A time of Grace

Last weekend was our first concert for the Billings Symphony Chorale.  They do 2 big concerts a year, spring and fall. This one was called "A time of Grace."  It was $17/ticket or $27 for reserved.  Dad, Brenda, Stan, Jan, Steven and Melinda came.  It was fun to get to share this beautiful music with others.  My 3 favorites were "How can I keep from Singing" "My Song in the Night" and "Grace Before Sleep."  I loved the gorgeous violin and oboe duet at the beginning of "How can I Keep from singing?" and I loved the words and music in  "My Song in in the Night."  "Oh why should I wander an alien from thee, or cry in the desert thy face to see.  My comfort and joy my soul's delight..." are just a few of my favorite phrases.  That was probably my favorite song we sang.  A lot of the pieces were new to me so it was a treat to get to learn and sing them with a choral group of this kind of caliber.
I sit between Nancy and Kathleen, Kathleen is a nun actually and it was fun to get to know her and hear her take on things.  Nancy is a retired teacher who lived in Powell apparently.  She was one of the best altos in the group, featured in one of the Mozart solos actually.  Early in rehearsals, Steven (conductor) wanted a small group of soloists to go down to the front and sing the quartets when we did the Mozart pieces so the choir would get an idea of how it would sound.  Nancy encouraged me to go down with her, and when it got closer to the time of the concert when I knew he'd be having official auditions for the solos, I spent a lot of time on u-tube listening to the 2 Mozart pieces we did, trying to learn the solos really well, and I tried out and got to sing the solo in Veni Sancte Spiritus which translates to come holy spirit; fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle the fire of your love in them.  Steven had us translate it on our own at home and it was fun to get to see what we were actually singing and realizing that these long time, well known classical pieces are praises to God and talk about things I've believed in since I was a little girl.  As far as I can tell, everyone in the group is religious and its been neat to hear everyone's take on the music and what it means to them.  I am grateful for this little experience in my life that brings music back to my life.  I am also grateful for Michael since I couldn't do any of this without him. I'm grateful for a job that makes it possible for him to be home evenings and for his willingness to pitch in with the kids during rehearsals and performances.

Halloween 2015

Halloween was pretty low key this year, we trick or treated on Ave D again and it was fun to see the kids' reactions and the fun decorations.  The weather was great! We've had a beautiful fall.

Stahle is our 4th baby to wear this penguin costume.  I should get pics of all of them in them and post them on here.

3rd annual Asay Halloween feast

The kids are starting to remember this every year and start asking about it mid October, so I made invitations and a menu for our feast this year, which included mummy dogs, witches brew (chili) spider eggs, pudding, vampire ghosts and vampire punch.

Halloween party at Jacobsen's

Steven and Melinda holsted a super fun halloween party this year!  Stahle wasn't feeling well so Michael stayed home with her while the rest of us partied.  Pictured above is me, Melinda and Cathy.  Yay for friends and Halloween parties.  Oh, and Janelle puked all over Melinda's kitchen floor right before we went home.  Winning.

Dads art show at nwc

Northwest college hosted at art show for dad in October.  Kandace and I drove down to see his lights, listen to him give a short presentation and show our support!!  There are so many incredible stories to go along with these lights, I'll share a couple.  I asked dad to record all these stories so I can have a copy.  Anyway, dad started as an Industrial design major in college, but then decided on art (I can't remember what made him switch?) but he tells the story of what a failure he started out as in his art classes.  He says he didn't do well with any of the projects they were doing, he hated getting "messy" which is what a lot of art projects are.  He says when the class would complete an art assignment, they'd all put their "masterpieces" on the chalk board and the professor would go down the line critiquing the art work and would flick the bad ones to the floor and step on them.  Dad says his always ended up on the floor, until one day the class was assigned a project using paper.  Dad went home and came up with something pretty cool, and when he brought it to class, his teacher said, "Roland, I think you've got something here" and he told dad he could spend the rest of the semester working on his paper projects and years and years later, dad has a successful, world wide business called Interfold that has helped support him and his family.  I'll just say that I've always been impressed how dad always includes Heavenly Father in the whole process.  Dad has always acknowledged Heavenly Father in helping him to be successful and to be able to support his family.

Veterans park

Not sure how to caption this picture.  It could be, "I love my boy" "branch turns into tree" "we love fall in Billings" or "Stetson is funny."   They would all fit perfectly.  Up until a couple weeks ago, we were spending our Tuesday afternoons at veterans park during piano lessons, since the teacher just lives a couple blocks away, so I'd drop Stetson off at piano, me and the girls would go play, 30 mins later, we'd drop Kandace off and come back for more play.  The weather has been so beautiful and I've loved it.

The girls love the tire swing..well except Stahle.  She does not love swings of any kind.  Even just a gentle push makes her grab onto the front for dear life with a look of terror.  So funny.

Mystic lake

Ever since moving to Billings and hearing about Mystic Lake, I've wanted to hike to it but I'd heard it might be a little much for the little kids. but since getting our nice hiking backpack, and feeling rather ambitious or just crazy, we decided to go for it.  I'll just say it, I am the illogical, crazy one in our marriage, while Michael is usually the voice of reason and logic, but I'm glad he got on board with this trip.  We got lost on the drive up, it was really windy, (which people coming down warned us about) and we got a late start but we made it and the wind wasn't so bad and the view was stunning.

Don't be fooled by this angelic face . She had just got done crying 3/4 of the way down.  This was the very end of the hike and Michael told her to pick a flower for me.  She sure is cute