Christmas Break 2014

 We had a lot of fun over Christmas break this year.  We decided to make it more of a stay-cation than in years past, so we found a lot of new things to check out in Omaha.  Some were great, and others not so much, but it was fun to have some adventures the past couple weeks.  Here are just a few highlights.

Justin's mom sent us a beautiful 1000 piece puzzle.  We all helped out on various parts of it, but it was the HARDEST puzzle we've ever done!  There were TONS of empty black spaces and not much variety in colors.  We kept it on this white board with three large cookies sheets to hold all the pieces so we could work on it throughout the day or in the evenings while watching Christmas shows together.

It took over 2 weeks, working a couple hours every day, but we finished!  Justin and Molly did most of the work.  Then Lexie accidentally destroyed it.  I guess we get to do it again next year!

Before Christmas we went to Boys Town to see their Christmas stamp display and several nativities around the campus.  It was rather underwhelming.  So the next day we looked forward to seeing a light projection show on some new apartment buildings in midtown Omaha.  Again, it wasn't at all what we were expecting and we were again underwhelmed.  We've been trying to find some fun Christmas things around Omaha to make part of our traditions, but we won't be doing those two things again.

While we were in midtown, we decided to go see the decorated window displays we've heard advertised.  Again, I was expecting something elaborate like the ZCMI window displays in Salt Lake City that I grew up seeing.  The window displays here weren't nearly as exciting or elaborate, but it was fun to see some of them.  We might have enjoyed it more if it hadn't been snowing.

The day before Christmas Eve we decided to take the girls swimming since they don't get to do that much in the winter.  It turned out to be a blast and we had the whole pool to ourselves!  We very well might make swimming a new Christmas tradition!

 

Of course, Christmas Eve was full of our regular traditions and we all had a wonderful time together as a family.

 The girls had a great time, and Annie was even full of giggles too.

 Lexie even got to act as our photographer for some shots.  She's a natural!

Justin always enjoys building things for the girls for Christmas.  This year he made Lexie a jewelry box and Molly a bed for her American girl doll.  I sewed the sheet set, quilt and pillow.  I thought Molly was going to hyperventilate when she opened it, she was so excited!

 During the week after Christmas, we all went to see Big Hero 6 which was a fantastic movie.  And the girls had a fun time seeing a movie in the remodeled theater with huge reclining lazy boy armchairs! Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of them lounging in the movie!

Later that week we went to the Joslyn Art Museum since we've lived here almost 6 years and have never been.  Their permanent collection got a little long for the girls, but they had a rotating exhibit on graphic novels and comic books, in which they showcased several that Molly reads.  It was interesting to see how they are designed.  Then we went to the kids' art area and spent a long time there playing.

Lexie did a great job drawing some still-life...

 Justin and Lexie built a pixel picture, and the girls had fun "painting" on a digital screen.

 They even had pots you could decorate and draw on.

Near the end of our break, we needed to make a trip to Scheel's so we couldn't resist riding the ferris wheel while there.

 We are so grateful for this holiday season to remember the Savior and His power in our lives.  We enjoyed some much-needed family time and feel so blessed to have another Christmas holiday all together.

Make-a-Wish Radio-thon

Make-a-Wish invited us to participate in their annual radio-thon held today.  Due to the timing, Annie and I weren't able to go since she was just getting out of school, so Justin did the interview by himself.  They also invited our wish granter, Bridgette, to join him as well.

Justin did a great job and it was exciting to hear him talking about Annie on the radio! The rest of us were all at home listening live, and Annie got a huge smile on her face when she heard them talking about her on the radio!

Here's the interview if you missed it live:

Fall Happenings

 The weather turned cold very quickly this fall, so you can often find us cuddled up under blankets after dinner each night!

In October we joined our friends for a night at a State Park.  Annie is too big to camp in our little tent now, so we've been considering the "cabin" tents to possibly make camping with Annie more feasible.  It was too late this year to stay over night (and far too cold) but we had fun having a BBQ and enjoying a campfire with marshmallows, s'mores, and hot chocolate. 

We went on a little nature trail along the river and enjoyed all the trees.

It was a beautiful evening...

...but quickly turned cold.

Halloween was fun but cold too.  It was 35 degrees when I took the younger girls trick-or-treating.  Justin and Annie stayed home to hand out candy.

Justin is always such a good dad to help the girls carve a pumpkin.

We adapted costumes to fit over parkas.  It was SO cold, but no wind, thankfully.  We stayed out for over 2 hours! (Lexie was a cowgirl, and Molly was a chef.)

For Thanksgiving we stayed home and had a relaxing day with just our little family of 5.  We had fun cooking together while watching the parade on TV.  The girls helped prepare the food too.

Molly helped make an apple pie with Justin.

Lexie helped peel about 10 lbs of potatoes, and then helped taste them along the way.

Ready to eat.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving was 72 degrees!! It was unreal, so we spent some time working in the garage, without coats!  What a beautiful day after already having days with below 0 windchills!

Justin burned out the motor on his little table saw earlier in the month.  I guess building a huge captains bed and a whole office full of cabinetry will do that to a little saw.  So we had to move things around in the garage to find a place for his new contractor-grade table saw that he ordered.  Hopefully this new one will last more than 2 years! Christmas is coming a few weeks early for Justin!

Harp Ensemble at the Children's Hospital

I had the fantastic opportunity to join 11 other harpists to play in the lobby of the Children's Hospital this past week.  We spent the morning in this small classroom rehearsing from 8:30am til 11:00am, since this was the first time we could manage to get everyone all together for rehearsals.  I had only rehearsed with 2-3 other harpists previously, so it was wonderful to hear us all together finally! 

Rehearsal in a tiny classroom.

After lunch, we moved all our harps and equipment up to the lobby.  It took about 45 minutes to get moved and set up and re-tuned.  Pedal harps weigh about 90 lbs, and the smaller lever harps weigh 20-40 lbs, so it was no small task moving all those harps! We started playing in the lobby around 1:00pm.  We calculated that we had nearly 500 strings among all the harps there, each one needing to be tuned!  We also calculated that we had 93 years of harp experience combined in our group!  Forty-four of those years go to our teacher, Mary!

Getting tuned and set up.

This event was advertised around the hospital, however, no many patients were able to make it to the lobby to hear us.  But the hospital filmed us so they can play our performance over their closed-circuit TV station into patient rooms several times this holiday season.  (I'll think we'll be receiving a DVD copy of that recording as well, so maybe I can share some of our music with you later.)  We did have a decent sized crowd in the lobby to hear us.  Although most of those in attendance were family members and friends, or hospital staff that stopped by to listen.

Justin said it was SO satisfying to finally hear all the different parts together!  For 6 months he has listened to me practice my own parts, totally unaware of how the final songs would sound. He was also my photographer for the day. Justin is so supportive of my music and hobbies!

All set up and ready to play

We had 3 pedal harpists and 9 lever harpists.

We played mostly Christmas songs such as Jingle Bells, Up On the Rooftop, Silent Night, Deck the Halls, etc.  We also played some songs written specifically for harp such as Harvest Hornpipe and Harp's Delight.  Then we also played the classical Cannon in D, and a smaller trio did a First Noel/Cannon in D mashup!  It was awesome!  And how could we perform at the Children's Hospital without some music from Frozen!? Mary wrote an amazing arrangement for us of Let it Go which was a lot of fun.

This is my fabulous harp teacher, Mary.  She is the harpist for the Omaha Symphony and often plays with the Lincoln Symphony as well. She is fantastic, and I know I couldn't have found a better, more qualified teacher!

Be Still, My Soul

It's been 7 months now since I first started to learn to play the harp.  Here's an arrangement of Be Still, My Soul  by Julie M. Staples that I've been working on.  I'm also still experimenting with doing video on my Canon 5D Mark II.  So this video isn't perfect, but at least it's much better than my last recording!

Reverie on Harp

I'm still loving my harp lessons and the new harp friends that I've made.  This new hobby is so fun and relaxing, and I love spending time practicing. I'm currently rehearsing music for a Christmas harp ensemble I'm performing in at the Children's Hospital in December. I'm also working on a fun competition piece for a festival next summer, and trying to polish a hymn arrangement of Be Still My Soul that hopefully I'll be able to share soon.  I also just finished writing my own arrangement of Still, Still, Still since I couldn't seem to find a harp solo arrangement of that beautiful Christmas song. 

This video below is a song called Reverie by McDonald & Wood. I learned this song last June, and forgot that I hadn't recorded it as my teacher had suggested, so I just got around to it last night.  It's been a couple months since I've played it, so it's not quite as smooth as it used to be, but it's a fun and simple piece to play.  This is also the first time I've tried recording video on my Canon 5D Mark II SLR camera.  I learned a few things, so hopefully future videos from my Mark II will be better! (You can click on the bottom right corner of the video to make it bigger.)

Camping and Kayaking at Memphis Lake

Every fall we go with our friends to Memphis Lake State Recreation Area, just 45 minutes away, for a one-night campout.  They bring their kayaks and other friends from our church congregation come as well.  We had a fun time on the lake, and sitting around the campfire enjoying each others' company. 

At the shore of the lake with our campsites in the background.

This was the first year that Molly got to be in a kayak by herself out on the lake.  She did a great job and was able to control her kayak REALLY well!

Molly was a natural at kayaking, and had a blast!

I'm in the red kayak, just pulling away from shore, Molly is in the background in the yellow kayak, and Lexie rode with Justin.  Due to a very rocky shore and a rather full kayak, they almost capsized after they pushed off from shore! He and Lexie ended up a little wet.

Big Happenings for Justin at Creighton!

This week we went to a Creighton Alumni Donor Dinner.  We were a bit surprised to get invited to this fancy dinner since we aren't alumni or big donors to the College of Pharmacy, but we found out that Justin was chosen to receive a grant at this dinner, given by an alumnus.  It was a wonderful honor for Justin to be chosen for this grant, and we were grateful to attend this dinner.  Below are just a few pictures from the evening that were taken by Creighton's photographer.

Another bit of exciting news for Justin this week is that he turned in his application packet for tenure!  He's worked so hard the last 5 years, and he is so loved by everyone at Creighton, that I have no doubt he'll be awarded tenure next Spring!

The Dean introducing the donors of the grant.

Justin being presented with the grant from this very generous alumnus.

We were seated at the front center table of the ballroom with the Dean and the donor of the grant.

Justin with the grant donor and his wife, and the Dean of the College of Pharmacy, who selected Justin to receive this award.

So proud of my hubby! Way to go, Justin!

Lexie's Second Eye Surgery

Lexie had her second eye surgery this week, to remove another chalazion from her eyelid.  We first discovered this other chalazion just a week after her last surgery when 3 chalazions were removed.  This time she was at Boys Town instead of Children's, so we didn't have the pleasure of being so well-known by the staff there.  But it was a nice facility and Lexie did great.

Chalazion that needed to be removed.

Before surgery

After surgery.  She was happy to get a new stuffed penguin! Her eyelid bled a LOT more with this surgery than the last, but hopefully that means the doctor was aggressive and she won't have to deal with any more chalazions!