The Hazard Chronicles

For the Hazard family, this was a week full of performances. Apparently we like to live life in the spotlight.

Addy:

Addy has been in a hip-hop class for the past couple of months. They have been practicing a choreographed dance for the big end-of-season performance that they do with other dance groups. Addy and her team did awesome!

Evelyn and Jack:

Evelyn and Jack both play parts in a production of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Jack was a "Snooze Who" and Evelyn was a "Dance Who." They both did great.

Maren:

Blowing a secret kiss :)

Maren had her Preschool Christmas presentation where they got to show off what they've been learning. She has some great teachers, and the presentation was cute. Go Maren!

Rachel:

Rachel has been practicing for a while to do the "Tapestry of Light" concert. It had a full choir and orchestra and was probably the most beautiful Christmas-themed concert I've ever been to. Gorgeous music. Rachel was right up front for the whole thing, interpreting for the deaf, and adding depth to the music for the hearing. Specific challenges were getting accurate interpretations for the poetic, symbolic, and religious themes of the songs, as well as fitting these interpretations into something that visually matched the flow of the music. She has practiced hard for this and was a picture on stage of both elegance and eloquence. I have to say, when I watch her do these types of things I am filled with pride for how amazing she is. She loves what she does, and definitely shows.

Church Play:

The kids were in charge of the whole sermon at church this week (with a little spectator interaction as well). The girls were all beautiful angels, and Lindsey and Jack made some excellent little sheep. It was fun.

Me:

As always, I played in the band at church. I REALLY like the Christmas songs we've been doing. I also got to exercise the left side of the brain a little bit at a work activity/party we had at a local paint studio.

This wasn't from this week, but I thought people might want to see what I look like every Sunday. This is just a picture I took from the church's web page of one of our services (cropped in quite a bit). I have to say, playing at church has definitely solidified my desire to perform in a Rock band one day (or Blues- that would be even cooler). Probably after kids get older and we have more time. It sure is fun though.

These people are all rock stars. We have a great team in Post Falls. (Lynsay was unable to attend, but she's a rock star too). I am so thankful to these people for making my job both enjoyable and rewarding.

Misc:

Besides all the artsy stuff, we've been busy getting ready for Christmas and just enjoying the season. The kids are all out of school for the next couple of weeks, and I'm sure they'll have plenty of fun sledding in the beautiful postcard weather we've been having. For Christmas day we are planning on keeping it small, just hanging out at the house with our own family. My parents will probably come up later that week so we'll get a little visit in there as well.

For our date night on Friday, Rachel and I went out dancing with some friends. Live music, good friends, and an open floor always makes for a good time. I think we'll have to do this more often.

I wanted to include this picture of this note from Jack just so we have a record of his writing at age 7. His contest idea comes from the book "No Talking" by Andrew Clements, who is one of my favorite children's authors.

To Mom and Dad Today I want to have a contest of how I won’t talk the whole day for 2 days and you can use only 3 words and when the day is over we meet at the kitchen and we tell everyone if we talk and if you talk at the kitchen when the day is over it does not count at all but it counts if you talk anywhere else and in the kitchen we have to tell the truth if we talk.

It's hard to believe that the year is coming to an end. I've heard that time moves faster as you get older. I guess that's true. Crazy.

Have a good week!