ADVENT 4

This past week was a very busy one! Wednesday was doubly special as it was Laurel's birthday as well as Ashley's school program.  We made it to Milestone School just as the afternoon program, "Surfin Santa" was underway.  Ashley loves to sing and this musical play for young voices was great.  My favourite song was called "Share a Little Christmas".  The last line has good advice for all of us "And share a little Christmas every day of the year.

I made the traditional tree cake for Laurel so that was our treat after the evening performance of the program.

Mother and Daughter enjoying birthday supper

Having supper on the "Christmas Story" plates with illustrations
from "The Night Before Christmas".

December 17 was Jodi and Clare's 16th wedding anniversary.  Here they are on their wedding day in 1999.

Now it's Tuesday afternoon so must finish this post.  We just got home from Estevan as Alan had a dental appointment.  We should be finished with those until it's time for our 6 month checkups!

It is snowing lightly with more in the forecast for tonight, just enough for a white Christmas.  Dawson has been skidooing at Milestone but there isn't enough snow here for that.

Now, back to last week!  On Thursday we left Laurel's for Regina.  I did some shopping at Jones New York so have a new dress and a jacket after that stop.  Alan actually came in the store so had some input into my purchases and that was good.

Then we were off to the Delta Hotel, part of the Christmas gift from my "kids".  The other part was tickets to Rory Allen's "Elvis" concert that night.  Alan and I were teenagers when Elvis made his singing debut and Alan has been an Elvis fan ever since.  He remembers on family shopping trips to Havre, Montana the first place he would head was to the music store to buy records. He had a record player in his room so spent many hours listening to those records. (I think he brought them with him to the Johnson farm too!)  I like a lot of Elvis songs too so it was a great gift for us to hear Rory's evening of Elvis songs, many of them Christmas songs.

On Friday morning we were up early and on the road to Estevan for the memorial service for Ruby Forrester.  Howard's cousin, Hartley Halvorson, is married to Ruby's daughter, Louise.  The service was so fitting for Ruby.  The prelude music was provided by the Daae family, neighbours of Ruby and Camby Forrester. The hymns were old favourites with a nephew of Ruby's singing a solo, Many family and friends were there with a chance to visit over lunch at noon.

On Saturday evening we were back to Estevan as Eric was playing hockey there at 5:45.  It was a good game with Eric getting two goals, an assist and two penalties!  He was just getting over a bout of flu so wasn't his usual peppy self but did his best and the team won 5-3.

On Sunday morning at Trinity the students from Club DJ took part in the service by singing several songs for us.  Following the service a few of them played piano pieces for us before we gathered in the auditorium for brunch.  I was glad that Ashley and Laurel could be with us for that service.  Ashley knew several of the children as she was with them last summer for Vacation Bible School.  Cindy Daae directed the singing with Shannon Daae at the piano and leading the singing.

The Johnson Family had planned to be together on Sunday evening but that didn't happen.  Carter had a lung infection and bronchitis so Kirk's couldn't come.  Laurel's were just getting over the stomach flu so Clare's didn't want to bring that up to her sister's in Edmonton where they are headed today.  Kirk's plan to come here on Christmas Day so we will have the family in small batches this Christmas and hope to find a day when we can all get together in the new year!  

Well, Alan is in need of a haircut so I better take care of that job and finish up this update.  I didn't mail our Christmas letter to all of you so will put it on my blog on Christmas Eve along with our Christmas greetings.