Briarwood walk-through nativity

Christmas Choir Program

For the first time this year, the children’s choirs gave their own Christmas concert at an evening service. The choir program has grown so much since Meg was a “cherub.” All three of the older choirs learn excellent singing technique, classic choral pieces, music theory, and hymnology (and occasionally practice and perform with hand bells and chimes). Most importantly, the directors convey the joy, privilege, and responsibility of developing musical gifts to be used in a lifetime of private and corporate worship, as an offering to the Lord and his Church.

Thanksgiving

While in Birmingham for Thanksgiving, we toured the old Sloss Furnace site. The rusty structures were interesting, as were the plaques explaining various steps of the process.

 

oh, and here’s a snap from another attempted Christmas card photo shoot.

 

Happy Thanksgiving.

Christmas card photo shoot

You know the drill. “Let’s just run out in the yard and snap a simple photo for this year’s Christmas card.” Not so fast. If you’ve heard me whine about this before you can skip to the next post. I don’t think I’m trying to make our life look “perfect” with a “perfect” picture, there are just so many factors that all have to come together to make a decent one: lighting, composition, focus, open eyes, non-bizarre faces, attitudes… Then you get some shots that look pretty good but you realize they may not accurately represent the physical appearance or personality of someone in the photograph, and you hate to give it annual documentary status if it’s not really representative.

So, here are a few outtakes:

attitude on the left…

 

bizarre in the middle…

 

subjects not visible; bizarre on the right…

 

eyes…

 

lighting…

 

56 options, and here was the winner:

Precious children!

Beethoven’s 9th

Erik, Meg, Nate, Kate and I enjoyed a night on the town to hear Beethoven’s famous symphony. The orchestra and chorus were unbelievably fantastic. Plus, the ASO had been on lockout for some weeks (quite a few scheduled performances, including this work, had been cancelled earlier in the season) and this was their first night back. The audience went wild when the musicians came on stage and we had to clap through about twice as many encores as usual at the end.

Work Bench

Someone set up a bow-and-arrow shop in the garage…

…someone who is still learning “b” and “d.”

Demolition Party

An ugly abandoned building near church has bothered us for years – such an eyesore. When we found out it was to be razed we planned to go watch. Then a friend proposed we camp on the church field for easy morning access to the spectacle (it was to be just after sunrise). We braved actual freezing temperatures (so, so cold!) but had a fun time of it and the implosion was as dramatic as we’d hoped.

eager, chili spectators

 

The first charges are detonated; they were so loud!

How long does it take a 14+ story building to fall? Not as long as the shutter delay on my camera.

About this time we realized that the massive billows of smoky dust were headed our way. Quick! To the cars! (What must it have been like at Ground Zero on 9/11?!)