Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all our family and friends. We hope you are able to enjoy the time with loved ones on this beautiful day. We miss you all.

Much better day!

Today was a much better day for me. I signed up for 2 classes through a community college (clovis.edu) because I could get 6 credits for the same price as 3 and they offer a digital photogaphy class online! So I start 2 classes January 12th. I am pretty excited about them. Hopefully they will have my transcripts before the next semester so I can take more general ed classes like English/math without having to redo the ones I've already done.

I also attended the Girl Scout Cookie Coordinator training. That was a waste of time, but I am almost ready to get the girls started selling. They can start selling January 10th (preorders) so I just have a few more weeks to get completely organized and set up.

And another great thing for me today is the shoe blog I was writing for (haven't in many months while they revamped everything) contacted me again and set me up to blog twice a month so I start that the 29th. I really enjoyed that one.

So far it has been a good day. Tonight we are going to Contessa's Christmas concert. Each grade is singing 2 songs and then they sing a group one as well. She is excited about that concert. Hopefully the boys will be good and sit still during it. It is after their bed time so we just have to hope Cameron won't be too grumpy!

Complaints!

I am in a complaining mood. It hasn't been a good day. I admit that part of it is because I am cranky, but not everything! So my complaints for the day:

• Screaming kids
• fighting
• kids not listening
• broken lamps - seriously, can't I find a floor lamp that won't break within 6 months?
• dirty dishes - yes, I know it is my fault because I didn't wash them. However, do 3 kids REALLY need to use 10 different cups a day? 2 of them aren't even home all day!
• junk mail
• too many toys everywhere
• crumbs
• no naps - why Cameron thinks he can skip a nap is beyond me. Thus the reason for many of these complaints!

Okay, I admit getting them out there has lessened my stress a bit. So maybe I should make a list of things I am grateful for. Then I can feel even better:

• family
• friends
• cuddles
• clean diapers
• nice fitting jeans (don't have too many of those right now!)
• massages - I should really spend the money on a professional one some day. I think I would enjoy it! But, the homemade ones are nice too.
• clean cars
• clean house
• smell of fresh baked breads, cookies, etc.
• bubble baths
• books
• good music
• computers - I can keep up-to-date with some of my favorite people

I really do feel much better now. Thanks for listening. I guess I need to stop letting these dumb hormones take over!

And so my Christmas season begins, kinda...

I make no secret of it. I am not a Christmas person. Personally, I have allways hated the commercialism of it. I really don't mind giving gifts, but I will not accept them for myself. Same with birthday gifts, but that's another day. I also don't really like the decorating, so Amy does it all herself. One thing I do look forward to each year, though, is a concert. We've kinda made it a family tradition each year (except for 2006 right after Cameron was born) to attend Peter Breinholt's Christmas concert. I first heard Peter's first Album, Songs About the Great Divide, as a missionary (don't give me that crap that I shouldn't have been listening because it wasn't hymns). He's a wonderful folk musicial from Salt Lake. Last year and this year, they added a couple of acts to the lineup. Peter was joined by Ryan Shupe and the Rubber Band and Sam Payne. You may have heard some of RSATRB, they had a small hit a year or so ago call "Dream Big" that was used by NBC as the theme to some reality-type show that only lasted a couple of episodes. They play a wonderful mix of everything from folk to bluegrass to celtic and even calypso on a couple of songs with Ryan on the fiddle and an incredible group of musicians on acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin and another bigger mandolin looking thingy, bass and double bass, and percussion. Sam Payne is rapidly becoming a favorite of mine. He's a folk singer with an amazing gift for storytelling. He's also an accompished jazz musician. This year, the concert, called "The Gift", was the Christmas in the Canyons concert at Tuacahn Ampitheater in St. George, UT. The scenery was beautiful, the night brisk, but not too cold, and as allways, we had good seats, 3rd row right. Not as good as last year when we had front row center, but good none the less. Once again, all the guys put on an amazing show, from the Celtic inspired opening number done by everyone, I Saw Three Ships, Sam scatting on a number of songs (he's awesome at it), to the allways uplifting Dream Big, Sam's song All the Christmas they need (allways my favorite song of the night, brings me to tears), and they allways finish it off with Silent Night with the audience helping out (I've got a video of it I'll post, though I didnt have my phone ready and missed the first bit of it). I would love to post some pictures, but I couldn't bring the DSLR in because they had no video or photo posted outside the auditorium. We did bring in the little Canon, and I did get a few pics off without the flash, but I don't know how they turned out as I havent looked at them yet, but I'll post some if they turned out ok. Do yourself a favor and pick up their Christmas albums. I know they are avalible at Deseret Book and also from Amazon's MP3 store, or directly from the artits at their websites (If you pick they up, pick them up directly from the artists so they actually see the money from them). I may be reordering Sam Payne's Christmas album as I cant seem to find my copy and I didn't seem to rip it. Each of them also tours quite a bit and look for them to come to your areas. If anything, they are again doing next year's show in St. George again. Its not too bad of a drive (from Phoenix, easiest thing is go to Vegas, hop on I-15, and it's about 100 miles north). The scenery is beautiful (check out Snow Canyon just north of town, I've got some pics on Flickr I took there about a month ago) and hotel rooms are plentiful and usually pretty cheap.




Here's the video of Silent Night. Excuse the lousy quailty as I took it on my phone.

Here's a youtube video of Sam Payne singing All the Christmas They Need.



Peter Breinholt singing an original song, Christmas Eve Song, also from youtube



and Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband video for Dream Big