Peter's Birthday and The Wall Street Scandal--Preparing for December Events

We have made it through the first of the holiday festivities with much activity and involvement. It began the weekend before Thanksgiving week. Peter’s birthday was on Thanksgiving Day, but Kortney wanted to put on a big surprise for him and scheduled a surprise party for him on November 23, the Saturday before his birthday. She rented a soft serve ice cream machine and set up a really cute ice cream bar, with toppings of all varieties and syrups and sauces, and cookies and other treats. She arranged to have it in the club house of one of the student apartment complexes in Provo. When he was in high school, Peter cut a CD called Pete Plays the Classics where he played music on his recorder, and had collaborations with a number of his friends. The music really wasn't strictly classics in the classical music sense, but they were silly songs that he and his friends had made up, and traditional songs like “Oh Suzanna” and other folk tunes appropriate to the recorder. There were also numbers that had been original works. Peter had written a poem called: Ode to My Belt, which had been set to music, and a song that he and a friend had written to perform at EFY called Modest Girl. Kortney’s idea was to have these collaborators come and play and sing in a sort of concert honoring the creation of this project. The response to Kortney’s idea to have a concert of the music from the CD was very good initially, although four of the performers dropped out the day before. One of the numbers on the CD was a poem that Paul wrote which Peter recited and for this “concert” Paul performed it. He did a nice job and because it is a humorous poem—got a big laugh. It was a really fun party. There were guests from a lot of different areas of his life. Old friends, of course, family on all sides, people from work, from Humor U, and extras, too. It came off really well, even if some of the performers weren't able to attend. Kortney enlisted the help of some family members to perform some of the numbers not represented by their original artists. Kortney had a photographer (her sister) take pictures of the guests and they are a souvenir of the evening. I had a wonderful Thanksgiving week because I only had to work on Monday and Tuesday and I had the rest of the week off. It is something quite divine to have a five day weekend. I had a few projects that I was working on. I am changing the sleeves on Erika’s wedding dress and a couple of other alterations. And I got much of that alteration done. I am finishing up the last of my genealogical books and I worked on that. I did some of the cooking for Thanksgiving even though it was at mom’s home—I worked on that. And so the days passed away. Paul and I went to Petersboro and put down some grass seed on Wednesday and had a trip into Logan for lunch. On the Saturday night after Thanksgiving, Peter’s friend group held their 10th annual murder mystery party. As it turned out one of the couples wasn’t able to attend and so Erika and Jono made up the fourth set of players. This murder mystery was set in 1987 and was called Wall Street Scandal –harkening back to the market crash in September of 1987. The costumes were an eclectic group of with some characters dressed very casually and some very dressy. This turned out to be the most appropriate time to use the dress that came from Aunt Lela’s collection. Erika looked very lovely in it and it fit her perfectly. She didn't love it, actually didn't want to wear it, but I talked her into it and Jono though it was such an interesting dress that she had to wear it. These murder mystery parties are always a lot of fun. They are work for me because I put on the dinners, but the kids anticipate them very much and there is so much laughter and animated chatter that I just have as much fun as they do vicariously. It is always very interesting to see what the players will be wearing and how close to they are to the costume suggestions that they get with their invitations. It has also been fun to see the participants grow up. We started doing this when the four main boys were juniors in high school and now they are in their late twenties married with children. And still trying to figure out what their lives are going to turn out like. Some are still in school, some just graduating, some working. Erika has been around for much of the years these murder mysteries have been going on. She has never attended one of Peter’s group because in the beginning she was too young and later she was away at school. She has had her own Murder Mystery parties with her own friends, but this is the first time that the two worlds have intersected. She knows Peter and Kortney well, but Peter’s friends have just been acquaintances for all these years. This was the first experience where she has been one of the group. I think that was nice for both Erika and Peter, but I don’t think either of them thought much about it. It just was that was the way it was. This is the end of the November activities and now we are looking forward to December activities. Dad has landed four tickets to the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert so we will be going to that. Tonight is my first Christmas Party of the season. It will be a dinner at the home of the head counselor at Corner Canyon High School and will be the five counselors, their husbands and/or wives, and the secretary and her husband (that would be me.) I am bringing the vegetables. Desserts, drinks, appetizers, and vegetables are being brought by the guests and Allyson is providing the meat. She has a lovely home and it will be an enjoyable evening to be sure. We will be having a number of parties, activities and concerts as part of the season. (Which is my favorite part) I will host one of my bookclub Christmas parties. The other one will be at a restaurant. The ward Christmas Party is on Saturday. We also have the Back Country Horseman Christmas Party. I am not doing the dinner this year—but I am in charge of the table decorations so I am thinking about that. I have started getting our Christmas decorations out. I have the tree up and most of the inside decorations up, but still have to put out the outside decorations and that may be a bit tricky now, since we had our first big snow storm today.