Merry Christmas

I cannot believe Christmas Eve has allready come. Wow what a fast December. We had a fun time this month, going to parties and seeing many friends and family. A couple of the neat things we did this month were to go to a live Nativity, and to sing in the Ward Christmas Program. We found out about a Baptist Church in Layton that acted out the entire "Journey to Bethlehem". It was so neat. The hard part was waiting in line for 2 hours, but once it was our turn, it was well worth it. They took groups of 50 people at a time through the journey. We had a family from Nazareth and they lead us the whole way. 1st we visited the carpenter shop, only to for them to tell us that Joseph and Mary had allready left. There were Roman soliders all along the way, dressed up and with real horses, who stop us many times and made us show our pretend passports so we could freely go through to Bethlehem. We saw the 3 wise men and thier gifts, and their real pet llamas. Next were the shepards, an angle appeared to them while we were watching. Then we moved onto other travelors, who shared their fire with us, so we could warm up. This whole time we are walking through trees and bushes with torches to light the way. When we made it to Bethlehem the Soliders stopped us outside the gate to again check that we were free to go. THen they stamped our passport and we entered the town of Bethlehem. They had it all set up with people selling things like bread, and herbs and they were even roasting a real pig over the fire. They gave Brinlee a fake loaf of bread that she was able to give to the begger in the town. She loved that. Then we were led to the Inn, where they said they had no room, but they had sent Joseph and Mary to the Stable. We walked there where we saw Joseph and Mary with the Baby Jesus and they spoke and sang Silent Night and Oh Come All Ye faithful. There was a real donkey and sheep. It was so neat. IT was a great way to remember the true meaning of Christmas and it really helped our kids understand as we acted it out. They gave us yummy hot chocolat at the end to warm us up.

This past Sunday Budd directed our christmas musical program in sacrament meeting. He got put in as choir director a few months ago. He did an amazing job, expecially since we didnt start practicing for it until Dec 7th. Everyone really enjoyed it. He has brought our choir to a whole new level, and it is fun and educational. Budd and i sang "Oh come all ye faithful" in an accapella quartet and it turned out very nicely, even thought my heart was pounding and i had to skip a note to take a breath so i didnt pass out. Budd also did a mens acccapella quarted of "Abide with Me". That was amazing, my favorite of the program We also played recorders, Budd, Shun and I, for the first verse of "That Easter Morn" We sang another 4-5 songs with the whole choir and a couple with the congregation. The primary children also say 2 songs. It just turned out lovely. It has been such a great experience for Budd and he has been teaching me so much about singing and the recorder and we are enjoying doing those things together now.
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!!!!