A day of firsts...

Well, yesterday was a day of firsts. I was invited as a chaparone for a friend's 16th birthday for the first time. I dressed in 50's clothes for the first time. I rode in a limo for the first time.

We ate lunch at In and Out (not a first for me). I skipped around the fountain at Balboa Park for the first time. I "sang" Rocking around the Clock around the clock at Hortan Plaza for the first time.

My final and not so fun set of firsts came at our next stop--Seaport Village. I twisted my ankle badly, went to urgent care, waited for an hour, had it ex-rayed, and came home thanking God that it was just a compound sprain and not a break. (sorry no pictures of that, thankfully!) The rest of the party continued on to ride a rollercoaster, play twister on the beach, etc... without me. :( Such is life!

Today I had another first--walking on crutches!

Sunrise hike...

Yesterday a friend and I decided to get up early to see the sunrise. We choose a local park, layered up because of the near freezing temperatures, and met at 6:20. Between the two of us we took 80 pictures...here are a few of my favorite for those of you who weren't up to see it, or don't live somewhere condusive to sunrise hikes. :)



can you tell it is cold?

my partner in crime

Christmas weekend...

Instead of celebrating Christmas on just one day, my family enjoyed spreading it out over the whole weekend.

Friday night we had tamales for dinner with Karen and Nazgul. After dinner we went caroling around our neighborhood and delivered cranberry bread to our neighbors. Everyone seems to enjoy our caroling and have even come to expect it since we have been doing it as long as I can remember. When we got back, we enjoyed some hot chocolate and exchanged gifts with Karen and Nazgul who left early Saturday morning to visit Karen's relatives in Oregon.



Saturday night we had my grandfather, aunt & uncle, and cousins over for a big Christmas dinner. Brent didn't make it home in time for dinner, but at least for the family pictures. Here's a picture of the whole group--this year the time exposed shot worked the first time! We ended the evening by singing a few Christmas carols together. After the rest of the family left, our immediate family exchanged gifts with one another. It was so nice to have Brent home--even just for two days.


Sunday morning all 5 of us went to church together and then headed up to LA in the afternoon. We attended the Christmas Eve candlelight service at my cousin's church and enjoyed hearing their choir sing--my cousin Jonathan directs it.

Sunday night we spent at my grandparents house and then everyone else came over around noon for dinner. In the afternoon we opened gifts to and from my grandparents and spent time visiting, playing games and watching football.
(all the grand children + 2 great-grand children)

After a light dinner we put on our annual Christmas pageant. We hadn't done one for several years, but decided to continue the tradition for the younger cousins. The older guys opted to be the audience and my cousin Katie and I appeared only briefly at part of the angel choir so that we could organize the backstage costume changes, etc... I think that everyone enjoyed it and Katie's two little children stole the show. Michael was the reluctant shepherd and wandering wise man and Bethany starred at the littlest angel and a fussy baby Jesus. :)



Ryan played the guitar for another carol sing to conclude the "program."During desert, everyone gathered in the den to watch a home video of one of our Christmas pageants from about 10 years ago. Too bad we didn't have a video camera 20 years ago for the first one...that would have been a blast! :) Well, it was late when everyone finally left and even later when we finally got to bed, but we all agreed that we wouldn't trade that busy day for anything in the world.

This morning Brent headed back up to work and the rest of the family headed home...duty calls. Fortunately, Dad, Ryan and I don't have to go back to our regular work schedules until after the new year.

Handel's Messiah

Last Saturday night a group from our church attended the San Diego Symphony and Master Chorale’s performance of Handel's Messiah at Copley Symphony Hall. They did an excellent job, and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. In honor of Mozart's 250th birthday they performed his arrangement of Handel's Masterpiece. The main differences from the original that we noticed were the extra instruments and switching of the soloists. You are not allowed to take pictures inside the hall, so we stopped by one of the beautiful Christmas trees in the lobby to get some pictures.Each of these ladies married into the Rohrer family--a family from church who did lots of fun things with my family in high school. The guys all married sweet girls and now they are friends of mine too.

My dear parents

Nazgul and I

Recital Pictures

Nazgul and I pose before everyone arrives.

20 of my piano students

Alexis and Ashley Morse--girls from church

Refreshments outside afterwards.

Christmas Piano Recital

For those of you who didn't know, I had a Christmas recital Friday night for all my piano students. Only 20 of my 23 students were able to make it, but praise the Lord, all of those students were healthy and made it on time. :)

I was a bit nervous about making opening comments because I don't really enjoy speaking in front of people, but God gave me grace and I hope and pray the message about giving all the glory to God came across clearly. All my students did a wonderful job on their songs and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. All the beautiful Christmas music about our wonderful Savior was so uplifting and I am so thankful to the Lord that by His grace I was able to think about the words and enjoy it instead of just worrying about how my students were going to do. It was definitely the result of lots of prayer--by me and all my friends and family.

Afterwards we had refreshments and fellowship and it seemed like I talked to so many people--my mouth was sore by the end from smiling and talking so much. Since I was the only person who knew everyone I felt responsible to make everyone feel welcome and at comfortable. However, I really enjoyed getting to know some of my students and their families better during the fellowship time afterwards.

My mom, dad, Karen and Nazgul helped me so much. Afterwards while I was busy talking with everyone--there were probably between 60 and 70 people--they cleaned up a lot of it so that I didn't have to do much after everyone left. As it was, we didn't get home until 9:30 and I was starving! An Arby's sandwich never tasted so good. :)

Recitals are a lot of work, organizing, collecting food, decorations, music, etc...but they are worth every minute of it. I also really enjoy finding good deals on supplies--yea for the dollar store, Amvets and sales at Party City! All of the table decorations I was able to borrow from my mom or collect from our yard--don't look at the back side of our cute little pine tree. :) So even if it took me longer than if I had just gone out and bought a whole bunch of stuff, it was worth every minute of it. I am also really grateful to our pastor's wife who lent me a coffee pot, the lace table clothes, and made sure all the church decorations were up in time.

I pray that the Lord was glorified and that all those who attended were edified as much as I was. To God be the glory great things HE has done!

One more pic...

I forget to post one of my panoramic shots of the canyon. My canon camera has a neat feature which allows you to stich photos together and save them as one file. I thought it worked fairly well. It's not the same so small, but maybe you can get the idea...