www.Wonderful.Westbowles.Weekend.com

Friday at work we had a Halloween potluck so I made an Apple - Snicker doodle Cobbler for that, and then booked it from work, picked up my Hershey chocolate cake cupcakes, and was on our way to Breckenridge, CO!!!! I had gotten a call halfway through the day asking if we could stop at the church and pick up some microphone stuff because the stuff that they had up there wasn't working so we totally got to save the day!! When we stopped by the church, another choir member was sitting in the parking lot. Her name is Jenny and she is a fantastic singer, sings for the Denver Symphony Orchestra!!!! But she was scared to drive there by herself so despite our offer for her to ride with us, or eat a piece of our $5 Hot n' Ready Pizza, she followed us the whole way in her car! If we had not stopped in at the church she would have turned around and not even gone... which would have been sad and bad because she leads sectionals for the women!

I drove so I didn't get to enjoy the beautiful scenery as much as I wish because I had to keep my eyes on the darn road, but on the way home Nick drove and I took pictures! We got there about 7:15 and the practices started at 7:00 so that wasn't too bad! A lot of the other people had taken the day off and left Littleton at 12:30! Lucky them! We checked into our room really quick which was SOOO cozy and had an incredible view.....

The lodge

from the entrance to our room

our cozy mountain lodge room!

the view from our room to the left

the view from our room - straight out/to the right a bit

.....and then ran over to the Mountain View Room which we would be spending a significant amount of time in the rest of the weekend. The goal of the weekend was to learn all our Christmas music and to get to know one another better! The Choir is 60+ people and I know the people I sit near, but I don't know many of the Alto's at all! We played a really fun get to know you game called: Speed Relating... everyone lined up in 2 rows facing each other... one side stayed seated and every 45 seconds the other side moved down a seat. We had a paper with 20 or so questions on it and you had to ask as many questions of each other as you could in 45 seconds.... ex. where were you born, chocolate or caramel, pet peeves etc.

After we were significantly tired from working so hard on the music, around 10pm, half the choir piled in to 2 outdoor hot tubs in 10 degree weather which felt amazing... There was ice around the top of the tubs!

Nick and the 2 jr. high kids that were there rolled around in the snow and jumped back in. Nick made a snow angel!

Saturday was mostly sing for an 1.5-2 hrs then break, then sing then break... lunch was the big subs from subway.... then we had a communication seminary... Communicating Through the Choir by one of our Choir Member's who is a professional speaker who speaks on 127 topics around the world!!! She had been secretly video taping the choir close up and let people watch what they looked like when they were "leading worship" & "singing to the Lord"!! Most people were shocked by how angry they looked, or how they never looked up from their folders, and didn't look like they were happy to be there! Only me and 1 other lady got complimented on how we looked while singing! My mom was always the one to watch when they choir was singing at home! I guess I learned that from her.. Our choir director is talented but she's "Tooo Nice" and has a hard time telling people... and it is a fine line between insulting and helpful.

We were singing this one worshipy song "Let Us Adore" and Rebecca (our choir director) told us all to turn around... we were then facing the mountains. We were singing "Let Us Adore" facing His majestic mountains... I don't think there was a dry eye in the place - it was soooo powerful!!! 

Hallelujah, You are Worthy!!!!!

In the morning it was cloudy.... but it still looked cool!

this is right outside our choir room

on the patio outside the choir room!

on the patio outside the choir room! (Nick took this awesome picture of me!)

Most of the Choir
(we had probably lost 10 or so people at this point)

on the patio outside the choir room!

We stopped in on our way home to take this picture...
....set the camera on a rock!

On the drive home!

Back home in Littleton, but look how cool the sun looked behind the clouds!
It was like a Rainless Rainbow!

When we got home, I put up our Christmas Tree and had a blast taking pictures! Nick told my I could put it up as soon as it came in, and I compromised with his nice offer by saying I wouldn't decorate it until after Thanksgiving! We're going to get Scarlet and Silver bulbs I think (OSU)!! Nick must have thought the tree looked bare because he put the Angry Birds in the Tree!!! The tree came pre-lit with the pine cones on it! Love it!

Cozy, with a cup of Egg Nog!!!

 

Sunday at the 10 O'clock service we had close to 30 baptisms, (30 were planned but a few people must not have been available) but still so cool! Then home for a Sunday afternoon nap before heading out to be the photographer at the Harvest Festival. I got asked to be the official photographer for the event! I took close to 800 pictures, and managed to narrow it down to around 120 on the Children's Ministry Facebook Page for our church!

how cute is this little gnome??

This is Pastor George and the founder of our church!!

This is our friend Chris!!

It got fuller than that but it was fun!

Isn't she adorable!!???

This one was sooo pretty! Love the costume!

She's one of the Youth helpers! Hilarious costume!!

Precious Laney!!!! We love her!!

Laney needed a horse to her cow girl outfit! Why not? Laney's little sister Tru was her horse!

I was there from 2:30-7:30, helped clean up and then stuck around for youth group since Nick was coming to the church for that! I took pictures of their "Halloween Dance Party"! It was really cool, they actually had a DJ and crazy lights and the music was soo loud you could feel the vibrations through your whole body! It was fun! They played clean songs and they all just had fun!  There were a few costumes that I felt were kind of "in-appropriate" but what can you do right? Just work on encouraging the girls to be modest for those poor boys who are trying to be good.

Kharis used to be in the choir so she is my friend! She's one of the Youth Group kiddo's! We both had sidekicks!

Entrance to the Dance Party!!

Cool eh?

The DJ's were great!