Singing, Wrestling, and Celebrating

Saturday morning shone bright and sunny, unusual for this time of year. We knew Miss G was already playing basketball a town or two away, but our sleepy crew couldn't pull off the early bird appearance this activity required. We ate some breakfast. Played with Maga's excitable little puppy. Went to the grocery store to pick up ingredients to make dinner for the family festivities that evening. Buck and Brennen even swapped the kitchen sink faucet. All-in-all, a busy morning!

But the activity that inspired the adventure in the first place took place that afternoon. My brother is in a massive high school choir. Each year, they put on a Christmas show . . . all 500 million of them! Okay, there weren't quite that many in the choir, but singers from eighth grade through senior high combined nearly 700 voices. This wasn't a giant auditorium, either. It smelled brand new, but it wasn't as gigantic as you'd think it would need to be for all those kids and a hired professional orchestra, not to mention a sold out crowd! But they were well taught. Half of the students sang simply by looking at the conductor's back, as he faced the choir on stage. The entrances and exits were so smooth. The transitions were filled with small group musical talent, acapella groups, and instruments. When every riser, and every wing, and every aisle filled with singing students it gave me chills. When they sang O Holy Night, basically in surround sound, as Buck had choir singers at his elbow, I had tears in my eyes. We weren't allowed to clap until it was all over and that was SO hard! Buck and I just looked at each other and mouthed, "Wow!"

These tickets sell out really fast each year. The school keeps the date of the sale and the time a secret, and they don't launch the opportunity to buy until just days before the festival. So . . . my mom scored when she managed to get enough tickets for the six of us, plus herself and Caliente--all in the same row (there's a six person max, so she had to buy twice). My kids weren't complaining about the fancy sweet treats lining the tables in the reception area either :) With all the decorated Christmas trees and dressy people, it was a very well-presented event. I'm SO glad we were able attend!

At the exact same time, my oldest nephew was busy in a completely different arena--wrestling. We no sooner hit the parking lot after my brother's concert, than my sister texted to say C was wrestling for the championship! My mom basically said, "Follow me!" and we headed south like Canadian Geese flying towards summer. Whew! It was an exciting drive to the nearby town where the wrestling tournament took place. All the way, we got text updates from my brother-in-law . . . this class is up, then the next class, he's after this!

The eight of us screeched into the second high school parking lot of the day, slammed the vehicle doors, and jogged up to our second high school of the day. We hardly gave the bored-looking ticket lady a second glance as we peeled off coats and headed for the gym.

At almost the same second our buns hit the bleachers, they announced my nephew on center mat. Eeeeek! So stinking exciting! He was wrestling up a weight class or two because they needed competitors in that category. Other than watching a few distant matches of our Colorado cousin Cody, I haven't been to a wrestling match probably since high school. One match is plenty for me, lol! Along with "Go! YES!!! Woohoo!!!" I was trying not to yell, "Hey! Be Careful! Don't hurt him or you'll have a crazy auntie down on that mat in record time!!" As if my big, buff nephew needs his auntie to protect him (I still see him as that little red-headed dude in the pictures I posted earlier though, so that's my excuse :)

My throat still hurts remembering my hollering, so I'll turn the excitement over to my guest blogger . . .

Testing, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Hi, This is guest blogger Graysen

And I’m here to talk about Cousin C wrestling. He was down by 5 points and he figured how the challenger worked. Once he did that, WOO HOO! He made a major comeback. C grabbed the challenger and, Boom!! The challenger was pinned under C’s strength! And first place C got! 

C's little brother was pretty excited for his hero! He even tried on the sweaty headgear without a pause. Also exciting to him . . . getting to ride home with Maga. "Whew! I'm so glad you got me out of there!" Lol, I guess it had been a long day of wrestling for him, too :)

Back at mom and dad's house, our previously prepared chicken enchiladas went into the oven. We made some rice and beans, but couldn't find guacamole in the all of the store (I know where it is in our local store), so we had a very "sort of" Mexican dinner. With noodles and leftover pizza from lunch :) Something for everyone, ha!

Because the puppeteers had another performance, we kind of hustled through the gift-opening festivities. We had six birthdays to catch up on! My sister and I always make each other gifts--although this year we both cheated and bought each other funny t-shirts :) Brennen got one too, so we had to take a triplet pic.




We also celebrated some upcoming birthdays, and were so happy to see the reactions to some of the bears the girls have made! Look how happy little Miss H is! A blur of joy :) It's a horsey bear--of course! And a puppy bear for Mr. L, "I love blue!" he says. So much fun to see them enjoy their gifts. And, since I'm still getting texts about it, the chocolate cake and frosting the girls made, too. What's a birthday party for six without dessert? :)



When we arrived home late that night (Buck got a little sidetracked by the video game VR :) I looked at the tag on my "Moosen" shirt. How funny are these care instructions?!  



It was a fast, full, family weekend, but I'm so glad we went and got to see my sister's crew and my brother doing the things they love to do. And it was so nice of them to have so MANY things to do, don't you think? We were highly entertained :)