Day 13....

Took Lauren to see one of her dance teachers perform in a wonderful ballet, "The Nutcracker". It was 55 minutes of the most beautiful costumes I had ever seen. Thing that stood out the most: Miss Michelle's perfect dancing--and the big green blob of makeup covering up the large star tattoo on her back! This was once again, another lesson on why it is never good to get tattoo of any kind.

After that, Lauren made a darling card for her little sister at dance, and grabbed her gift and we were off to the Dance Team Christmas party. Dropped her off, came home and the boys were out

doing some Christmas shopping. Used the time to wrap some more gifts and do the dishes.

At 7pm, we all got in our fancy holiday clothes and drove up to the Honda Center in Anaheim. Andrea Bocelli was performing and we got there just in time! Took our seats and the lights went down and the orchestra began to play. It was enchanting. The voice of that man--well, I could have listened to him for hours. The first half of the show was filled with some of his opera hits, and the second half was all Christmas. He had one song where a dozen or so children came out and sang with him, "Santa Claus is coming to Town" --if you can imagine that! "Silent Night" brought tears to my eyes, and can that man hold a note! NIko said, "Man, I can only do that for two seconds and then I have to breath. He is awesome!"

I want our kids to witness excellence on many levels. I pointed out this man's success, not because of his voice, but in spite of his inability to see. When he sat down to play the piano, Niko was blown away. "How did he learn if he can't see?" Lauren enjoyed both halves of the show, and giggled when he had four curtain calls! Culture is all around us, thank goodness.