Jessie’s fiancee is the choir director at a high school in the Tri Cities. He brought his A team to Portland yesterday to perform at the Festival of Lights at the Portland Grotto.

It’s kind of a big deal. Performing is by invitation only, and only five choirs perform a night.

Corey, the Kiddos and I donned our favorite winter apparel and headed over to Portland to hear his choir perform.

It was beautiful.

The acoustics in the church carried the voices out into the listeners and blanketed each in a depth of harmonies.

The girls were fascinated and listened with rapt attention.

 Except for Lulu, because, well, she’s two. But she tried really hard!

We watched as Scott directed and moved and pulled music from the ensemble. Each gesture was met with a response from the choir, piano to fortissimo, quick breath to extended hold, wax and wane.

They performed three Christmas-themed pieces. At the conclusion of each I wanted to shout, “Bravo!” and once they were completely done, “Encore!”

This marks the first concert of Scott’s we’ve been able to attend. But it certainly won’t be the last.

Nicely done sir!

Plus we got to see him after, in a “we get to take a picture with the celebrity” kind of way. The girls loved seeing their soon-to-be-uncle (and they also fist-bumped a Dominican friar, though I missed that photo…).

The music each night is fantastic, and the Christmas-lit Grotto well worth the entrance fee! Mo kept exclaiming, “It’s so beautiful! This is a beautiful night!”

And it really was.

(tree and moon picture credit to Corey)