Angels In Voice

As we say goodbye to 2008, we have so many things to be thankful for this past year.  Our health has stayed stable and the Lord opened doors for our ministry allowing us the opportunity to sing in many places.  Ministering at the Twins Convention in August and meeting other sets of twins was one of the big highlights of this past year.  It was an experience we will never forget.  We had the opportunity to minister at several Ladies events as well.  The laddies spring tea, we sang at in March was a such a blessing for our family.   So many memorable moments to ponder about.  The new CD "Thank You Jesus" was also an answer to prayer.  God is so good!  As we end another year and begin a new one, we pray that 2009 will be another year that we can continue to honor and glorify our Savior.  We wish each and everyone a happy and healthy year! 

We had a very nice Christmas.  We spent it here at home with our family. Jody, Candice and I opened the gifts from our parents in the morning.  Candice and I received some really nice things, including two new Christian novels, some clothes, jewelry, two beautiful Angels for our room, Mandisa's CD and Mario Kart for the Wii.   It's a racing game and we've played it several times before with friends.  We've had some practice playing the past couple days and we're on our way to becoming pros.   Our friends Andy and Joanne gave us the Wii outdoor challenge and it looks like a lot of fun.  We have not played it yet, but we plan to soon.  Our parents baked a ham for our Christmas dinner and Anjeli, Jasmine, Sanjay, Aunt Judy and our cousin Barry as well as Chris, who is a dear friend of our family, spent the afternoon with us.  Chris was our grandma's care giver when she was placed into a care home.  Anjeli brought a smoked turkey and Aunt Judy brought a pot roast.  We had all kinds of food.  We had mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, veggies, cranberries and fruit salads as well as pumpkin pie and cherry pie, with vanilla ice cream.  After dinner we played on the Wii.  Anjeli had bought Jasmine the Wii Fitness for Christmas and so we tried it out and boy if you really want to get into shape that is the thing to do.  It is most definitely a challenge.  When everyone left, the five of us took a drive around the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights.  That was one of our traditions as kids.  We loved going out after the Christmas Eve service and looking at light displays.  It's so fun!  

Last week we enjoyed Christmas gatherings with family and friends.  Candice is feeling a lot better, she had to go back on 40mg of Prednisone for five days as she was having difficulty breathing.  We sang at church the Sunday before Christmas and she had to use oxygen that morning because she was really struggling and could not stop coughing.  We were so thankful the Lord gave her the strength to get through both our duet and trio with Sue.  It was really amazing.  We had our family get together that afternoon in Cottonwood at our sister Rhonda's home.  We had a wonderful time opening gifts and playing the white elephant gift game. There were 18 of us and it was exciting being there and seeing our great nephew Austin and great niece Leah again.  Austin is 8 months now and crawling and Leah just turned 7 months yesterday.  They are both so cute and getting big.  It was fun to watch everyone open their gift from their secret santa.  My secret santa was Austin and Candice's was Danielle.  It was too funny!!  We each got a cute pair of striped socks, a necklace and some really pretty earrings.  The white elephant game is always a blast.  There were some silly gifts as well as nice gifts.  Each year someone gets "snowman poop" and this year our mom was the one the lucky one.  HA!  Aunt Judy got it last year and wrapped it again for this year.  It's a big stocking filled with marshmallows.  It usually comes with a little poem.  Mom will have to wrap it up for next year.   It's interesting to see who opens it yearly.  We finished the evening with a round of Catch Phrase which has become our family game.  It's a great one to play when you have a big group of people.  

This Christmas season we've had several gatherings with friends.  We invited some friends over for food, and fellowship a couple of weeks ago.  We were also invited to the home of Celeste and Dr. Jain's for a gathering last Monday.  They are an Eastern Indian couple whom we met at the Logos Mission Church.  They are both so sweet and have our family over at least a couple times a year.  Celeste also invited some other Indian families.  She knows we are unable to eat spicy food, so she cooked us a chicken and rice dish which was delicious.  We had a wonderful time of food and fellowship.  Candice and I sang a couple of Christmas songs, and we all joined in for a Christmas carol sing along.  It really put us in the Christmas spirit. 

We trully enjoyed our time with friends and family during the month of December.  As Christians our hope is in our Lord.  HE is the reason we celebrate.  Dad, Candice and I are going to Pastor Thomas and Suchetta's home this evening for dinner and a time of fellowship.  Mom had surgery on her left eye yesterday.  So, she is recovering right now.  She had a horrible night and has been in more pain this time.  If you could please remember her in prayer, we would greatly appreciate it.  She said she would just like to get through these next few days.  May the Lord bless you abundantly this New Year.

Check the Photos Page, click on Photos Christmas 2008 for slide show.

Merry Christmas from Angels In Voice Candice and Crystal, will update later.

It's so amazing how fast the year has gone by.  Christmas is only eight days away and like every year we are never quite ready.  There is still shopping to be done, Christmas cards to finish, presents to wrap and gifts to be delivered.  I love the Christmas season.  It's a joyous time seeing all the decorations and lights and singing Christmas carols, and most of all celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  The cold and rainy weather outside is definitely putting us in the Christmas spirit.  

It's been a very hectic and busy past few weeks.  Candice had a viral infection for two weeks.  She finished the Zithromax and a few days later she started feeling worse.  She was coughing a lot, having shortness of breath and her lungs were very tight.  It was a struggle for her to talk and sing.  She put a call in for our Pulmonologist, Dr. Radford who was out of the office for a week.  She left a a message with the nurse informing her on what was happening.  Candice then called our PCP, and he called in 40mg of Prednisone for five days.  The first day after taking the Prednisone, the coughing was pretty much gone.  That weekend we had our church Christmas party at Organ Stop Pizza, and she really wanted to go to that.  We went last year and had a blast.  This year we brought Aunt Judy and our niece Jasmine with us.  We all had a great time listening to the beautiful sound of the organ and singing along with each Christmas song while enjoying pizza. 

Last Sunday evening we sang at a ladies Christmas banquet.  We did about 35 minutes of music, and mom shared our story to give us a breather.  It was so elegant and beautiful, and the ladies were very warm and welcoming.  We were just thankful to be able to minister and that Candice was feeling better.  We had a wonderful time with the women, they were such an encouragement to the two of us and our parents.

This past Sunday our church choir presented the "Spirit of Christmas."  We had a rehearsal on Saturday morning and it went pretty well.  Paul Nunez, the choir director came down with a horrible head and chest viral infection, so he wasn't feeling well at all.  I felt so bad for him, as he's been working so hard on all the decorations and music.  Candice and I were going to sing "The Prayer" as a trio with him, but because he was sick we sang our duet rendition of the song for the program. The cantata was a lot of fun!  We were surprised by a dear friend after the program which was really neat.  We have been singing and rehearsing so much lately.  The Lord has really given us the strength the past week to get through all our performances.  

Monday afternoon, we sang at a retirement center out in Mesa.  We sang there back in October, so most everyone remembered us from being there the first time.  We did about a 40 minute program.  I was struggling with my voice a bit because of singing so much as well as allergies.  I've been dealing with sinus headaches every day the past two weeks too.  We sang a couple of Christmas songs acapella which I think they really liked.  It was a real blessing.

Yesterday morning Candice woke up with an awful sinus headache and a low grade fever of 100.7.  She's not quite over the viral infection.  We were thankful we had an appointment with Dr. Radford.  By the time we arrived at our 11:00 appt. her fever and headache were gone.  Dr. Radford listened to her lungs and she could definitely hear something, so she prescribed Omnicef for three weeks hoping it would get her over this.  Both our PFTs are staying very stable.  Mine were 69% which is what they were six months ago.  Candice's were surprisingly higher yesterday at 67% and six months ago they were 65%.  We were really happy about that.  We adore Dr. Radford, she is a wonderful doctor so caring and understanding.  We're thankful for doctors like her that are willing to listen to us and meet our needs.

This coming Sunday we are singing at our church.  We're going to spend the next couple days working on "This Little Child."  It's a five minute song with a powerful message, and we feel it would be the perfect song to sing with everything that is going on in our world today.  We have our family party on Sunday afternoon up in Cottonwood at our sister Rhonda's home.  We drew names again this year as it makes it much easier to buy for one person instead of everyone.  We are looking forward to a fun day. 

May the Lord's blessings be upon you this Christmas season and through out the coming New Year.