Busy Saturday December 6 2008

You know those kinds of days you almost dread because you aren't going to get to do the things that you should? Like getting your house fixed up to sell? Yeah those kinds of days. That's what this started out to be. HAD to go to the RS Activity knowing that only a few other sisters would be attending. HAD to go to lunch at a restaurant that we really don't like to continue the activity. HAD to fill in the time until we drove to Newberg.

But we really had a good time!

Dad went to the shop to catch up while I worked on a Christmas present and tidied the house a bit. By 10:30 he was home and we headed for the Christmas Tree show at the Coliseum.

This is a hanging sculpture outside the hall where the trees were on display.

These gingerbread houses were from a contest and on display behind glass. I was only able to get about 1/3 of them in this picture.

This little playhouse was one of my favorite displays. Some little girl is no doubt going to have a very happy Christmas morning!

Look, Dad and I had our pictures taken with Santa Claus. Ho, Ho, Ho.

After going to see Madagascar 2 we headed for Grandma's house. On the way the Lord treated us to this amazing sunset.

And it just kept getting more intense. The next day during Fast and Testimony, the viewing of this sunset was brought up 3 times! And many more Branch members saw it.

The spaghetti dinner was truly delicious and we enjoyed the River City Flute Orchestra very much as they played our favorite Christmas songs.

This is called a Contra Base Flute. It has a warm, low, mellow sound. The orchestra members affectionately call the flute Conrad and refer to it as "him". What do you think the price tag was? $20,000.00!

The fragile old hands hardly made a sound as the residents clapped after each song. I was sitting right next to Grandma and hardly heard a sound.

After dinner we were treated to ice cream for dessert. I never did get a picture of Grandma's face.

We shared our table with a man named Earl. At least that is what Grandma thought his name was. He was nearly deaf and in his 80's. He could hardly hear but that didn't stop him from talking with us. He told us about how he had been fascinated by the guitar. He had saved up his money so that he could buy one and paid $1200.00 for it. That was probably 50 or more years ago. At that time I think my Dad was making a few hundred dollars a week!

When he learned 3 chords he said he realized that in every song he knew there were only about 3 chords. He transfered that knowledge to learning how to play the piano and now he plays beautifully for the residents there at Chehalem Springs.

Sometimes doing the things that you don't really want to do but know you should can create a very nice day.