F-M Christmas Choir Concert

Yesterday, the Fargo-Moorehead Children's Choir had their annual Christmas Concert and party at the Olivet Lutheran Church in Fargo- a VERY pretty church inside. Here is the entire choir. Jasmine is on the far left bottom row. This photo is hilarious. I asked Jasmine to turn around so I could take her picture while they were waiting to go onstage. She turned her head away, but this cute little boy who is always animated and smiling looked right at me. I wanted to ask the mom if I could take him home with me:) After the concert, we had a little Christmas party that consisted of sugar, sugar and more sugar. So, to top it off- we stopped on the way home and got an oversized pizza because we had a coupon:) Here is Stefani under the Christmas tree- right before she took some ornaments off of the tree!

Awesome Pawsome 4-H Club meeting....

Jasmine is in 4-H with her cat Stefani:) Today, we had the 4-H meeting at the Moorehead Library. Julie Stein is a sheriff with Clay County. She works with her dog Brady who was chosen from the pound for his unruliness and friendliness to sniff out Zebra Mussels- which are a huge problem in Minnesota. The mussels attach to boats and can destroy a lake ecosystem when introduced to the lake by being stuck on someone's boat. Literally everyone around here has a boat since there are so many lakes for boating and fishing. Brady went thru a process which only took a few months of training for him to recognize the mussel smell. When he finds the smell, he immediately sits down and gets a toy. Brady also can find a firearm buried up to one foot deep in an area of a football field. One time, he was on a mission to find some guns in a field that were related to a crime 30 years ago. There were no guns, but he did find an old firecracker buried in the field. The criteria for the dog is to be friendly and floppy eared (as opposed to straight ears for the "attack dogs") be toy motivated and also be somewhat unruly. They do not want a well- disciplined dog. They want one who will jump on tables, get into people's pockets and bags:) Apparently, Brady fits all of those criteria:) Jasmine did smile a little when Brady came over to meet her. Here is our Awesome Pawsome 4-H group.

Fargo P & R Gingerbread House making.....

This morning, I told Jasmine I had a "surprise" for her. We went to downtown Fargo to a very old building which used to be the first schoolhouse in Fargo. It is now used as one of the many Parks and Recreation buildings. Apparently, the school was built in 1894, had many additions, and now is used for offices and P&R classes. We did pretty well with the gingerbread house until we had to take it to the car, then it collapsed. Here is Jasmine with the loveliest smile she could come up with for the morning. Believe me, the others were much worse. She wouldn't let me work on the gingerbread house until it was apparent that we were very behind all of the other participants- since the kids were working hand in hand with their mom or dad. Here is the first schoolhouse built at the location where we made the gingerbread house. This photo was taken in 1878. Here is our house when we got it home:) I had fun, even though Jasmine pretended not to.

Christmas tree exhibit at Fargodome....

Today we visited Fargodome where there were hundreds of decorated Christmas trees by various businesses in the city. Several of them were covered with the NDSU green and yellow everything. Everyone around here wears green and yellow hats, coats, shirts, boots, stuff on their cars. It's endless green and yellow in every store:) Here is Jasmine with her usual nasty expression that she has on her face about 99% of the time for the past 5 years. Such a joy to be around! We did go to a kid's magic show put on by one of the local magicians. It was fun! (for me anyway)

Fargo- Moorehead Children's Choir mini concert

Tonight, there was a huge sale at the WestAcres Mall from 6-9 pm. People had to pay 5.00 for a bunch of coupons so they could go crazy in all the stores. Not really the place I wanted to be on a Sunday night, but FM Children's Choir had a concert in front of JC Penney's:) It was kind of a mini practice concert for the Christmas concert in December. The mall was SO crowded. The kids each got a coupon for a free cookie at Mrs. Field's Cookies- way on the other side of the mall!!! We walked over there to get a quarter sized cookie -gone in one bite. Then all the way back to the other side of the mall to go home. This is the Emerald Choir Grade 3-6. This is the Diamond Choir- Grades 7-12 plus the Emerald Choir. The Ruby Choir preschool- 2nd grade had their own little concert.

11/18/08- official adoption day in Vietnam

We celebrated by having dinner at Lucy's Chinese Quisine. It was really cold, and we didn't feel like going anywhere. Lucy's Chinese Quisine is right around the corner from us- so, instead of Vietnamese food, we went to a Chinese restaurant.

Musician of the month....

Jasmine couldn't/wouldn't tell me what she did to become one of the "Musicians of the Month", but she did point it out to me one morning at school. Top row- home room "Mr. Schumacher".