Our Christmas, part 1: before the 25th

Earlier in December Lou and I went to Dayna's orchestra concert and spent a day with the kids over there. Thea was happy to see us and was anxious to show us all the newly arrived Christmas stuff, pointing and saying "ook! ook!" as she moved from the tree to the stockings to the presents and whatever else. There was pretty much a packed house at Dayna's concert with the Eastside Symphony, a Redmond community orchestra -- it was their annual free one so lots of families and the Christmas music was fun. Glad Dayna could return to this after being off several months with her wrist problems last year, she has enjoyed it since they moved to Kirkland. No good pictures from that, my angles weren't good so she was mostly blocked (and it was dark in a big auditorium), but Danelle decided to do a little concert of her own, and got her cute little violin out for us to hear. This short video is too dark to see, but it has the sound so I'll put it on here anyway because I like the music. I guess she and Dayna do occasional duets at home, but at 4, she isn't too interested in being told how to play things quite yet, so this is all her own composition :o)

(If this video is not working for you I apologize. I have had mixed results this week.)

Kelli's parents came from Spokane since none of their kids/grandkids were going to be at their place for Christmas this year, and they invited us to their Christmas Eve traditional Crab Dinner at Ben & Kelli's house with crab they brought with them from Spokane. Interesting that they did this even though Kelli isn't a crab fan, so she and Lou (also not a crab person, apparently) ate roast beef. The rest of us had a good time with the crab -- thanks, Deb & Don! Unfortunately I was so busy shelling and eating that it never occurred to me to pick up the camera during that part!

Because it was Lou's birthday, Kelli had her folks stop and get a special German chocolate cake to bring over. When we were all finished with dinner, Don took it out of the box and Nicholas, knowing a good thing when he sees one and being a good Hesse, was first in line:Then we all went to church, where Lou did the service and message for our Word and Song Candlelight service. So nice to sing all those songs together and hear the story of Christ's birth again!

"Part 2: Christmas Day" and "Part 3: New Years at the beach" coming soon!