Hallelujah!

After months of rehearsals, our church held its triennial Messiah Sing-A-Long.  I had never had the opportunity to sing Handel's Messiah, and since the stars had alligned that this was the year for it, my one Christmas in the States, I eagerly signed up to add my alto voice to the mix.

The day before, we had our first real run-through with all of the soloists and the whole orchestra and choir together.  It was a busy Saturday morning at the church building as folks prepared for Christmas parties and the next morning's Sunday School lessons. As we sang, many a tired mom would stop by the chapel (santuary) and kneel down with her wild hoodlums to enjoy the moving music, unable to sit through the long performance on Sunday night, but using this time to point to the instruments and share this bit of beauty.

I had never heard of a Messiah sing-a-long before this, and since when I started I only knew snippets of a few pieces, I couldn't imagine how many people would actually sing with us.  There were extra scores for people to borrow when they came in, and the people who had come to some of the practises but didn't feel up to singing on the stage were planted throughout the audience to bolster those around them.  There were surprisingly a lot of people singing.

The Hallelujah Chorus falls unfortunely 3rd-to-last in the choir's setlist, so after belting that out Sunday night, I had little left in me.  The 3.5 minutes of Amen's at the end nearly killed me (it's also the hardest thing in the whole thing to sing).  But I survived triumphant, and the next day awoke to absolutely no voice.

Ariel came and took some pictures as we warmed up.


Finally, it was interesting afterwards to go through the pictures and catch Sandy flirting with my husband.  ;)

Marsupials Of Unusual Size

Sunday Night was the Messiah Sing-A-Long, and the girls had (wisely) opted to watch Animal Planet rather than sit through the 1.5 hours of Handel's genius.  That would mean that they would be left walking my dog, and to be kind to them (and Blitz), I took him out one last time before I went to warm up.  A few feet from the basement door was this unfriendly visitor.
Being the good mom that I am, I called for the girls to come down and see the possum (calling up, "Don't come down without my camera!")

Blitz the yellow-bellied white dog actually found some courage and went to confront the possum (that's his ear and curly tail above).  We couldn't get it to run away, despite poking at it with a stick, and though it was most likely groggy from having just woken up (there was much angry hissing), we feared that rabies might be involved, and not wanting to take any chances, warned the girls to just walk the dog in the front yard if need be.  We had an important lesson on why friendly wild animals are dangerous wild animals.

Notice the naked, scaly tail and crazy toes.  The average-sized possum was gone by morning.

3701

Lena has been spending the past few months training for Girls on the Run -- a program for girls in 3-5th grade that culminates in the Reindeer Romp, a 5K race the first Saturday in December.
It was bitterly cold for those of us standing on the sidelines, and at Mile 1 when we saw Lena jogging past in a conversational way, Ariel and I were certain that we would freeze to death before Lena hit the finish line.
We didn't have to wait long for Lena to get to the final stretch where she was running hand in hand with her race buddies Krissy and Miss Sharon.  Sharon said that when things got hard, Lena picked up everyone's spirits by singing Christmas songs. 

We're so proud of Lena for working so hard and completing this amazing goal!

Update:  Lena came in 1841st place out of 2318 girls ages 8-14.  Her time was 44:25.

Giving Thanks

We are very thankful for good family.  We drove to Chicago for Thanksgiving, so we could take along with us the newest member of our family -- Blitz.  He made fast friends with his furry cousins, Pumpkin and Peanut.  Thank you Aunt Anita and Uncle Jim for hosting us and Norm and Tracey.  We all had a lovely time.
Pumpkin -- due to the unfortunate affections of Blitz, Ariel and I renamed her "Humpkin."

L&L at the Kohl Children's Museum.  In one place, they were encouraged to paint their faces in a self-expressive way.

All of the dogs love Aunt Anita.
But Blitz loves Ariel the best.



J&A's indoor pool was L&L's favourite thing to do.  The grown-ups' favourite thing to do was eat.  With both Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrated over the course of a few days, there came a point when Ariel and I were sickened by the thought of food.  We had a great time!

Second First Battle of Manassas

The dog and I went and did the same hike the family had done earlier at Manassas Battleground Park for Blitz's first hike since he received his final shots.
Fruit of all types is ripe on barren trees -- persimmons, berries, grass, and the same bean tree from before.





Blitz and I had a great time and he did the whole 5.5 miles without slowing down.  

Crown Moulding Day

Dana came by for the weekend and she and I installed 120 feet of crown moulding in the front room.   It helps that Dana has a good sense of humor as we carried a few pieces back and forth into the garage to shave off another piece about 14 times. We finished it all in one day (not counting painting the moulding), and were able to sit and enjoy it by Sunday morning.

Next is Dana's house.
(I love how crappy the contractor-installed door jamb looks compared to our moulding.)

Big Brother is watching

Whoa!  I'm well behind on posts.  While I'm busy moving photos off of my camera, take a gander at this bit of amazingness from Google.  You might have heard of Google's Street View, but it never really hit me just how amazing and at the same time scary it is.

For Thanksgiving, we're driving to Chicago to stay with Ariel's Uncle Jim and Aunt Anita.  So I punched in the vital information in Google Maps for directions and this was what I received.

That's actually Jim and Anita's house behind and to the right of the Big B.  How cool is that?!? 

November Summer

Saturday, with its glorious summer-like weather, we went to the Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Sponsorship and hiked around, checking out the wildlife and relishing in the fall colors without the fall temperature.



We found this less than optimistic Wooly Bear on our way out, and Livia carried it the rest of the way to the parking lot.  There we met a family hiking in and Livia handed it off to the little girl who happily scooped it right out of her hand and marched into the woods with it.  Going home, the roads were covered with these little caterpillars out on their own little hikes.
When we arrived home, we gave Blitz his very own Dum-Dum (he has been stealing Halloween wrappers recently).

Nearly Finished

So our basement is 99% finished. We now have 800 square feet of extra house plus another full bathroom.  It's all finished enough to start moving things in. I'll give the tour.
We start with Week 4.  I never take a "before" shot of anything, so you'll just have to use you imagination.  Our basement looked just like this minus the framing and the overhead lights.  The overhead lights are a fun story: in Virginia, they never install overhead lights when they build a house.  Except in the hall, kitchen, and bathrooms.  So, when Terry the Contractor and I walked around the basement to plan light placement, I had him put one about every 5 feet.  In this open area of our basement, there are 17 can lights.  This space positively gleams like a beacon.


Look how tiny this puppy is!!!
Our basement is above grade.  One space, a whole room, was above grade but had no window.  I obviously have an obsession with light because I had Terry cut a hole in my foundation and put in a double window.  

That's Ariel standing in front of the new window.

Cute!
So, my whole house, including the basement is painted boring, neutral "booger" in anticipation of renting it out to the masses in a few months.  It's killing me.  So in one place in the house have I left myself a little nook of self-expression: the basement stairs.  Which I painted Tiffany's Blue with dark teal risers.  It makes my heart skip a beat every time I see them.



When the carpet was installed, the girls came down and did a celebratory dance.