Christmas Fun Is Beginning

Some fun holiday traditions this week.  Starting with the annual Merry and Bright Parade.  Every year all the scout troops/businesses/marching bands/government elected officials/etc. march in the parade.  It's such a wonderful Michigander thing to do - a parade in December in the snow.  All the candy they throw disappears immediately into the snowdrifts at your feet and kids freeze their fingers off looking for it.  When it's over your fingers are too cold to fold up your chair properly.  You wear so many layers you almost can't sit down. By the end of the parade route most of the metal instruments have frozen and don't play anymore.  But it's all worth it when Santa comes driving down the street on the firetruck wishing you a very merry Christmas and his face is just so bright and cheery that you can't help but smile.  We do it every year and every year I honestly look forward to it.  Our last chance to see our sweet kids in their marching band uniforms before turning them in and calling the year done.  My last chance to see Bella march.  Benjamin's last year the weather was so terrible they actually had to cancel it and that made me sad.  I was glad that despite the low temps, this year we got to have it.  Plus, Bella's band was at the very front of the parade so she was able to finish and join us to watch the rest of it, just like old times when she was little.  Couldn't have been more perfect.  Peter was a candy-collecting machine.  He was digging in the snow and scrounging in the dirty slush at the edge of the street.  Don't tell him, but I threw away half of what he collected because it was nasty filthy, but he was so happy collecting it that he didn't notice the cold.

Christmas concerts are also always fun.  The kids are so amazing with their multiple instruments.  Bella performed on the tenor sax, the alto sax, and the flute during various parts of the concert.  I loved when she played the flute because I could actually see her!   She just started playing this summer when a friend loaned her a flute during vacation and she taught herself and joined a flute choir when school started.  She's amazing.  Christian plays drums in marching band but plays saxophone in jazz band and symphony band.  For jazz band he sat in the front so I got good pics of both my kids for the first time ever. although the lighting and distance made it a bit fuzzy.

The kids have also been touring around to other schools to perform and increase interest in younger kids to join the band in high school.  Parents haven't been permitted to come but luckily the director posted this picture of Christian's band at his old middle school today.

Bella asked me to take her and a friend, Katie, downtown to see the lights, visit the Light The World Giving Machine, and go skating.  We had a wonderful time. We parked a ways away and took the Q-line into downtown and rode the People Mover around the inner city. I am amazed how much Detroit is revitalizing.  It was sooo busy and so fun!  It really felt like a vibrant down-town scene.  It's so exciting to be in an area that's developing like this.

As the temperature has dropped, Newburgh Lake has frozen over and I couldn't pass up the chance to skate on it.  Sunday after church I took the boys skating.  (Bella had other commitments, sadly.)  We had a blast and had the lake all to ourselves.  Other than freezing wind so cold it froze your eyeballs, we had a great time (as long as we kept our backs to the wind.)

Sadly, I didn't get a picture of Peter after he fell through a spot in the lake where there was no ice.  A drain pipe poured water into one small part and Christian was exploring the hole.  Peter decided it was also interesting but didn't have the maturity to know where to step and where not.  Down he went.  Mother's worst nightmare.  Amazingly, he floated.  Swim lessons for the win!  I was able to grab him out in seconds and he was fine other than his clothes became solid blocks of ice within minutes and he had to stumble to the car in a jacket and pants that weighed about 50 lbs. and were so rock solid he walked like a zombie.  I ended up carrying him the last little bit.  No tears or fear, though.  Just part of the adventure.  It was a really great adventure all around.  However, let's not talk about the unfortunate car accident we got into on the way home as a woman zoomed out of a gas station and crossed 4 lanes of traffic right into our car.  :(  Bye, bye beautiful Ford Mustang.  We will choose to focus on the good things we did that day, not how it ended.

Peter and I went shopping for stocking stuffers.  It was such fun to be able to say "yes" to toy requests.  Saying no nearly every time we shop is draining.  But this was the reason we went and Peter was thrilled.  To top it off, we had to take a ride on Sandy.  As he was riding, an elderly Chinese man came over and started talking to Peter in heavily accented broken English.  He was so taken by cute little Peter.  He started telling us about his grandson that used to ride Sandy but is now in medical school.  Then he offered to take our picture.  It was a good Christmas shopping day.

Miscellaneous:

Peter's teacher often posts pictures from school.  I love seeing him happy and smiling with friends.

Christian is going through a medical journey right now as we investigate how to proceed with a scoliosis and pectus excavatum diagnosis.  We have found some good doctors at the University of Michigan and hopefully we'll have some plans in place soon.  In the mean time we log many, many hours of driving between home and Ann Arbor and many moments of frustration in large public parking garages.