Dashing Through the Snow

December 28, 2018: Driving out of my neighborhood toward the highway

for the fourth time on day two of our most recent snowstorm.

One of the perks of being retired with an empty nest is not having to go outside in the snow. Instead, you get to stay indoors and enjoy the toasty warmth of your home while the lovely white stuff floats gently down, creating a winter wonderland. At least, that's what I'd hoped.

Unfortunately, a busy life goes on despite the weather. And yesterday the driving conditions weren't exactly prime.

On the highway, heading home from Denny's. Visibility wasn't great.

(Don't worry, these pics were taken by Mark, not me, at the end of the day.)

I knew I'd have to go out twice, of course, to take Mark to work at 7:45 and pick him up again around 4:15. What I forgot was that I also needed to pick up Chris from work early, at 11:45, since his client (Chris works with disabled adults) was having foot surgery that afternoon. I'd also totally forgotten that I had my annual mammogram appointment at the hospital at 2:00.

Still on the highway, driving south toward home...

That made for a busy, stressful day. I truly don't mind running errands on any normal day, but with these weather conditions it can get pretty hairy. Cars were sliding around and sirens were sounding in the distance throughout the day. I witnessed a few near-misses, including one of my own. Not exactly confidence-inspiring.

A little further up the highway...

After I'd dropped Mark off at work, I carefully drove home on the icy streets. From the highway, the turn onto the street that leads back into my neighborhood is unusual, in that you drive up onto the street between two short stretches of curb, exactly like driving up the slanted entrance into someone's home driveway. Because of the slight change in elevation, snow accumulates especially thickly at the bottom of the slope. I've learned from twenty-six winters of turning at that particular corner that it's a great place to slide right past your turn if you don't slow to a crawl in this type of weather.

About halfway home from Denny's at this point.

So that's what I did as I approached my turn early yesterday morning. There was a truck at the corner, waiting to turn right, onto the highway, which would put him directly in front of me before I made my turn. Normally, that's no problem. And, honestly, in the almost-three years that I've owned my all-wheel-drive Traverse, I haven't experienced a single incident of slippage on icy or snow-covered roads. Still...

At my creep-along speed, with my turn signal blinking, the guy in the truck apparently felt it was safe to go ahead and make his turn in front of me. A split second later, my brakes locked and I began sliding directly toward the truck, saying out loud, "No, no, no..." I worked the steering wheel as hard as I could and, thankfully, due to my extremely slow speed, my car actually shifted just enough to miss the truck's back end. I came to a stop on the slope of the street's entrance, exactly where the truck had been sitting, waiting to make its turn.

Almost there...

It might be tempting to think it's a good thing the truck turned when it did, or I might have hit it where it sat. What many people don't understand is that, once you start to slide, it's nearly impossible to regain control until you eventually slide to a stop. If your direction changes, it's due to a rock or hole or ice formation or uneven pavement under the wheels, not the driver madly trying to steer. So it's a bit of a miracle that the car shifted into the turn, uphill. That just doesn't happen.

If the truck's driver had waited, I would have allowed my car to continue its slide forward until it came to almost a stop, when I could have reestablished control and made the next turn a little further up the highway. The biggest reason for driving slowly during a storm is the fact that sliding on ice slowly is unlikely to kill anyone or cause more than minor damage to a car. The idiots racing past other cars on the highway are the ones who get people killed.

Other than increasing my stress level, everything was fine after that. I watched other vehicles play slip-and-slide in the snow during later trips out, but I didn't witness any accidents.

And then, one mile from home, we came upon this long line of cars, stopped.

On my final outing, to bring Mark home, we got stuck behind a long line of stopped vehicles a mile from our turn. We wondered if there was an accident ahead, since an ambulance had passed us a few minutes earlier, going the opposite direction, heading toward the hospital about two miles behind us.

Eventually, as the traffic thinned a few blocks from home, we decided it was just the winter vacationers and skiers arriving in town on a Friday afternoon, looking forward to a fun weekend of snow in the White Mountains. You can see the car ahead of us is loaded with luggage and an ice chest. It's a reminder that we live in a resort town.

Finally, back on our own little street.

I love the snow. It's beautiful and it's needful, to keep our lakes and reservoirs filled and to reduce the chance of wildfires come spring. I feel blessed to actually live in an environment so beautiful that people make plans to leave their homes so they can spend weekends and vacations in the place I call home every day, winter, spring, summer, and fall.

Yes, I love the snow. Just don't ask me to drive in it.

Safely back home, at last.

Winter Wedding

December 17, 2018: Tahna and Rodney on their wedding day.

I got to be Sarah's date to a wedding on Monday evening. One of her best friends since high school married the man of her dreams two days before flying to Tennessee, where the new couple will make their home. Tahna has two young children from a previous marriage, and Rod has four, so they are starting off with a houseful! 

Wedding cake on display.

Besides being Sarah's friend, Tahna is also family. She's a younger sister of my sister-in-law Dana (Jeff's wife), so we've known each other for a long time. Tahna is one of the sweetest gals we've ever had the pleasure to know, and we wish her all the happiness she so deserves.

The wedding ceremony begins.

The wedding was hosted at the home of a wonderful family who lived near Tahna in Snowflake. When I looked up the address online and saw the little red "pin" on the map, I thought to myself, "I think I've been there before." So I switched to street view and saw the front of the house (below). Then I texted Sarah to tell her I was pretty sure it was the same house where we first met David Archuleta for "Dinner with David" before a concert a year and a half ago. And, indeed, it was the same house!

This house was strangely familiar to Sarah and me!

It's a beautiful house and the owners are the ultimate hosts. They served sixty or so wedding guests a large meal that was every bit as sumptuous as the one Sarah and I had enjoyed there last year. By the time they brought out the main course of chicken, steak, twice-baked potatoes, mixed vegetables, and fresh-baked bread with rich honey-butter, we were already pretty well filled up on appetizers of garden salad, green bean salad, and more bread. All followed by delicious lemon wedding cake, of course.

We're so happy for Tahna and Rod. Congratulations, you two!

A main course fit for a queen!

Beyond Magical

December 6, 2018: David and Sarah, together again!

What a night! On Thursday, Sarah and I attended our fourth David Archuleta concert, this time a Christmas concert, held at the Mesa Arts Center (the same venue as his last concert we attended back on April 14th, almost eight months ago). Our first Archuleta concert experience was in Queen Creek, not far from Mesa, way back in March 2016. We'd all been huge fans since David won the runner-up position in the seventh season of American Idol (spring 2008). That first concert was a family affair, with Sarah, Chris, Dylan, Mark, and me in attendance, as well as some of my nieces and nephews sitting with their spouses a few rows directly behind us. It was a great evening. (You can find that blog post HERE.)

A year later, in June 2017, David came to Snowflake to perform at the local high school auditorium. Snowflake is close to home, less than a 30-minute drive away, and they offered special VIP "Dinner-with-David" tickets. Sarah decided she didn't want to be simply a face in the crowd this time. She wanted to meet David in person, so she bought the VIP tickets. I was happy to join her. How excited I would have been if I'd had the chance to meet my heartthrob, Davy Jones of the Monkees, back when I was a besotten thirteen-year-old!

That first one-on-one meeting with David was unexpectedly magical. There were only ten VIP ticket holders and the setting was intimate, allowing some time to really visit with David. It was clear from their first meeting that David and Sarah connected on some unspoken level, perhaps inspired by their shared love of music, and it was a night we'll never forget. (You can read more about that experience HERE.) We didn't realize until the next time we saw David that he hadn't forgotten it, either.

Sarah and I purchased the VIP meet-and-greet tickets again for David's concert in Mesa last April. That experience lacked the intimacy of our first meeting, with about sixty VIP ticket holders present and extremely limited time to spend with him one-on-one. Still, it was made special by the fact that he recognized us the moment he saw us from the stage before the concert, exclaiming, "Hey, I know you two!" He even recalled specific things about Sarah, like the fact that she plays violin with a symphony orchestra, when we met with him briefly after that. (That post is located HERE.)

This time, Sarah decided to forgo the VIP tickets. It does get a little pricey, and we would be happy to merely bask in the holiday tunes performed by the sweet voice of David Archuleta. We expected to be just concert-goer faces in the crowd again, and we were fine with that. It still feels like a little miracle that the evening turned out to be so much more than we'd anticipated!

Jacob's new Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

We drove down the mountain to Mesa on Thursday morning, the day of the concert. A storm system had moved in during the previous night but, thankfully, the roads were clear and we encountered just a little sleet and snow along the way. For this concert, it would be Sarah, Jacob, Mark, and myself attending. Chris had to stay behind to work, but he's more of a Scotty McCreery fan anyway.

It was 12:30 when we got to Jacob's house in Mesa. We picked him up and went to Carl's Jr. for lunch. Next, we went to Walmart to choose a Christmas tree for Jacob. With all the expense of his divorce, his move from Utah back to Arizona, the costs of fixing up the house and starting a new job, Jacob couldn't afford to buy a tree. Everyone should have at least a tiny Christmas tree under which to place their gifts, so I promised him a really cheap, obviously fake one, a true Charlie Brown Christmas tree. 

We settled on a twenty-dollar, three-foot-tall specimen, which looked truly pathetic when Jacob first shook it out of its tiny box. However, after a little TLC from Jacob, then Sarah, then me, a nice-looking little tree emerged, as shown in the photo above. Jacob did have a skirt for the tree, as well as some ornaments, so he's now all set for the holidays. He even had all his Christmas gift shopping done by the following afternoon.

Mary, Sarah, and Jacob dine at Boston Market before the concert.

Between Walmart and dinner time, Jacob prepared a batch of cinnamon rolls from scratch, so we'd have a treat to enjoy after we got back from the concert. It was a little after 5:00 when we left the house to have dinner at Boston Market before the big event.

Sarah, Jacob, and Mark enjoy dinner at Boston Market.

Since I'd discovered that I'd left my camera's SD memory card at home, we made one more stop at Walmart to buy a new one. You can't go to a concert without a camera! I could have used my cell phone's camera like everyone else does, of course, but my trusty camera usually gets much higher quality photos than any cell phone. Sadly, though, the lighting at this concert--particularly the spotlight that followed David onstage--made his face appear like a bright blob in nearly all my pictures, and in Sarah's cell phone shots, as well. The photos below were the best I could post, sorry!

Mary, Sarah, Jacob, and Mark waiting for the concert to begin.

By the time we'd finished dinner, stopped by Walmart, and paid $5.00 to park in the Mesa Arts Center parking lot, it was 6:45, about forty-five minutes before the concert was to begin. Sarah and I made a stop at the ladies' room, where we found a bunch of young girls wearing VIP passes and chattering excitedly about recently meeting David Archuleta. Truthfully, we both had a brief twinge of envy that we'd missed out on the meet-and-greet, but mostly we were at peace with our decision.

Finally, we met the guys and entered the auditorium at 7:00 to find our seats. Jacob was particularly excited (although not nearly as thrilled as Sarah, obviously) because this would be his very first David Archuleta concert. In the end, he thought it was great and expressed his desire to attend more of his concerts in the future.

Jacob, Sarah, and Mark do selfies in front of the stage before the concert.

Our seats were perfect. When Sarah said we had the four end-seats on the right side of the concert hall, I thought she meant we'd be further back. Again, I imagined we'd just be faces in the crowd, nothing more than silhouettes in a dark concert hall. I was wrong, though.

Our seats were actually in the "orchestra pit," the area directly in front of the stage. Three rows of seats were lined up there, and we were in the third row, but we were still very close to the stage, as you can see in the photo below. Those are my blue-jeans-clad knees at the bottom of the picture. There was a wide aisle behind us, with the regular seating starting beyond the aisle. There were no seats at all to our right. Everything else was behind us.

Best of all, there were no chairs in front of our three seats at the end of the row, so no one was between us and the stage. Only Mark had someone seated in front of him, the end-seat of the second row. That made us hope that maybe David would be able to see us and we could at least give him a wave.

This is how close our seats were to the stage (see my knees?).

The concert began at 7:30 with a 20-minute performance by Madilyn Paige, a friend of David Archuleta. She has a beautiful voice and Sarah is a big fan. Apparently Madilyn was a contestant on the TV show, The Voice, which I've never watched but Sarah has. Sarah was so excited when she learned Madilyn was going to be opening for David. Along with several holiday numbers, Madilyn sang an amazing song called "Irreplaceable," which she actually wrote as a high school student. Sarah's only disappointment was that Madilyn and David didn't perform their duet of "Seasons," one of Sarah's favorites. However, David did bring Madilyn out for a Christmas duet as an encore near the end of the concert.

Unfortunately, none of my pictures of Madilyn Paige turned out. I think her bright blonde hair must have intensified the shiny-blob factor!

David Archuleta's Christmas Concert, Mesa Arts Center.

There was a ten- to fifteen-minute wait after Madilyn's set. Then David's band came out to their instruments...and then, finally, David himself came out onstage to wild applause, singing one of his Christmas songs, "Melodies of Christmas." He went first to the microphone stand, briefly, and then he went to the edge of the stage opposite from us, performing for the cheering crowd. It's clear that he loves the energy produced by the fans at his concerts, as he moves back and forth on the stage to connect with them.

David Archuleta performs in concert for Christmas.

I knew he would eventually work his way to our side of the stage, so I hoped we'd be able to catch his eye and give him a wave. I was a little dismayed when I realized that the placement of the band's bass player on our side of the stage, as well as the speakers on the edge of the stage right in front of us, left little room for David to maneuver easily to the far end of the stage near our seats. As I'd expected, he had to stop several feet short of us as he sang his way across the front of the stage.

David Archuleta performs in concert for Christmas.

But that's when the first little miracle happened. As he sang along the front of the stage, his eyes had been scanning the people in the front three rows. I've noticed before that he does that, perhaps looking for familiar faces or people he met during the meet-and-greet before the concert. With all the lights on his face, he wouldn't be able to see specific faces further back in the auditorium, but the people in the seats directly below the stage are pretty well illuminated by the stage lights.

David Archuleta in concert with his band on stage at Mesa Arts Center.

After he reached the area crowded with the speakers and the bassist's equipment (see above photo), David stopped walking, and I thought that would be the end of that. However, his eyes kept moving over the people past that point, until they reached me and Sarah at the end. You know that smile you get when you run into someone you know and like? That's exactly what happened. David's smile widened when his eyes landed on me, and then he immediately moved his gaze to Sarah, where it remained fixed for what felt like a very long time. Literally, he was singing to Sarah for probably thirty seconds or so. He never stays still that long on stage (unless he's seated, of course), and since there was no one else sitting around us, it was clear that he was letting Sarah know he'd seen her and was glad she was there.

David Archuleta performs in concert for Christmas.

And it wasn't just Sarah and me who noticed. When David finally moved back toward the center of the stage, I saw that both Jacob and Mark were staring at us with their mouths open. "Wow," was all they could say. As for Sarah, when I looked back at her, she whispered in wonder, "He was singing to me!"

The cell phone flashlight apps always come out for the song "Glorious."

I love it!

For the rest of the concert, David put on an amazing performance but didn't single us out again. That was fine. We were so happy that he'd recognized and acknowledged us, we were just grateful and enjoyed the rest of the show. Sarah could probably have died in perfect happiness at that point.

That is, he didn't single us out again until the final number. 

David Archuleta performs in concert for Christmas.

We totally didn't see this one coming. He announced his last song, Christmas Every Day, and began singing. Again, he was walking along the edge of the stage, connecting with his audience. For some reason, it sticks in my head that he was singing the line, "there's nothing like a Christmas tree surrounded by family" when he reached our end of the stage and I realized he was smiling straight at me. Then, for the first time, he squeezed between the bassist and speakers to stand at the edge of the stage directly in front of us, very obviously singing right to Sarah with that wide smile on his face. While David sang, Sarah gave him a little wave and he waved back. Again, he stayed and sang to her for an unusually long time before moving back to center stage.

David performs the final encore of the evening.

While David finished the last song, I looked over and noticed that a lot of people sitting in the first two rows were now craning their necks to look back at us. Clearly, they were wondering who that girl was and why she was getting so much personal attention!

That wasn't really the final song, of course. After he left the stage, there was the usual standing ovation accompanied by chants of "David! David!" He and his band came back out to perform two encores, the first with Madilyn Paige and the second on his own. Then, knowing that was really the end of the show, his fans raced down to the edge of the stage, where he always shakes as many hands as he can.

"Hey, Sarah! I'm so happy to see you!"

He was uncharacteristically quick with the hand-shaking on this night, perhaps because he had a special guest coming backstage to meet him (you can read about that in the next paragraph). We could see his manager urging him to hurry along. Even so, when he came to Sarah, he burst out with, "Hey, Sarah! I'm so happy to see you!" (Prompting more stares from people around us.) He paused for a brief visit and a hug, and then posed with her for the picture below.

One more time, the final and best concert photo of the evening:

David Archuleta and Sarah Kinsky!

It's plain that David is one of those people who connects deeply with others and has many cherished friendships. After the concert, we saw a group of older people being escorted backstage, and later Sarah saw David's post about his middle school bus driver who was at the concert, whom David had his team bring backstage so he could visit with her. He even posted a cute video with her. 

Jacob told me the next day that he'd thought about talking to David himself, regarding a missionary he knew who was an old school-friend of David Archuleta. Jacob served with this other young man in the Santa Rosa Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in northern California, from December 2010 to November 2012. He said that when David had a concert coming up in the Santa Rosa mission area (probably San Francisco in November 2011), not long before reporting for his own mission in March 2012, David requested permission for this missionary friend to attend his concert so he could see him once more before he himself left to serve as a missionary in Chile. (Permission was granted.)

Being the kind of person David is, I don't feel his connection to Sarah is unusual, but it is special. Nothing romantic, obviously. They barely know each other. Sarah is happily married to a man who adores her. She always wears her wedding ring, and her Facebook name and page openly declare her marital state. When her brothers tease her with questions like, "Would you leave Chris to marry David Archuleta?" she laughs and tells them "No" in no uncertain terms. She loves her man. I just think that, if circumstances were such that Sarah and David saw each other with some regularity, they would become good friends. Perhaps because of their shared love of music. Perhaps because they are both a little shy by nature. Perhaps because they were friends in the preexistence. Who can say? 

Jacob prepared these made-from-scratch cinnamon rolls for us to enjoy

after the concert. This was before he slathered them with cream cheese icing.

After the concert, we drove back to Jacob's place and quickly polished off his pan of amazing cinnamon rolls. We happily relived the events of the evening and shared them with Jacob's roommate. Even Dylan called from Lakeside to ask how the concert went. He and Jake expressed amazement as we described how David singled out Sarah during the concert. 

It was...magical.

I was so honored when Jacob let me drink from his special Wolf Cup

the next morning, filled with chocolate milk for breakfast!

Welcome, Christmas!

A welcoming wreath on the front door, in my favorite colors!

I actually got my house decorated and the tree put up yesterday, a full three weeks before Christmas day! Okay, okay, I know many of you got your trees up long ago, some even before Thanksgiving (Elyssa), but this is quite an accomplishment for me. You see, for the last two Christmases, I did only the barest minimum of decorating and waited until the last minute to put up my still-new, tiny, fake tree.

Jingle bells hung on the front door.

One of the problems is that I simply can't bring myself to decorate a room that is dusty or otherwise cluttered or disorganized. It must be deep-cleaned before it can be made festive. And the last two winters were tough ones, filled with knee/hip/back pain, illness, and stress, all of which make it difficult for me to function well. Which is the reason I finally gave in and bought a nice but fake, easy-to-handle, three-foot Christmas tree, after decades of searching for and cutting our own six-foot trees in the nearby forests. At some point you just have to give in and cry "Uncle!"

Christmas lights up the living room at bedtime. The lights Dylan hung

around the living room ceiling years ago are still in place.

With our empty nest, my house is generally clean and organized most of the time, so the main problem was layers of dust on every surface. Thankfully, Mark was a big help this year. He fetched and carried and did the heavy lifting while I dusted the cabinets, rearranged curios, emptied shelves, and set up decorations. It literally took about six hours to do just the living room (when I clean, I really clean). By evening, I ached all over. But it was a great feeling to see the end result.

Most of the decorations go on these shelves every year.

So, behold the fruits of our labors. I'm sure I've posted pictures of these decorations many times over the years, but I admit, I truly enjoy looking at them, remembering the meanings and memories behind each piece. It reminds me that Christmas isn't only in the music or movies or stores or even church services. 

Christmas is in our homes and in our hearts.

My newest and most favorite Nativity is this one by Susan Lordi 

as part of her Willow Tree Collection.

First, the Nativities...

My very first Nativity was this hand-painted Mexican version,

which I purchased in Nogales, Mexico, back in the 1980s.

Mark gave me the Christus statue replica, on the left, last Christmas.
(The Christus remains on the shelf  with the temple etching all year long.)

The Holy Family on the right was a gift from my son, Jacob.

The "Christmas in a Nutshell" and clothespin angel were handmade

for me by my sister-in-law, Dana.

Then, the whimsical...

Characters from Rudolph the Red-nose Reindeer--Sam the Snowman,

Santa, Clarice, Yukon Cornelius, Rudolph, Bumble the Abominable Snow

Monster, and Hermey the Misfit Elf--wander in my Christmas-tree forest.

I add new and different types of trees and gift boxes almost every year.

And, finally, the small touches.

I added the snowman to the lighthouse on the top shelf, and

the Christmas-colored cloth coasters and metal shadow-box

to the scarf-wearing bear and ceramic Christmas tree on the bottom.

The bear and tree sit on the shelf all year, but I only light the tree

at Christmas. It's a replica of a ceramic tree hand-painted by Mark's grandma.

May your homes and hearts be filled with the warmth and spirit of Christmas, and with the love, laughter, and sharing of family and friends throughout this season!

Snowy Weekend

The program and ticket for Sarah's annual Christmas concert.

One of the things I really looked forward to about retirement was being able to stay home and enjoy the snow from inside my warm house. However, this weekend was not one of those times!

As we left Thanksgiving behind and plunged into the Christmas season, this was a busy weekend for our family. And, as it happened, it was also a weekend wherein a couple of snowstorms passed through.

Our third snowfall of the season, on November 30, 2018.

We woke up to a few inches of snow on Friday morning, the last day of November, and it continued to fall throughout most of the day. A nice, steady, gentle snowfall accompanied by fair visibility and streets kept clear by industrious snowplow drivers. Best of both worlds. I did have to drive Mark to work and pick him up, but mostly I stayed indoors and watched the magic from the cozy comfort of my kitchen window.

The annual Christmas concert by White Mountain Symphony Orchestra

on December 1, 2018.

Saturday got busy, though. Sarah's annual Christmas concert was in Snowflake, a 25-minute drive away, at 3:00, and then our church Christmas dinner and program was back here in Lakeside at 6:00 that same evening. It was a happy coincidence that a lull in the storm occurred on Saturday, with a clear highway and little snow until later in the day. 

Add to that the fact that no snow had fallen in the town of Snowflake, a mere 26 miles from my house, and we had a nice little break from the snow. However, there was quite a chilly wind in Snowflake that day. Despite the town's name and its proximity to Pinetop-Lakeside and Show Low, it gets little snow but a lot of wind, being located in the high desert (altitude about 1,100 feet lower than our hometown). It was actually named for the town's two founding families, the Snows and--you guessed it--the Flakes.

Sarah performing live on stage!

The concert was great, as always. I love hearing Christmas music performed live, but one of the best things about this particular concert was being able to watch Sarah herself perform. We are rarely able to see her well on the stage, since she plays second violin, and the first violinists are always seated closer to the audience. I was able to get some great footage of her actually playing her violin during a couple of numbers.

The concert ended just after 4:30, so we headed toward home, then turned around and drove back to Snowflake High School when I discovered I'd left my camera hanging from the armrest of my chair in the auditorium! Thank goodness I realized I'd left it behind before we got out of Snowflake. And the only reason I realized I didn't have my camera was a picturesque view of storm clouds in the distance that made me think, "I need to take a picture of that...oh, wait!"

Storm clouds hang low over our home community in the not-too-far distance.

The skies over Snowflake had been bright blue and filled with fluffy white clouds. As we drove back toward our mountain communities, though, we could see thick, gray snow clouds hanging low over the place where our home awaited. I loved it. I know it's a little weird of me, but I've always found storms of all kinds to be rather thrilling.

Welcome to the annual Rainbow Lake Ward Christmas dinner and

program, at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It was about 5:15 when we got back home, and then I had to quickly finish up the potatoes I'd been assigned to bring to our ward Christmas party. I hadn't realized, when I'd agreed to prepare and bake the ten pounds of potatoes, how the back-to-back timing of the concert and party would affect my ability to squeeze in this assignment. 

A great turnout for our ward Christmas dinner and program.

Thankfully, my son-in-law Chris came over before the concert to help me out by scrubbing the potatoes (ten pounds is a lot of potatoes!). Then all I had to do was dice them, mix them with the prescribed onion soup mixture and olive oil, and put them in the oven. However, I was afraid that if I cooked them too early, they'd be mushy by the time of the dinner. What I ended up doing was partially baking the potatoes before the concert, and then re-baking them during the quick thirty minutes between getting home from the concert and then leaving for the church. Luckily, the potatoes turned out okay, thoroughly cooked and slightly crispy on the outside.

Such great fun to spend time with our ward and church family.

The ward party was great. It was very well attended, by about 200 people! Mark and I shared a table with Chris and Sarah and our friends Steve and Michelle, who love to laugh as much as we do. A couple of people commented that they wished they'd sat at our table, too, because that seemed to be where all the fun was happening, from the sound of all our laughter. We also had ample opportunity to visit with other friends throughout the two and a half hours that the party lasted.

The table decorations: "Give as He gave."

Besides the delicious dinner of ham, potatoes, green beans, and rolls served in large bowls family-style at each table, there were plates filled with holiday cookies, Christmas carols to sing, musical numbers to be performed, and a Nativity reenacted by the Primary children while the scriptures of the first Christmas were read aloud. And, at the end of it all, a surprise visit by Santa Claus himself.

Primary children perform the Nativity while Bro. Stewart reads scripture.

Festive decorations for the piano and a chair for Santa.

Our bishop, Grant Berges, addressed us briefly to remind us that Christmas is a wonderful time to increase our faith, renew our efforts to become more like our Savior Jesus Christ, and strive to serve others as He served throughout His ministry. To this end was the "Light the World" program created, to help us find more ways to "light the world," "light your community," "light your family," and "light your faith" through greater service to others.

Scrolls filled with ideas for ways to #Light the World.

By the time we left the church around 8:30 after last night's party, the second part of the storm had arrived and snow had begun to fall again. Then this morning, when I drove Mark to work at 5:45, it was snowing heavily and visibility was near zero. The snowplows hadn't been out yet, so the road was blanketed in slushy whiteness from edge to edge. Very frightening, not knowing exactly how close you may be to a ditch or curb on the right or passing cars on the left. Nonetheless, I made it home safely.

Taken while sitting in my car at Walmart, at 2:45 today (after church), 

waiting for Mark to go in and pick up his prescription after work.

Then it was time for my church meetings, which started at 11:00, and by that time the car was covered with snow again. For the first time in my life, I wore tennis shoes to church, because I couldn't see the point in scraping windows while standing in three inches of snow, wearing heels! (I need new snow boots...)

The snow had slowed by the time we pulled into the driveway after Walmart.

December 2, 2018

The snow has come to a stop now, with cold, clear days expected until Thursday and Friday, when the next storm is supposed to roll in. Thursday and Friday, when Sarah, Mark, and I will be traveling to and from the Valley for David Archuleta's Christmas concert in Mesa. Meanwhile, we'll be keeping an eye on the weather reports...