Eyrealm: Run up to Christmas!

The weeks before Christmas are always filled with fabulous festivities! Here’s just a glance at ours before I forget what happened!

We attended a lovely Christmas Concert at the beautiful home of a dear friend:

A yummy dinner was enjoyed at newly found relatives’ home who are related to Rick and I on both sides. Their home is a literal museum of ancestor pictures! What an inspiration to see! It reminded me of my “Grandmother’s Corner” at our house which includes a watercolor that I did in an art class years ago of my mother’s grandparent’s house in Freedom, Wyoming as well as a treasured piece of original wallpaper from that house before it burned down which our new cousins, Judy and Gerry Weber gave to me that night! I also have a small plate from my Grandmother Ida’s house. She died in the Flu Epidemic when she was 38 years old, taking her two youngest babies with her and leaving 8 other children. My father’s dear Mother’s eyeglasses and case are also hanging in that corner. All those ancestors would be thrilled to behold that picture of our family on the left to see what they started!

The Loosli’s Annual Children for Children Concert was held this year in a beautifully restored mansion less than a block from Saren’s house. It was a delight as always to see the kids organizing and conducting that fun evening where they raised about $700 which will be matched by the Eyrealm Foundation for several orphanages in Bulgaria where Saren served as a missionary. A video was shown of the orphans and One Heart Bulgaria is going to be thrilled with the kids’ efforts to provide funds for those needy orphans.

This is Saren, 7 months pregnant with twins visiting the orphanage 8 years ago. (Sorry not techie enough to figure out how to make these pictures large).

Among several delightful numbers, here’ s a group of kids playing Christmas Carols on chimes:

Eliza did a lovely violin solo and Ashton did a great job of entertaining us during the program and while everyone was wafting for the “costuming” for the Nativity scene which most of the children participated in (lots of shepherds and wise men not shown here).

The Shumways, particularly Hazel, also had a hugely successful Children for Children Concert in Boston which the Mayor of their city attended along with a wonderful group of parents who heard some beautiful music from kids who raised $1700 (which will also be matched by Eyrealm) for kids and families in Mozambique. The organization was Care for Life which Tal and Anita worked intimately with on their Humanitarian Honeymoon! Lives will be changed by their contributions to families like this:

And our darling 13-year-old Granddaughter Ana, also organized an amazing new kind of Children for Children Concert in Makawao (Maui). There is an annual Christmas Festival in their little town and she arranged with the organizers for she and her talented friends to put on a talent show on the street to raise money for the children at Care of Life in Africa. We are so proud of her efforts as she raised about another $500 (including a match). Way to go Ana!

The pictures of these last two events are on Instagram and I don’t know how to copy them from there. Just know that they were awesome events!

I got to have had a Grammie Date with some of the Loosli kids that were SO much fun!

Saren came along with Eliza to see the grand production of The Nutcracker at the newly remodeled Capital Theatre. It was GRAND!

Ashton and I went to see one of our favorite characters from our summer Grammie Camp adventures….Bandito….in Bandito’s Christmas Carol. It was at the Grand Theatre in SLC and it was hilarious, along with having a nice message. As you can see we were pretty excited! How could we forget to take pictures of Bandito? Ashton if you have any, pass them on. Bandito even begged us to take pictures! What were we thinking? Is this guy cute or what?

Isaac and I got to see The Piano Guys at a packed Energy Solutions Arena. It was pretty incredible.

This guy is awesome!

Grandfather took the twins to see Here comes Santa Clause presented by the Utah Symphony in Ogden at the same time so I still owe them a Grammie Date but they had a ball!

We had a perfectly lovely day on the 22nd. Since it was Kristi’s birthday and her birthday tradition is doing some kind of service, Kristi and Noah and kids, Kristi’s sister Stacey and kids and Susan and Scott Monson (Kristi’s parents) went to an assisted living center where our 94 year old friend had just been relocated. Since she didn’t know anyone yet, she was delighted to see all those kids who sang to her and heard her fun stories. The kids made a lot of the bystanders happy as they went around giving hugs! Forgot to take pictures @@@.

On the way to Ogden our fun continued as we stopped to see our darling friends the Edler family whom we grew to love many years ago when we did a Center City mission. They were delightful and we were so glad to see each other again! This picture of the Edlers was taken when they came to Thanksgiving dinner at our house a few years ago:

In Ogden we had a delightful evening with Jared and Saren and a few of their neighbors who don’t have family around at Christmastime! There was a very special spirit as the twins read a beautiful Christmas story, we played the chimes and Ashton accompanied us on the guitar as we sang Christmas Carols At the end everyone shared their favorite Christmas memory. One dear lady said that her favorite Christmas memory would be the one she was having that night!