We traveled southward to visit my side of the family for Christmas. A year and a half ago, back when my Aunt Missy was qualifying for Best Aunt Ever, I staked a claim on her guest bedroom since she would be hosting the 2008 Bruner Family Christmas party. (Bruner is my mom's maiden name.)
The dog was able to run amok and harrass much bigger dogs than himself.
We ate much good food made by my dear Aunt Missy.
Next we went to Dana's house and Ariel, the kids, and the dog entertained themselves while Dana and I shopped at Mary Jo's fabric store ALL DAY LONG.
Finally, we went to Dad and Lora's house in SC. The weather was mild and we took the opportunity to build a campfire, roast hot dogs and marshmallows. Finally, we entertained ourselves with long-exposure light drawing. Above was Lena writing her name (so it's backwards) over 5 seconds.
Livia and Summit
There is an orthodontist out there somewhere who is going to love us.
My step-nephew Landon the Christmas Elf.
My dad amd nephew #2 (fresh off the presses) Cade.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
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. ;)
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.
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 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!
