story, illustrate the story and design the cover of a special book. The children were so excited for the trip.

This is a picture of the big Christmas Tree in the entry room. We learned that the tree is up all year long and that different groups get to come and decorate the tree with a different theme each month (the kids enjoyed hearing about the tree with flip-flops and sunglasses!)

We learned about the Quilt Room where children get to pick out their very own blanket. We got to tour the classroom with 10 desks, see the laundry room, the library, the visiting room, and onsite dentist's office.

There was also a beautiful room with a fireplace and large stained glass window. This room was very peaceful.

The children were really touched to learn about this wonderful place and be able to help children their very same age. I'm grateful to such a wonderful teacher who organized this trip and helped the class provide such meaningful service to other children at Christmas time.

First Entry

This is our very first entry! I thought I'd try posting a picture and sharing a story about it. This is a picture of Hayden and Emma at Disneyland in December, 2007. You'd never know that just minutes before this was taken Emma was crying and sobbing, so sad to have to leave Disneyland. But once the camera came out she was all smiles! The kids love posing together whenever a camera (or mirror or any person) are around.

This was such a fun trip. My brother was home for Christmas before being deployed for a second tour to Iraq. He and my sister invited us to spend some time with them at Disneyland. Due to school, music, work and other committments it was hard to get all our schedules together and it looked like we would not be able to join them. It just wouldn't work for us all to get away, but hopefully some of us could come. Dana took Hayden and Emma on a flight Sunday morning while I stayed behind. I'd secretly booked a flight after church and planned to travel to Disneyland Sunday evening. Dana knew of my plans, but the kids and other family members did not. I got from the airport to the hotel late at night to surprise the kids. It was so much fun to surprise the rest of the family in the morning. We were so glad we were able to spend time together. A wonderful trip!