Between the hijinks of Halloween and the hustle of Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays, we managed to fit in some fun stuff. For starters, the girls and I have pretty much decided that we want to see as much theater as we possibly can. Sometimes that means we go to the Hale Center Theater. Sometimes that means we drive to an old nearly-empty town hall in Heber Utah. And sometimes it means that we head to the local high schools to see neighborhood kids perform. In November we were able to go to the East High production of Phantom. It's the same storyline as Phantom of the Opera, and was written at the same time as the Andrew Lloyd Webber smash, but is a totally different script with totally different music. Our neighbor, who is a sophomore this year, had a part in the chorus and we were happy to support him though to be honest I wasn't expecting much from the show. We were all happily surprised to find that this show was absolutely jam-packed with fabulous singers. I mean, fabulous. It was fun and pretty amazing. I'm sure none of us will ever forget how well they pulled off the chandelier-falling-from-the-rafters special effect that had us all screaming. Romney was especially happy when she realized that one of these great singers was a teen counselor from her Youth Theater at the U camp she attended last summer. And of course we had to make a stop by the eternally-pink lockers left over from when High School Musical was filmed at EHS.
Another memorable event from the month was the day that Emma was invited to go ice skating for a friend's birthday party. They picked an ice rink that was rather far away from us, but when I went to go pick up a group of the birthday party goers I was delighted by how happy they all were and how successful they all felt. The rink provided these little seal-sleds that kept them from falling. I couldn't have imagined taking a group of kids ice skating. That sounds like a nightmare to me and I wasn't sure how this parent was going to manage, but thanks to the seals, Emma and all the others were happy as could be.
On another memorable and lovely November evening our poetry group of friends decided to get together for an evening of delicacies. There is a store far far away in the south of the valley called Pirate O's. Don't ask me why that name, I have no idea. The store doesn't seem to have anything to do with pirates. It does carry a huge variety of interesting imported foods. We decided that it would be really fun to go there and for each couple to pick out a few tasty-looking items that we would then take to our friends' home who live not too far away. We could cook it all up and sample all the treasures. We ended up with things like hazelnut pesto and onion jam salsa and such delicious cheeses. It was quite a treat, not only to try so many delicious and interesting foods, but of course to be with dear friends with whom we don't gather that often any more. I love our poetry group.
I had to take this picture of me displaying my disgust of Neccos "candy." (Can you really apply that word to this food?) My dear friend and old neighbor, aka "the Other Troy," who lives in Seattle, had recently posted on Facebook his sadness that his childrens' Halloween hauls had not included any Neccos. I let him know that this could certainly be nothing but joyous news as Neccos are clearly disgusting and don't qualify as candy. I texted him this photo and I think he got a pretty good laugh.
Here is our friends' adorable baby enjoying her first pickle.
As November should be, it was chilly and leafy and lovely.
Our stake primary hosted a square dance for the young girls ages 8-11 and I had a chance to do a little square dancing with the girls. It was actually really fun, and our square dance caller helped us all have a great time. It was a daddy-daughter dance but we were short a few daddies so I got to dance too.
Probably the culminating event of the month was that Emma performed in her first violin recital. She started taking violin in September of 2016, and her teacher only has one recital a year, in November. Last year Emma wasn't playing anything yet and so we didn't do the recital but this year she was ready. Of course I wasn't sure how well it would go - poor Emma was so anxious about it that even practicing her recital pieces with her teacher reduced her to tears more than once. I wasn't sure she was going to get through it. I was so proud of Emma - she practiced so hard and on the day of the recital was so brave. She just got up and played her pieces beautifully and the only one who seemed to have a total panic attack was me but I kept it on the inside. She did great and I was happy for her.
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