Christmas

This Christmas was awesome, but a bit different than others we've had. First, I've been really busy with work. That threatened early on to invade on my vacation time a little, but then I had a final call on my last "half day" (in quotes because I worked 8 hours) that made me basically turn off my work cell, and just be with my family.

Once we got going, it was a good time. Pretty quickly, poor Mikey got croup worse than he ever has, and we had many sleepless nights with that. He then got strep throat and the flu at the same time immediately after the croup, so he was also exhausted on Christmas. We took 3 hours in the morning to open 4 presents, then Mikey took a nap. When he woke up, he was more interested in opening stuff and getting all the paper ripped up, but it was a very low key day. Jared and Liz visited to see Mikey's toys (their blogs are linked, but they don't blog anymore, and Jared's is private, so I can't even see it myself anymore), and he loved playing with cousins up to the point where he decided to just lay flat out on the floor, hands tucked under his tummy, and watch Bradley play with cars and trains. It was cute.

My mom and dad visited, too, and brought McKay and Sindi along. We had a nice visit and a tasty meal with them. Earlier, a 4-pack of Martinelli's fell out of the back of our car and only two bottles survived, so we only had the two to share. The steaks made up for that, I think.

During the two weeks I was off work, we stayed inside mostly, but Mikey and I played in the snow all bundled up (see my last post), and made snow angels and a snowman. Once Mikey got sick, going out wasn't really an option, but we went driving to see Christmas lights around the neighborhood and he LOVED it. We even found a house that had a whole thing going with music. Here's a little clip of that:



You can hear the music (they had the radio station to tune into shown on their lawn), and you start to hear the camera noise when Hayley started taking pictures. Mikey hears that, and starts saying, "Cheese!!" Man, is he cute.

We also had to make sure we kept Hayley resting and off of salt. I think it was a little rough for her, but we will probably make up for it in January when the baby is here.

During Christmas is when it really started to become a real thing that Henry was going to actually be here. We looked at old pictures of Mikey, talked about all the stuff he did as a tiny baby, and even about what next Christmas might be like with him here. How crazy will that be!

Anyway, hope you had a great Christmas, too!

Need another reason to like Neil Diamond?

Well, here it is.

I heard this on the radio the other day, and it made me like Neil Diamond even more. I guess the guy got some flack for doing a Christmas album when he's a Jew. I am so glad the Hanukah (Chanukah?) song he decided to go with was Adam Sandler's Chanukah song. So here it is. Enjoy.

Merry Christmas!

I hope you're all having a great Christmas break! I am. I am staying at Hayley's sister's place in Washington. Her whole family has been very, very nice. I won over all the kids right away, (he he) and was very touched that everyone gave me a hug as soon as I got here. All of Hayley's family has been very accepting of me and they really make me feel part of their family. The only one I had to try extra hard with was Hope. She actually cried when I got here, because she had even been avoiding pictures of "That Guy" the week Hayley was here before me. She's finally warmed up. Hasn't given me a kiss yet, but she'll do it before Monday, I promise you that!

This is the first Christmas I've spent away from my family besides the two I spent on my mission. I adapt pretty well to my surroundings, and I'm not homesick too often. On my mission, I was surprised at myself at how OK I was with being in Mexico. I missed family at Christmas, but it wasn't too bad. In college once, I even moved to a new apartment building once without telling my family. But what really made me miss my family for Christmas was this. My dad really describes the family traditions well, and it made me wish I was there to eat cheese soup in breadbowls, watch the kids open their Christmas PJs and the ensuing fashion show, reading the bible account of Jesus's birth, and the little pageant that the kids act out. I missed you guys!!!

But what I did love was being with Hayley for Christmas. I feel so great that I got to be included in the Gray Family traditions of reading "T'was the Night Before Christmas" and "The Polar Express" and Luke chapter 2. I feel so much a part of Hayley's family. They really have made a great Christmas for me! Hayley and I will probably be at all sorts of different locations through the years, but we'll be there together. And I can't wait for that.

So I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, too!

Charlie Brown Christmas

I watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas" with Jared, Liz, and Madeline today. I really like the ending where Linus finally explains to Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about. And he's right. So here it is.



Hope you all have a merry Christmas.

P.S. See you soon, Hayley!! Miss you!

TSO is more an experience than a concert

As mentioned in my last post, thanks to Jenni, I had the sweet experience of going to the TSO concert last Tuesday. And man, did we have awesome seats! We were down on the floor, right next to the sound guys, and right next to the hydraulic lift that periodically shot flames from its corners, lifted musicians about 3 stories up to play their solos, or shot fireworks. The arrow in the picture shows about where we were sitting. It may have been one of the most impressive concerts I've ever been to.

If you have any of their Christmas albums, you know that the music sort of follows a story. So the first half of the concert is the band playing along as the story is told by this guy.

They affectionately call him the voice of all voices and it fits him pretty well.

The story (obviously affected by the band's rock influences) is about a guy who goes into a bar on Christmas Eve, strikes up conversation with an unlikely old guy with his own bottle of whiskey who decides to share both his bottle and a story with the first guy. The story is about an angel that comes to earth looking for a prayer to bring back to the Lord. The story pauses now and then to let the band play some rockin' Christmas-themed music at each stop the angel makes along his journey across the world. One of the stories in the story (meta-story?) is also about a scene in a bar where the barkeep gives a stack of money to a girl who has run away from home, but has become somewhat of a prodigal daughter and wants to get home to her dad for Christmas day. There must be some significance of goodness happening in bars for the band. The story part of the show was accompanied by lasers, various singers from different genres, the occasional firework, and even snow. That's right, they made it snow in the Delta Cente... Energy Solutions Arena (sorry, still can't get used to that name change).

Anyway, the show was great, but I was surprised at how little pyrotechnics there were. I also thought the show was over after the Christmas story was done. Boy was I wrong! Once the Christmas story is over, then the party starts. One of the coolest things in the concert was how the lighting becomes part of the show. I'm not talking just about the lasers, Christmas colored lights, giant drapes full of lights to look like stars--although all that was present--but the lights hanging from the rafters moved around to give a new dimension to the show. I don't know how to explain it, so here's a picture of what they did to put focus on the drums.

Pretty sweet, huh? Well, amidst all the lighting, there were also giant flames bursting from behind the band, changing color from red to green to blue to yellow. A pretty sweet accent to hearing strings, guitars, and classical piano play Schools Out by Alice Cooper and even Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee. Which is awesome on an electric guitar, by the way.

At one point, the lead guitarist and the electric violinist went out into the crowd to play, and then ended up strapped to a hydraulic platform that lifted them up into the air while they rocked out. I also think one very important requirement to be in the TSO is to have at LEAST shoulder-length hair, along with the ability to head bang for at least 20 seconds straight. Oh, and be awesome while you're doing it.

I bet you think I got some really great photos, huh? while our seats were great, they didn't really let you wonder up to the stage to take pictures (although a little girl and her mom got to go up to the stage at the end of the show and the little girl stood on stage, front and center, holding one of the guitars used in the show). I did try to take some pictures with my phone, but they're not so hot. Here they are below.

Thank goodness for the internet. But I had to share MY photographic proof that I was at the concert.