Handbells and horns

About 2 weeks ago, I had my first concert with the handbell choir. The concert was more for singing choirs, but we got to do one song by ourselves and two songs with the choirs. It was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed playing the bells and I'm looking forward to any other concerts I might be able to join in on. Unfortunately, I'll miss playing at the Christmas mass though. I've got some pictures of us polishing the bells after the last practice.This is one of our high school students. He is a drummer, and he also plays some of the really large bells.

This is me at the beginning of our assembly line. I was applying the polish while the others took it off. By this time though, I was done with applying it and was helping with the final polishing.

One of the larger bells up close.

The whole group of us who stayed to polish. The other bell players were in the choir, so they're at practice here.

Six months in the waiting, our Toyota Prius has finally arrived! We picked it up yesterday and took some pictures. Driving it home was fun, and then it snowed a foot and a half last night. It's in the garage, but I don't know if I want to get it out! :) Our other car has to sit outside now. And of course, it's piled with snow. We have a carport that we found in the garage, but we haven't had the chance to put it up before the snow came. But anyway, here are a few pictures of it.

Odometer reading of 9 miles on the car. It was actually 7 when we got it, but we took it for a spin before we went home.

Under the hood, before it gets dirty. See how clean and shiny it is?!

Me, parking the car in the driveway when we first got home.

Okay, I have to mention Pugsly in this post, even though I was trying not to. We decided to collect some used blankets for the rescue where we got Pugsly. We went to Goodwill and bought some really old, cheap blankets and just threw them on the kitchen floor when we got home. Eventually we plan on washing them, but in the meantime we wanted Pugsly to give them a trial. Well, he LOVES them. He has not slept on his blanket since these arrived. At first, he was just sleeping on top of the pile, but now he has taken to crawling through the blankets and covering up with them. At first you could still see his head, but now he's burrowing so far in there that you can't even see him anymore. Last night I came into the kitchen to turn off the light and say goodnight to him, but I couldn't find him. I called his name and then saw the blankets stirring. Of course, we managed to capture some pictures of him doing this, but they'll have to wait till the next post. They aren't downloaded off the camera yet. But just know that you're in for a really big treat. The pictures don't do it justice. I wish you could see him. We've decided that he needs a new blanket now so that he can burrow all the time.