December 2014

Merry Christmas

Christmas started this year with Aunt Jana's annual "day after Thanksgiving party", except that it wasn't the day after Thanksgiving. What a wonderful tradition this party has been for as long as I can remember. It is fun to see our little ones at the same age as when Aunt Jana started the party with us. 

Maddy had a school program. Gratefully the kindergarten classes performed first and so I got to go and enjoy and then leave. I like to think that I could hear her over the other kids but I suppose I probably couldn't. From what I could tell however, she knew all the words and was a great little performer.

Maddy has had a dry itchy face since before Halloween and unfortunately, by this time it was making her eye all puffy and red. We tried changing back our laundry detergent and going back to basic shampoo, we moisturized (and moisturized, and moisturized). We tried allergy medicine and eye drops. Dr. Lindsay said "I'm not sure if the inflammation is causing her itching or if her itching is causing the inflammation". Eventually her rashy face left and I suppose it was a little bit of all of the above. 

We had a ward breakfast Christmas party this year. All the kids got to come help Brother Osgood with the reading of Luke 2 by putting the manger scene together. I led the kids and then the ward in some carols. It was kind of a fun change from the normal party.

We made our annual December trip to Benihana. Why this is an annual Christmas tradition I'm not sure but we go every year.

XANGO had it's christmas party...

Maddy got a manicure while I got my hair done. Can you tell she was in heaven with that pampering??!!

We had our usual Sally Bytheway Chorale concert at The Assembly Hall and then meandered through the grounds at Temple Square to see the lights on the way back to the car.

Somewhere I have some Christmas pictures that I will need to add but where they could be on my computer I suppose is a guess. Happy Christmas.

Millennium Choir

My soul doth magnify the Lord

My spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Savior

For He that is mighty, hath done great things to me

My soul doth magnify the Lord.

-Luke 1:45-49

Emily, Jenny, Sarah, Melissa, Katie, Lex, Georgia

It has been a great privilege to sing with Millennium Choir for 14 years (or something like that). We've sung grand concerts with full orchestra in Abravenel Hall and at the Provo Tabernacle and in countless churches in the Salt Lake valley. We've performed small firesides for the youth and for the Single Adults and performed musical numbers in Sacrament meetings. We've performed concerts in the Tabernacle with an antiphonal choir made up of individuals from around the world singing into their computers from home.

We have performed Christmas concerts with music from "Gloria" and Jazz adaptations of Christmas songs along with The One Voice Children's Choir. We've traveled to sing in LA at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, San Diego at the Crystal Cathedral, Rexburg Idaho at the then Ricks College, in Ogden at Weber University, and at a venue in St. George. One of the greatest regrets in my life is not joining the choir in Jerusalem. It was the first week of my graduate program starting and I wish that I had made arrangements so I could have been there for what was a life changing experience for those who went.

I've had the wonderful (and difficult) experience of recording a few albums of the works of Lex including "Variations on a Theme: 2", "Variations on a Theme: 3",  and "The Life of Christ Part III: Hosanna" and am currently recording with the choir "The Life of Christ Part II: Alleluia".  What a pleasure to be able to learn and sing with Lex deAzevedo, We grew up singing his music from "Saturday's Warrior" and "My Turn on Earth", to "Missionaries of Light" and "Christmas" one of our family's favorite Christmas tapes to listen to each year.

Singing with Lex has been such an eye-opening experience into the mind of a talented artist. Even until the moment of recording a song, Lex is tweaking, re-writing, updating and changing. I've learned to never, ever be without a pencil in a Millennium rehearsal because even in the last rehearsal an hour before a performance, you can't expect to be singing "the ink". And I've learned that he changes things because his work is never settled. It is a dynamic thing. It lives in him and we are just the outward expression of something moving and breathing inside his brain and heart. What a blessing it is to be part of his masterful process.

The sound booth

Because of Millennium Choir and our association with Lex de Azevedo, we've been invited to sing at the Pearl Awards and at BYU's Women's Conference. We were asked to be the performing choir for Kurt Bestor's Annual Christmas concert one year.

Jenny, Sally, Sarah, Mary, Val, Saria, Kathy, Jenny, Katie, Georgia, Melissa, Linda, Karen

Sally, Melissa, Georgia, Linda, Sarah, Saria, Kathy

Tabernacle Nov 2011 -  Sally, Jesse, Sarah, Todd, Melissa, Georgia, Linda, Katie

We became part of  Odyssey Chorale and performed reader's theater versions of "Into the Woods" and "Fiddler on the Roof" and performed the mash-up of Handel's "Messiah" and the gospel adaptation several years in a row. Additionally Odyssey Chorale gave me the privilege of traveling to and performing in many of the great cathedrals in Italy and Middle Eastern Europe (Prague, Budapest, and Vienna).

Eastern Europe Trip 2014 

Because of my membership in Millennium Choir I got to know and love Sally Brinton which led to me being able to sing with The Sally Bytheway Chorale for the past 10 years. It has been such a joy to be able to sing with Sarah and Katie and mom for years and now even Dad has joined us. This choir has become my mental release and my weekly centering. I've become fast friends with so many people and as any check of my Facebook photos will tell you, my life-long soprano friends.

2014

2013

2014

What a blessing being a part of this choir and knowing Lex de Azevedo has been in my life. I am so grateful for the ability to be able to use my love of music to share the gospel and to share my testimony though these wonderful songs and these wonderful opportunities. May they continue for many, many years to come.

November 2014

November, well the whole of fall actually, was unseasonably warm. We got a chance to play out on the playground a bit and Maddy showed me her new found skill on the monkey bars. She spends so much time on them that she actually has come home with callouses forming on her palms. It's a far cry from the scared little girl of only early the spring. Peer pressure at kindergarten and preschool is making her a brave kid and I'm so pleased. I want for her to try new things and to be confident in her abilities and to be happy to try things that are new. And when she falls, because she will, I want her to remember that she can pick herself up and try again and be successful with some practice.

Trying on dad's gear. She's growing up but when I see this it reminds me she's still my little girl.

 It snowed a brief bit but any snow means a trip out to the lawn and a treat to eat.

Scott installed gutters so we wouldn't have an ice rink on the driveway this year.

Maddy loves when my co-teacher teaches because she always gets a treat or a flower or something to take home. Not so when I teach.

Toby get's ready for Christmas

 At kindergarten they had a Thanksgiving feast.

Maddy came to work with me on a day when there was no school and we worked a little then went to lunch at Johny Rockets and saw the giant Christmas tree. We did a little Christmas shopping and had a fun girl day.

Maddy is quite the artist. My white board after she visited me

For Thanksgiving it was a Dalton year. But, Katie and family were in San Diego for a soccer tournament. Sarah and family were on a cruise. Mary and family were in Idaho with Ryan's family and Rachel was still in Tennessee. So, we had dinner at Uncle Win and Aunt Tricia's house with some of the extended family. Cousins Janet and Tracy and their families were there as well as Aunt Dawn and Uncle Dick and our family. It was fun for Maddy and Adele to play together and Janet's husband Joe and Scott had a great time finding things in common as well.

Janet brought a pinata which makes every party an instant success no matter what else is going on.

And because it is worthy of being documented, Maddy and I had a spa night. Actually, she wanted to play and I was really tired so I laid on her floor and told her that she could put make up on me. It was so beautiful (said with much kindness and a bit of sarcasm) so then we decided that we needed to have a spa day. We washed our faces and did a face mask. Maddy asked if we could put "those things on our eyes" and since we didn't have any cucumbers, we decided that apple slices would probably do in a pinch. This girl of mine! Boy are we going to have fun when she's a bit older. Wait, we are having all those fun girly moments now, what am I saying :)

Happy November.

Halloween 2014

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Halloween truly has to have a post of its own. This year we had a ward party with a spook alley, and dress-ups and the best part, an impromptu dance party at the end. Maddy danced her little heart out and was so sad to leave (though we left with the very last family). She asked for days afterwards when we could go back and dance with the kids.

"Thriller" led by Valerie Dimond

And every year is the Ontiveros Halloween party. Since Maddy was Elsa I embraced the theme and dressed up as Olaf. Scott would rather have not dressed up at all but we gave him some antlers to put on so he could at least say he was Sven and fit into our theme.

 During Halloween week they had a "Say No to Drugs" week. This particular day was mustache day - specifically "I mustache you not to do drugs" day. Maddy wore her little pencil 'stash and kept saying it over and again in a Spanish accent.  Oh goodness I laughed and laughed.

Kindergarten parade on Halloween

A creepy picture

TJ Schiess, Lauren Beams, Me

At XANGO we do Halloween right. But, it's a little difficult to take life seriously when you are trying to talk about credit card fraud with a My Little Pony and an Elf. It hit me in the middle of the meeting how funny it was so I had to take a selfie.

Leslie Gallacher, Joe Morton, Patrick Lindsay, TJ Schiess, Me

For our party we played glow in the dark bingo. Lots of candles and strings of lights, glow in the dark paint and blacked out windows.

But the best part of the day, trick-or-treating with the neighborhood. The Buhlers up the street start out the evening and when they go past a house with kids, that family joins in. It is so much fun going around the neighborhood with lots of kids to play with and plenty of grown-ups to talk and laugh with. It's one of the things I love most about our area. Scott keeps trying to convince the grown-ups to have a costume contest but so far no one has really grabbed on to that. Maybe next year.

Ruby Marshall, Maddy, Sophia Buhler