Mormon Tabernacle Choir/David Archuleta

One of our annual Christmas traditions is to attend the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert, if we can get in. For those of you reading this from another state or country or are not familiar with this tradition, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints sponsors this unbelievably fantastic, wonderful concert every year for four days (including Music and the Spoken Word broadcast on Sunday), and it's absolutely free to the public. The tricky part is getting tickets. They are given through a lottery system on line. We were told by a choir member that 1.5 million people requested tickets this year. Of course, the guest singer this year was David Archuleta, which really added to the frenzy of attempts to get tickets. The Conference Center seats about 21,000, so about 80,000 lucky people get to go into the Conference Center to see the concert firsthand.

Our family never even requested tickets because there's eight of us, and only four tickets are given to each lucky lottery winner. We have always had good luck getting in through the standby line, but we knew this year would be different because of the overwhelming interest in David Archuleta.

With little hope of ever getting in, we headed downtown about 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, parked at the KSL Building, and walked to Temple Square to get in the standby line a little before 5:00. There were already about thirty people in line. We had a two-hour wait ahead of us before they would even think about letting anybody from the standby line in.

Here we are patiently waiting in line, drinking hot chocolate, playing games on the iPod Touch, and just generally having a good time on Temple Square. Gradually the line in front of us got smaller and smaller as passers-by with extra tickets handed them off. By about 6:30, we started getting tickets handed to us, two at a time. Marissa and Zack went in first, then Gage and Emily, and finally Quinn, Alex, Michael, and I had tickets in our hands!!!!!


Here's the view from our seats. Sorry, but no pictures of the choir or David. We were asked to turn off all electronics after this point. All I can say about the concert is: Oh, my goodness!!! it was so good. The decorations, the dancers, the choir, everything was magical. David Archuleta was so charming, and let's face it. That boy can sing!!!! To me, nothing brings the spirit faster than Christmas music, especially sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Jazz Game

Yesterday afternoon our next-door neighbor called to see if we wanted four Jazz tickets in the lower bowl. My answer? "Heck yeah." She said she didn't know where the seats were, only that they were in the lower bowl. (Their son-in-law works for the Jazz.) So we proceeded downtown to see the Jazz game, only to encounter a wreck on the freeway, which delayed us 45 minutes. We arrived just at the end of the first quarter, and here we are on the NINTH row!

I almost had as much fun watching the Jazz Bear as Michael did watching the game.

Incidentally, the Jazz solidly whipped the Indiana Pacers.

Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus - Must See!

Last Sunday of November

Sunday morning we awoke to more snow. We kicked Quinn and Alex outside to start shoveling.

Michael joined in for a few minutes before dashing off to his meetings.

Quinn has become my dishwasher. He says he's bored, and besides, the hot water feels good!

Later on after church, we shoveled again. Then again!! It just kept snowing.

Monday morning we awoke only to shovel once more. It's nippy outside, but at least the sun is shining.

Barbies

I came up from dowstairs a couple Sundays ago, after reading with Alex, and found Marissa and Emily playing with Barbies. Yes, Marissa had dragged out the Barbies and all the paraphernalia, and there the two of them sat on the floor dressing the Barbies, and even the Ken, in various outfits. Wow, I hadn't seen that stuff for MANY years. Now, remember that Marissa and Emily are 22 and 19 years of age. They must have sat there for over an hour, and I joined them for a while, reminiscing about my childhood and remembering playing with most of those very same Barbie clothes that have now been handed down to Marissa. My mom had the patience to do that kind of thing, make clothes for our Barbie dolls. Imagine the hours. I guess one day those clothes will be played with by Marissa's daughter.

Weather

We woke up to a frozen white world Sunday morning. Our trees were bent over in agony, but we were lucky to only lose three branches in our entire yard. Others had entire trees down or trees split down the middle. Our neighborhood looked like it had a mini tornado go through.

We went out and knocked snow off every branch we could reach before the trees gave way. So many of our trees still have their leaves on, which is why so much snow collected in them.

Apparently, however, this is only a preview of what's about to hit us. We're supposed to get a 100-year storm this afternoon/evening, meaning the worst winter storm Utah has been hit with in the last 100 years. I'm headed out to stock up on groceries. Let's hope the weather people are wrong. I'm feeling especially thankful today for a home, lots of food downstairs, and a family to hunker down with.

In the Spirit of Thanksgiving

Here's another great reminder of everything we have to be grateful for.