Adventures at Temple Square

Well, Christmas is officially here.  I'm still not done with my shopping and some of the things I've ordered online aren't going to be here in time- but ready or not, here it comes.

I have had the privilege the last few years to go to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert. My friend Ana is my concert going buddy. I love that I have a friend who will go to these cultural things with me.

We left really early- and it's a really good thing because traffic was a freaking joke! We drove all over downtown looking for a spot- all of our usual places were full. By the time we drove around the temple and back to City Creek, spots had opened up so we ended up parking in our usual spot anyway. Sigh...

We nixed the shopping and just went straight to the conference center. We got our seats but we still had about a half hour before the show started. We entertained ourselves by taking a few (dozen) selfies.

 I thought I'd try the hat look.

 I don't think I can pull it off.

I read somewhere that the "duck face" look is out and the new things is called the "fish gape" (seriously, google it). I was trying to demonstrate it for Ana. I think I nailed it.

 She tried it too -but she wouldn't send me the picture of her trying it. hahaha!

 The show was absolutely spectacular! I was a little worried after how amazing last year's show was that I'd be disappointed, but it was amazing. The Sunday prior to the MoTab concert I went with some girls from my ward to a performance of Handel's Messiah. I'm so glad that I went to that- because the story that was featured in the concert this year was the story of the Handel and how the Messiah gained popularity. They had soloists from the Metropolitan Opera there to perform selections from the Messiah, as well as stage and screen actor Martin Jarvis to narrate. And as if that wasn't enough, they had Broadway star Laura Osnes there. Oh my gosh it was amazing. When the sang the Hallelujah Chorus and the audience stood- I just stood there and cried. It was so moving. So beautiful. I hope that Handle knows how much his music has changed the world.

After the concert we wandered temple square and had our own private photo shoot. We may have had WAY too much fun with this- but with a backdrop like that, it's hard not to go crazy.

Ana lost the back to one of her earrings so she asked me to hold it while she looked for the back- so I stood there holding it up- because it was pretty and well... why not? People passing thought I was holding it up in case someone was looking for a lost earring. hahaha!

We got tired of doing the same old poses so we tried to branch out on what we were doing in the pictures. Apparently standing with my mouth open makes a difference.

 Ana threatened to throw my purse in the water.

As we were taking pictures we saw one couple- I said to Ana, "I bet they're hanging around waiting for someone to take their picture for them." Sure enough, seconds later he came over and asked if he could take a picture for us. I teased him that he only offered so we'd take his. I was right. hahaha!

Then Ana and I decided to have a snowball fight.

 There was no winner.

While she stopped away to take the picture of the lovely couple, I decided to build a snowman.

 Well... a snow elf is what I was going for, I guess.

I tried to find little pebbles or something, but the best I could do was dirt that I scraped up from under a snowbank.

With my glove as a hat I was hoping he'd come to life. No such luck. Ana said he looked more like a little puppy- which actually, he kind of does.

 But I was still proud of him. And after we walked around for a while I looked and he was still there! :)

Around one part of the grounds are a myriad of luminaries with words written in languages from across the world. Every year we look at them but this is the first year we've been able to find something in Armenian!

 She was pretty excited to find it.

Because there are so many in other languages, I was pretty happy to find one in English!

 It was almost towards the end of the night when we realized that I still had the tag on my new scarf. That's embarrassing.

My ears got cold so I thought I'd use my scarf to keep them warm...

The Babushka look is a lot harder than you'd think.

Ana really liked this tree.

As we wandered I heard the sweet sound of bagpipes. Bagpipes?! As awesome as this night was- it just got that much better!  We sought out the piper and I made sure to get a picture with him.

I love that we matched.

There was some ill-attempted flirting... but meh.

 We wandered over to City Creek hoping some stores were still open- no such luck, but we DID run into some friends of mine from Colorado, Craig and Diana Nelson. They were in my ward in Aurora and Craig was my home teacher. it was so good to see them!

It was a great night. I can't wait until next year!