Quinn and Jiu Jitsu

I forgot to mention that Quinn was awarded his orange belt in Jiu Jitsu about a month ago. Jiu Jitsu is different from Karate where you can earn your black belt in a couple years. I'm told it takes ten years to earn a black belt in Jiu Jitsu. This orange belt represents two and a half years of training. Here is one of his instructors, Tony, saying some really nice things about Quinn, one of them being that Quinn is skilled but not arrogant. That's true. Quinn is a humble sort of kid. Congratulations, Quinn.

We had a great (stressful but great) Christmas this year. I don't know why I let Christmas stress me, but it does. I wish I could learn to enjoy it more. I'm worried that my children will be unhappy on Christmas morning, that my house isn't clean enough, that my decorations are 25 years old, that I didn't get my neighbor gifts done, etc. etc. The neighborhood agreed to donate money to the Food Bank instead of doing neighbor gifts, so why my doorbell rang constantly the entire week of Christmas with yummy, fattening goodies from neighbors, I have no idea. Now I owe everybody in the neighborhood, I suppose. But I really do have great, kind neighbors that are always doing nice things for us. I really am so grateful for them.

We got to spend time with my side of the family on Christmas Day. We had about 35 people at our house for dinner, and we had a good time visiting and eating.




Here's Quinn's creative way of washing dishes.



My sis doesn't like her picture taken, but I was sneaky.

My brother's family. They added that cute little girl to their family this year.

My cute hubby and my Mom and Dad

Mom and Dad brought all their old Christmas decorations to give away to any takers. Through the years my Mom has painted, crocheted, glued, sewed so many Christmas decorations, they decided to declutter this year.

My brother's family

My sis's family

My niece and her little boy

Alex playing his DS. He got a game called Scribblenauts that has entertained the family for hours. This is a good game for Alex because he has to SPELL the name of the objects he needs to work his way up the levels. He is constantly asking me how to spell a word, and it's a sneaky way to get some learning in while having fun. BTW, we had NO melt-downs the entire Christmas holiday. We still have eating and touching issues, but we're making progress. We got home from Ukraine with him Christmas Eve of 2009, so we have now passed our year mark. It's hard to comprehend the magnitude of what he's learned this year. (And what we've learned.) Notice how his GIGANTIC overbite has calmed down in this picture. We're on about the third month of his orthodontic treatment, and his mouth is full of bolts and metal arms that are pulling his lower jaw out and making room in his upper jaw to receive his lower jaw etc. I'm not even sure what all they are doing to his mouth. And we thought we had reached the end of our adoption expenses? But it's all worth it. We watched Despicable Me the other night, and it prompted Alex to have a dream that night. He dreamed we told him he had to go back to Ukraine. In his dream he was crying and pleading with members of the family to let him stay. When he woke up his pillow was wet. How sad! I asked him, "You mean you don't want to go back to Ukraine? I thought maybe you would want to go back." He said, "No, not really." Doesn't he look American in this picture?

But I digress. Back to our family party.

Little update on Eric: Eric passed his half-way mark of his four-year obligation to the United States Air Force. He's expecting to be transferred this spring from Guam back to the States, maybe the western part of the U.S. (We hope and pray.)

Only one more Christmas to go in the military, Eric!!! We hope you got your package by now. We love you and miss you.

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.