Will They Make it to 12 Dates of Christmas...

Monday, December 12th, by this time I realized Claude was actually numbering the dates on our calendar! He was really going for 12 Dates of Christmas. 

Monday evening, we had Date #6 by attending the Mini's Holiday Band Concert at Oldham County High School in LaGrange, Kentucky. Listening to these bands is always a treat. This concert, the Oldham Community Band is invited to play first. This is a community band directed by Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers was the band teacher at OCHS for many years and retired a couple of years ago. Students from OCHS play in the community band. This time I realized that Hayden and Bailey are in the same band. Last year Hayden was in the Symphonic Band and Bailey was in the Concert Band. This time, they are both in the Symphonic Band. Bailey plays the French Horn. Hayden plays the Euphonium. Hayden is a senior so this is a year of final high school experiences for him. 

After the concert, I was able to get close up shots of our kids. Bailey is with Jake, her boyfriend, who brought her a dozen roses and gave them to her after the performance. Hayden is wearing his Santa hat. They were allowed to wear them for the last number which was variations of Jingle Bells. 

After the concert, a photographer took their official band picture for this year. This is both the concert and symphonic bands. We had to wait for them to get this done. Mr. Centers, the band director, is sitting on the center edge of the stage. The flutes are all pointing to him. If you look at the fourth row (next to last row) starting from the left end, Bailey is 6th person from the end and leaning forward a bit while Hayden is 14th from the end. You can always tell Hayden because he has lots of hair. 

Tuesday, December 13th, was an At Home Day. I did come across this great Christmas meme. Since I have had the deer eat everyone of my hostas when we lived in Sadieville, this was particularly poignant to me!

Wednesday, December 14th, okay, this is where we almost messed up. Hayden sent me a text saying he had a Showcase event on Wednesday. Andie sent a message saying it was Thursday. I had us booked for Christmas Date #7 at Shaker Village Trustee's Table on Wednesday and Hayden's Showcase of Thursday. Before we left the house, I took this quick picture of $10 Kohl's cash and sent it to Andie, asking if she would like it as I had nothing I needed from Kohl's. She was happy to take it. I replied with a text saying I would bring it to her Thursday at Hayden's performance. By this time I was in the Jeep with Claude and he was pulling out onto Payne's Depot road to drive us to Shaker Village. Andie sent me a text and said Hayden was performing that night, Wednesday night. I quickly told Claude we had a wrong date for Hayden. I called Shaker Village to cancel our dinner reservation. The man was very nice. I asked if he happened to have the same time for Thursday evening. He was happy to report he did. We simply switched our Shaker Village reservation to Thursday and pointed the Jeep to LaGrange to watch Hayden (after returning to our home to pick up the Kohl's cash). Whew!! So happy we didn't miss this performance.

Christmas Date #7 was to see the Oldham County High School Showcase performances. There was everything from vocals to monologues in this Showcase. It was simply the theater students doing something that was theaterish. Hayden performed a monologue from Macbeth. He was great!!

Thursday, December 15th, Katelyn posted this picture of Joel. She titled it "He is making a list and checking it twice". Just want to squeeze this little guy!

We actually drove to Shaker Village in Pleasant Hill, Kentucky for dinner at the Trustee's Table. While driving, the Jeep hit 88,888 miles. Kind of a neat coincidence this happened on our Christmas Date #8, don't you think?

We had a lovely dinner. We both had an Apple/Cranberry salad. Then I enjoyed salmon with a root vegetable salad while Claude went southern with fried chicken and mashed potatoes. We each had a nice dessert. Such a good meal but way more that we usually eat for our big meal. But, it is Christmas so calories don't count! The lady at the reception took these nice pictures of Claude and me by one of the two Christmas trees in their lobby. 

We were home in time to start watching the Hobbit movies. We would watch one each night to get through all three. Nice to do this before our New Year's Eve marathon of the Lord of the Rings movies. Also nice to see the landscape before we go to New Zealand next year and see where some of the movie was filmed.

Friday, December 16th, we would try a morning date for Christmas Date #9. We started with a biscuit breakfast from Bojangles. As Claude was placing our order, I took this picture of our changing landscape. This scene used to be a big black burley tobacco barn. There was on the left a white stucco like building with a couple of businesses in it. When we moved to Sadieville, Bevins Motors was in this building and we bought our tractor there. To the other side of that was a white home, an empty lot, and then a really nice home on the corner of Broadway and McClellan Circle. This home was the office of an Attorney, Carolyn Caraway, that I used to help with Papa's social security. All those buildings have been torn down. They are putting in a shopping plaza with an Aldi's and some other stores. Can't even imagine that on this corner. We'll see how it works!

After our biscuit breakfast, we drove to Lexington to the Regal Cinemas. We found a movie that piqued our curiosity. It was "I Heard the Bells". It was the true story of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his family and the writing of "I Heard the Bells". Excellent movie. A nice way to enjoy the Christmas music and the story behind it. We both love this Christmas carol. 

After the movie, we had lunch at Chipotle and then wandered over to Michael's so I could buy some crochet thread. I found a pattern to make table placemats that I wanted to try. We also purchased some holly garland to put around our front door. I have to say, a morning date is a nice thing to do.

Saturday, December 17th, was another At Home Day. I had cookies to bake for a function on Sunday. I did laundry and cut out the pattern pieces for Claude's pajamas for Christmas. 

Katelyn posted this picture of Emelia and their dog, Cash. I will share Katelyn's words about this picture: "Here's the thing... Emelia and Cash are not that close. 95% of the time she wants nothing to do with him. 4% of the time she is crying because he is to close to her and she is telling him to lay down. However, that last 1% she is super sweet and he is very careful not to upset her during that time. His relationship with each of the kids is different and he respects them and their comfort level. Absolutely love him for that!" This is a tender picture to me. Emelia is brushing Cash's hair!

Andie sent us this picture. Hayden participated in Tuba Christmas at Mall St. Matthews near Louisville. Evidently, this is a thing and they spontaneously appear in lots of locations all around the country. The section leader for the OCHS Band got this particular one together. The kids all got together and ran through the music for an hour. Then, off to perform. Hayden is the last kid on the right end in the blue jacket holding his euphonium. On the opposite end with the Santa hat is what appears to be one of the kids. Alas, that is the OCHS Band Director, Mr. Centers. He came along and played the euphonium as well. How fun is that?!

Sunday, December 18th, has been a great day. Claude created the Christmas program for Sacrament Meeting. It was fun to see all the college kids coming home for Christmas. They are so happy to be with their families and to see their high school friends.

Primary was very busy. The kids sang Away In a Manger for the Sacrament Meeting program. Then, we had the classes all move up to their next teacher. We are only going to have one Primary this year. In years past we have split them into Junior and Senior Primary. This year, we will keep them combined. This was our week to get everyone with their new teacher for next year and have just one Primary meeting with everyone in it. In addition to that, we had the Temple and Priesthood Meeting for the kids that are now moving to the Young Men/Young Women Program. They had a separate meeting with refreshments. Jessie Rayburn, our Primary president covered that as she has a child moving up. I was to play the piano as our pianist was called to teach a class. Janick, our secretary, was on her last day of Covid isolation and would not attend. Christian, the first counselor, I didn't see in Sacrament Meeting. Jessie explained Christian's baby had 105 fever and her hubby had him at the emergency room. Christian came on to help with Primary. Bless her heart! This poor baby just got over Hand, Foot & Mouth disease. Now he has a double ear infection! We only had two children cry because of their class changes. They were settled down and comforted and made it through just fine. We gave Christmas gifts to our teachers and we gave Christmas treats to all the kids. We also received the manuals for next year. We were able to give those out. It was a very busy day in Primary today.

I must share about the music time. The chorister, Jenny Squire, was in the Temple and Priesthood Meeting. Rick Snow substituted for her. He had the kids start out by singing, "Rain is Falling all Around" except they sang "Snow is Falling all Around". We woke up to snowflakes this morning. Just a few flurries but it was a great background for Rick to use for singing time. After the kids sang this song, Rick gave out paper and pencils to all the kids. They each wrote their favorite Primary song on the piece of paper. After taking back all the pencils, Rick had the kids wad up that paper into a ball. Then he chose a picture stick and that child got to throw their 'snowball' at him. Then Rick read it and we sang that child's favorite Primary song. It was great fun for the kids. 

After Church, we attended choir practice. Then Claude took me to Cinco de Mayo for a great Mexican dinner. We drove to Velvett Bossio's home after and left her Christmas gift. Then we drove home for the rest of the day. We'll fill our afternoon with a few good things. This evening we will watch the Tabernacle Choir broadcast. 

A great week. Lots of Christmas things happening with Claude and me this year. We are enjoying each of them. We will work this next week to fill up that 12 Dates of Christmas. Tune back in next we took see if we got it done!!