HOUSE OF BLUES

On Sunday, December 4, my long time girlfriends and I went to The House of Blues in Downtown Disney (next to Disneyland) for their afternoon show called Gospel Brunch. We did this last year and enjoyed it so much we decided to go again. The doors open at 1 PM and you are escorted to your seats. Then you can go through the buffet line and pick up all kinds of good brunch type foods. You can also go to the omelet bar where a chef will cook an omelet on the spot with filling and topping of your choice. Around 2 PM the show begins. This year the performers were the Clara Ward Singers. They have been around for years, though I suspect very few of the women are original members. I took a lot of photos but most of them blurred. This is one of the best. All but one of the women wore purple, the other woman wore all white. And they had huge fancy hats and high heels with pointed toes.


They performed for almost an hour. Lots of energy and they were really good. We had a very nice time.

Here are the four of us long time friends. There are five of us, but one could not make it this time. We have known and kept in touch with each other since elementary school. We have been in each others weddings and seen the children come and grow, get married and start their own families. Three out of the five are now grandmothers!!!

This past week, on December 8, I attended a wonderful Christmas concert put on by the Brethren Christian Jr. Sr. High school music department. My friend's daughter Amber (see my post about her wedding below or in archives) is now the choral director for the Jr. Highers and she made her public directorial debut. She looked real good and did a great job. Her little choral group of girls were very good.

On Friday, December 9, Jennifer and I went to see Chronicles of Narnia. I really loved this movie. It is very faithful to the book and the acting (especially Lucy) and effects were first rate. I can highly recommend this movie and give it top marks.

This week I have two teas and two Christmas parties to attend. Hopefully I will get some good pictures to share.

ACSI CONVENTION

For the last two days I have been working a booth in the exhibit hall of the Anaheim Convention Center. This was for the ACSI Convention. ACSI stands for Association of Christian Schools International. Every year the teachers and full time staff from my school attend the convention. Those of us who are part time have never been offered the opportunity to attend because there really isn't very much of interest to us there. It is geared more toward the teachers and administrators.

This year Al called our school (he is good friends with our principal) and asked if someone from our school could help him out in his booth. Our secretary, Cindy, thought of me and asked if I wanted the job. Sure. Why not? So I have been selling Christian rock and contemporary music CD's and Al's material. It was fun because I love talking to people. I also learned a lot about Christian Rock and a lot of the music played as samples was really good. The draw back was standing all day on a concrete floor. Also the drive to and from in rush hour traffic made me appreciate the fact that I live close to my real job. Below are some pictures of the exhibit area.

Here is a picture of Al in front of his booth. He has a ministry which aides parents and educators in helping their children understand the dangers of modern music (the nasty hard rock and rap stuff that is out there). He is a very popular speaker and people love his workshops. He is very personable and outgoing.

This is Al's secretary, Judy. Her husband Ron also helped in the booth but is not pictured. She is very nice and used to be a special education teacher.

Here Judy is helping a customer select a CD. This picture shows how the CD's and Al's materials were laid out on two tables. We were on a corner which made for more room to spread out.

This shows a small portion of the exhibit area. The green area in the middle had chairs and fake trees for a nice little rest area.

Disney had a real nice display for Narnia. They were giving away all kinds of promotional material including large posters and a box of material for teaching about the C.S. Lewis novel in the classroom. I, of course, got everything I could lay my hands on!

THANKSGIVING PARTY

Yesterday was the last day of school for a week. On the last day before Thanksgiving vacation we have half day and a party that the room parents put on. The above picture is what the children and us two teachers got. Isn't that napkin pretty? The pilgrim hat was made by a parent. It is a chocolate dipped marshmallow on top of a chocolate coated cookie wafer. Then she piped darker chocolate around it and some yellow chocolate for the brim. Talk about a lot of work! And it was good too!

Here is a close up of the hat. The kids were very excited, as you can imagine, all day. But they did manage to get some work done in the morning.

One of the moms from the other First Grade class dressed in her Native American (aka Indian) dress and read a cute story about animals celebrating Thanksgiving to both First Grade classes. She was very good and seems to enjoy entertaining just like I do.

Here is the last picture of some of our class having their food. I wasn't able to get a good picture of the whole class. The little girl with the brown hair looking directly at me is a really nice girl. The blonde next to her is very outgoing and talkative, which sometimes gets her into trouble :) The boy in the yellow shirt on the left is one of our two learning problem students, but he is making progress. The boy on the right in the very back is probably our top student in the classroom. He is reading at third grade level and he has been selected to represent our class at the ACSI Spelling Bee in January. The other boy, the blonde, in the back row is the nicest kid you would ever want to meet. So polite and his work is always neat. His mom is expecting her fourth child the end of December. The family is all boys and the expected one is too. This family does not watch TV or movies. The parents spend lots of time with the boys and they do a lot of reading and crafts and playing games. It has paid off big time because all the boys are just the nicest, most well behaved kids you would ever want to meet. And ... these parents are HUGE fans of Disney and Disneyland. They both worked there when they were teenagers. She and I always have a lot to talk about :) !!!

So, that's the update for now. This next week I have a two day job at the ACSI Convention in Anaheim. ACSI stands for Association of Christian Schools International. Every year they have a two day convention with workshops and a selling floor for teachers and administrators. An organization that is selling stuff at this convention called our school looking for someone to help work their booth. They needed three people and only had two. The man who runs this organization is good friends with our principal so that is why he called us. Cindy, our secretary, asked me and because it pays $75 a day plus he will reimburse me the $12 parking fee both days, I said yes. Jennifer has school on Monday and Tuesday and I really didn't have anything to do plus it gives me extra mad money!

This Thursday my brother, Bruce, is coming to spend a couple of days at our house. We will have Thanksgiving here and then Friday Jennifer is making candy for the college group to sell and Bruce and I will go out and spend some time at a mall or something.

So, Happy Thanksgiving to anyone who happens to read this.