We are in a couple upcoming concerts

A note from my choir director to all of you! Free concerts in YOUR area!
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Dear Music Lovers,

You must come to this uniquely entertaining and inspiring concert, Paean to Peace prepared for you by Women of Note! From Palestrina's "Adoramus Te" to Steve Allen's "Cool Yule" you'll find much in this varied program of Peace on Earth to please you. The concert is free, open to the public, and you have two different days and venues from which to choose:

• Saturday, December 11 at 7:30 pm at Los Altos United Methodist Church 5950 East Willow Street, Long Beach, 90815.
• Sunday, December 19 at 4 pm at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, 525 East Seventh Street, Long Beach, 90813.

Please mark your calendars now to hear Women of Note in concert. As their director, I make no secret about my pride in their accomplishments and I hope to see you in the audience. Adding to the the variety of sound, you will hear sparkling selections by the Men of Note Quartet and by The Quintessentials Wind Ensemble. Among the traditional holiday songs on the program will be a "Silent Night" sing-a-long. You won't want to miss "Feliz Navidad" or "Rudolph's Ragtime Razza-ma-tazz!" either. You know how I love recently written songs and there will be a few of those, too.

Our own Three Sopranos will open the concert with Rachmonioff's "Vocalise". "Iraqi Peace Song," sung in Arabic, is an interesting contrast to "Winds of Peace," sung in Hebrew. Closing the program is "Peace", a Twentieth Century song by Martha Alter using words from a 5th Century B.C. poet, Bacchylides, that tell of spiders spinning webs over iron shields and rust growing over the lance's blade. Aren't you curious to hear this paean to peace? You can go to www.womenofnotelb.blogspot.com to see a complete listing of the program.

One more thing, would you please help us get the word out and forward this invitation and the attached pdf concert flyer to other music lovers?

Let there be Peace on Earth!

Carla Strandberg, Director

Women of Note

My Thanksgiving morning

I woke up early Thanksgiving morning even though I was planning on sleeping in but, that's okay because I was really excited for Thanksgiving to finally be here. I snuggled up on my couch with a hot chocolate in my favorite mug (thanks Erin:) and started to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving day Parade(as is tradition).

Then I get a phone call... *Don't answer the phone, don't answer the phone, don't answer the phone*

I answer the phone...
Resident:"Someone has left their laundry in the washer too long." said in a annoyed, this is your fault tone.
Me:"Okay, well just go ahead and follow the posted Laundry room rules, if it has been in there for longer than 5 min, pull it out and put yours in"
Resident:"I don't want to touch their laundry"
Me:"Well then at this point there is nothing I can do... It is Thanksgiving and we are actually closed."
Resident:"Oh, sorry."
I hang up the phone.

Snuggle back up on the couch. *No big deal, It was just a phone call. Now, back to the parade*

30 min later. A knock on the door. *Don't answer the door, don't answer the door, don't answer the door*

I answer the door (in my pajamas, no make-up, crazy hair).

Resident: "There is water coming from outside the laundry room and it is flooding the laundry room"
Me: "Okay, thanks for letting me know." as I'm closing the door, running to put some clothes on, and grabbing the phone to call the owner.

(It's hard to tell in the video, but there is 3 inches of water covering the entire laundry room and water heater room.)

Well, an hour and gallons of water later the laundry room was back to normal.

In the middle of trying to keep the water from leaking into the next door neighbors apartment, calming all of the on-looking residents down, trying to talk to the non-English speaking maintenance guy, and worrying about being electrocuted I was half in tears and half laughing.

Of course this would have to happen on my one true day off.

Of course it would happen on a day that my husband wasn't feeling good.

Of course the water would be coming out of a place that I have no idea how to turn off.

After all was said and done, my Thanksgiving weekend was surly not what I would have planed. Not at all actually. But, sometimes Heavenly Father puts us through trials and situations that may seem absolutely wrong when standing in the middle of it. But, when looking back lessons are learned, friendships grow, faith is strengthened, laundry room floors get really clean, and we become a little more like the person we want to be.

I didn't do a "things I am thankful for" list leading up to Thanksgiving. Mainly because It would be to hard to narrow down just 25 things. So, here is a list of things I am thankful for that came from my disastrous, I mean eventful weekend.

I am grateful for:

a sense of humor
my job
my sister-in-laws
my good work ethic (Thanks Mom!)
best friends
my close relationship with Heavenly Father
that I didn't get electrocuted
the fact that the laundry room floor is the cleanest that it's ever been
my family
my health
it was water from the pool not from the sewer
prayer
my camera
my dog
forgiveness
family photos
Fruit salad


I hope you had a Happy (dry) Thanksgiving!

Black Friday.

We don't do black Friday over here. We love to sleep to much. But, since most of you are going to be out and about starting (and maybe finishing?) your Christmas Shopping (yes, CHRISTMAS shopping not holiday shopping- don't get Aaron started on that one) I thought I would get involved and suggest a great gift(s).


Songs on the CD include: Scatter Sunshine, Where Love is, Stand Up and Be Counted, Shine On, The light Divine and MORE! It's only $10!

It's a CD and it will make a perfect stocking stuffer! I have five of these left and while supplies last receive a free cute handbag with your purchase.

(Pick one bag as your free gift with purchase)

Just leave me a comment letting me know that you would like one and I will get it out to you in plenty of time for Christmas. You can also purchase it on-line here.

Have you already purchased the CD? Leave a comment and let me know what you think of it!

Happy Shopping everyone!


P.S. Looking for some other cute Christmas gifts? Look here and here and here.

Sneak Peak

We had a photo session with this very talented photographer. Sarah did our pictures last year
and we had so much fun and the pictures turned out so good (that picture at the top of our blog is from last year too) that we (mostly me but Aaron is such a good sport he agreed to do it) wanted to do it again this year.

Since we will be doing the traditional family pictures with the whole Christensen family later this month I got it in my head to do something different for our pictures. So, I had the idea to do a 1940's themed shoot, Aaron had the idea to do it on the Queen Mary, Sarah loved the idea, some great hat finds and this is what we got.

Just a sneak peak!

(I seriously could not keep my hands off Aaron in this outfit. I say we bring back hats. Anyone else in?)

No boys allowed?

A couple of the girls in my ward and I had a great idea to get together as couples to carve pumpkins, make Carmel apples, and hang out. Apparently the husbands didn't really think it was that great of an idea. I think some of their descriptions of the idea included "lame" , "gay" and an enthusiastic "whatever". One of the husbands put his foot down and said no, and that resulted in the rest of the husbands backing out. So, we decided to make it a girls day and here are some of the pictures...








Apparently the earliest you should carve a pumpkin in Southern CA is the day before Halloween. It only took 2 days for my pumpkins to get moldy, runny, and pretty much ready for the trash(I'm used to Buffalo pumpkins that freeze and are good to go for the whole month). Oh well. Next year we will do it closer to Halloween and maybe the husbands will join in!

Carmel Apple Art
(only for those who where there to make them)


My friend Shawna wins the award for cutest pumpkins
(she had some exciting news to announce:)

Out trip, the cliff's notes version.

Hi everyone! Most of you know we just recently went on a small vacation to Provo, Ut (via a short stay in Vegas...as in one night) for Aaron's mission reunion. He served a mission in the Guatemala City Central mission 16 years ago . They haven't had a reunion for about 13 years so when we heard about it we made special arrangements to go. I don't want to bore everyone with a wordy lengthy post about it so I will give you one picture and one word to go with it. Here it goes... our trip cliff's note style.

Comida

Reunion

Companions

Before

After

Anxiety

Friends

"Stay"

Family

Handsome

Posing ;)

Love

Happy

Colors

Envy

Cuteness

Tall

Pondering

Freezing

Peaceful

Eternity

Obsessed

Squinty

Stand-off

1940?

Huge!

Relative?

Buddies

"Smile"

Tricks

Static

Pilot

Wrong

BFF

Famous

Today is the last day!

COME ON BY!

Do you like John Grisham?

Well, then I have a give away for you!

Just go to this blog and leave a comment and you could win a hardback copy of one of his books!

Fun Fact Friday!

I'm in Utah!

Okay, that's not my fun fact but we are having a fun time out here. I can't wait to share some of our pictures with you guys.

Since I'm traveling right not I think I will do a fun fact about traveling.

When I was 12 years old we took a train ride from Buffalo NY, to San Diego CA with my mom, sister (6mo) and my grandma. It had been my Grandma's life long dream to do that trip and since my Uncle(her son) was getting married in San Diego we figured it was a good time to take it.
We loved it! It took a long time but we got to see the whole country pass in front of us and no one had to drive. We liked getting out at the rest stops and buying jewelery from the Native Americans.

I have a lot of fun memories from that trip and most people can't say they have taken a train ride across the entire country!

How about you? Share one of your fun facts!

Fun Fact Friday

I can not stand the feeling of a car going backwards down a hill.

I seriously freak out! (This also applies to roller-coasters that go backwards but I still think that a car is worse.) I can't take it when I'm the passenger or the driver. I'm not really sure why or when this dislike started but I'm getting the heeby-geebies just thinking about it.

Aaron finds this very amusing and likes to torture me with it. It was the worst when we took a trip to San Francisco. On almost every incline he would take his foot off the ignition for a couple seconds just to see me freak out. He is such a sweetheart ;-)

Okay, your turn! Tell me one of your fun facts!

I got a haircut!

It was way past due. The girl that I used to have cut my hair moved to Washington State about 1 1/2 years ago and I haven't had it cut since (well, except for some unfortunate cutting that I did on it when I was desperate for a trim).

Aaron noticed on Facebook a friend of his was offering haircuts and he jumped on it for me. I was really glad because I met this super cute girl and got a great hair cut!

Man, was my hair long! You don't get a picture of the back of your head very often.

Aura took a little length off and added in lots of layers. I really like it. What do you think?

The good news is... She will cut your hair too! Her prices are unreal (inexpensive) and she can either do it at her place or, get this, she will come to you! Not only does she cut hair she does color, highlights, perms, extensions, updos, threading, waxing, makeup, facials, nails, and massages. She does hair cuts for men/boys too. I really enjoyed how knowledgeable she is in all things hair. This girl knows what she is doing.

Give her a call 562-688-4514 or email her at auraspencer@aol.com.