December 2nd

Sunday

     We invited my brother Ralph & Melanie and their family for Sunday Dinner.  It was so good to visit with them.  Kenny was going to Florida to be with Craig and Natalie the next morning.  He will be gone for at least one month.  Mandy is a senior this year and Danny is a Junior.  Rosie is Josh's age and in the 8th grade.  

 Danny, Rosie, A. Melony, U. Ralph, Kenny, Mandy

Monday to Friday

It is "heck" week this week.  That is when we are in play practice every single night with the 'Gala' on Thursday and opening night on Friday with another performance Saturday. Practices were late and we were very tired. That explains what we did all week.  On Monday, we (Dad, Mom, Mike & Josh) went over to the 'Old Barn' and cleaned for 3 1/2 hours.  We all really worked hard, but we were getting 2 complimentary tickets for every one many hour of work.  Dad & I went again on Wednesday to slick things up and clean the bathrooms really good.  We ended up getting 32 complimentary tickets and I reserved them for the matinee on the 22nd of December for our family Christmas Party. I typed up the paper with everyone's names on it and there were 32 exactly.  Mathew and Zach don't need tickets.  (Reminder: Begins at 10:30 and we open presents, do the Christmas Pageant, eat Brunch, and see the play.)

      Other projects included working on the Christmas gifts and making Zander's quilt.  I will include a picture of it with Zander in it hopefully next week!  

Saturday

     I took Mike, Noelle, and Josh to the Brigham City temple on Saturday to do baptisms for the dead.  Aunt Margaret also met us there.  Mike did the baptizing and it was a wonderful experience.  This was Noelle's first time going.  She was nervous, but all went well.  She had entered in part of the names, so she was familiar with some of them.  Afterwards we went to Arby's for lunch. 

Noelle, Josh and Mike in front of the temple.

We finally had time to up the Christmas tree when we got home Saturday afternoon.  

Yeah, I'm so excited for Christmas!

It was a wonderful week.  I have really enjoyed watching the play every night.  There are a lot of really profound messages in "A Christmas Carol."  It is such a beautiful play about redemption.  We all seem to have some 'Scrooge' tendencies in us and we need to recognize what they are (hopefully without the 'ghostly' visits), learn from our mistakes, repent, and have the joy that Scrooge feels at the end of the play.  As Scrooge says, "I don't deserve to be this happy."  But it is Heavenly Father's plan for us to be happy.  I love you all.  Have a good week.