The weekend of December 17th / 18th was the holiday ProMusica concert. These photos are actually from our fall concert but you get the basic idea....
The flute player is Diana who is in our ward and who recruited me. We carpool to rehearsals when we can.
Here I am with Malcome. For the holiday concert, we had no basses so he and I played the bass part for the Nutcracker. We were the "cha-basses". We also didn't sit front stand. That was for two hired cellists from ASU. First chair was good. Second chair was a bit annoying - he rushed tempos and played Bach a bit too brashly.
Monday, December 18th, Steve and I drove to Carefree hoping for a St. Charles experience - Arizona style. We were greatly disappointed that no stores were open. But, the lights were pretty.
Hey, lookie! We found our soldier / nutcracker decorations!
Tuesday, December 19th through Friday, December 22nd, President and sister Collins hosted Christmas parties at the mission home for all the missionaries. Two zones per night. They had dinner, watched the Polar Express, exchanged white elephant gifts, performed zone skits, and opened up gifts sent from their families. The evening started at 3:00 with making graham cracker houses. I was enlisted to help with this activity so, all week, I made batch after batch of royal icing. I averaged 10 batches per day which took over an hour each day to do (between mixing and loading into heavy-duty zip-loc bags for piping). The elders and sisters seemed to enjoy themselves and some were SO creative. Following are some photos from each night....
Hot air balloons are big business in Phoenix. This also shows the backyard set up with the propane heaters that sort-of worked. But only if you were really close to them.
It was fun to see what some of the missionaries wore
During the afternoon, temperatures were OK but the night temperatures were really CHILLY! The night that Steve and I attended was the coldest. Elder Parker, from the mission office, brought a box of Green Bay Packer sweatshirts (he is a HUGE fan) to share. Here I am modeling one.
Here is President Collins with his daughter, grandson, son, and daughter-in-law.
The mission home has a red grapefruit tree and a Valencia orange tree. I brought home some of both. (and bought the Halos at the store)
Look how huge this grapefruit is!
Tuesday night, after helping at the mission home, Steve and I drove down to see the Mesa temple lights and to hear Cade Ellsworth's high school choir perform in the nightly concerts. The lights were gorgeous and it was a lovely concert - the choir is really good. You can see Cade on the right in his wheelchair.
Wednesday night, after helping at the mission home, Steve and I drove to Scottsdale to watch "The Man Who Invented Christmas" at the closest theater we could find still showing the film. We loved it!
Thursday night, we stayed at the mission home the whole evening.
Friday night, after helping at the mission home (keep in mind we still put in a full day at the mission office and just left mid-afternoon to do the graham cracker houses), we drove back to Mesa with the plan to take Jerri out to dinner with Juli, Jesse, and Kat (who had tickets to see the Roger's and Hammerstein Cinderella production at ASU). Sadly, Jerri was not feeling well so we texted Juli to say eat without us and Steve and I just stayed and kept Jerri company for a couple of hours.
Saturday, we fixed a turkey-and-all-the fixings lunch to feed Elders Frye and Talbert, the missionaries assigned to our ward. After they left and after a very long nap (blame the turkey and I think I was on sleep deficit), Steve and I went to see Star Wars (thankfully, the theater was much closer!) We loved that one, too. Wow, no movies since starting our mission and then two in one week!
