Gabi's "Home"-Coming, Christmas Trees and our Cantata's

What a week! It started off with me heading back to work after being on and off for about two weeks. It devastated poor Nathan that his permanent play partner was leaving him to his own devices.... but I knew that a very capable "replacement" would be arriving on Friday! That would be Nathan's maternal grandmother, or Gogo as he affectionately calls her. She arrived after some unexpected drama at Oliver Tambo Airport(aka Johannesburg International Airport) when Liesel's grandmother's passport was confiscated due to an irregularity. Both Liesel's mom and grandmother were due to fly out to the USA together, but after this set back, Liesel's mom flew alone. But the good news she arrived on time and into the arms of Nathan who ran to meet her at Cleveland's airport!!! As a special bonus, God decorated the landscape for her with a fresh layer of snow. The funny thing is, there was no snow at all in Cleveland's city center, nor any of the suburbs I drove through on my way home! But as I turned the corner into my neighborhood, there it was - the fresh layer of snow making everything beautifully white!


On Saturday, Nathan, Gabi and myself went in search of the perfect Christmas tree! We found a place that sold a variety of trees, and we paced up and down finding one with the perfect shape. After a while, we decided that we wanted a Michigan Fir. It was conveniently netted for us and then tied to the roof rack of Liesel's Buick. When we got it home and into the tree stand, we saw that it was slightly bigger than what I expected! In fact, if you look at the photos, you can see that the highest part of the tree is actually bent against the ceiling! But Nathan, Gabi and I had great fun decorating this monster tree, and all Liesel was thinking about was the amount of needles that will fall off this tree in the next two weeks :)



On Sunday, our church had their annual Cantata which was simply fantastic! A choir consisting of 56 voices and an orchestra of 28 made beautiful, moving music! It was entitled "A Festival of Carols" and it really did lift one's spirit!
That evening, it was time for the children to perform their Christmas program! Nathan, along with many other pre-schoolers, marched confidently up onto the stage, shook his bells with vigor and sang his memorized songs :) We were very proud. Afterward, we took a slight detour on the way home, so we could enjoy some of the houses Christmas lights! There were some spectacular displays and one could see that some people spent a lot of time decorating their houses! When we came home, we put on our Christmas tree lights - and within a few minutes, Liesel spotted some smoke coming from the tree!!! One of the lights had shorted and started melting! Fortunately we never leave the lights on when we leave the house! So enjoy the photo's of the tree with the lights on, as those lights are now being taken back and some new ones will be bought :)