Elizabeth O'Brien:  

. To date, Portland's Singing Christmas Tree has about 275 members who represtent somewhere between 104 - 120 chruches in the area. Some people have been known to travel as far away as Eugene, and Pacific City, on a weekly basis. These people are all volunteers, practicing each Monday night starting from Labor Day and running through our performance time, which usually runs into the first week in December. We usually spend the last weekend in October in Cannon Beach, Oregon, at our annual retreat, where we record or CD for the year and have a wonderful time of fellowship learning our music. Tim, my husband, is retired from Atofina, a chemical company that shut down in January of 2001, due to high electricity costs and low profits. He enjoys his time off doing lots of hunting and fishing in the Great Northwest. Angela, our daughter, is a Special Events Manager for Audiences Unlimited, an audience seating company based out of Los Angeles, California. She arranges and coordinates audience seating for sit-coms and award shows in Hollywood. She graduated from Pacific Luthern University in Tacoma, Washington in June, 1999 in Journalism and made her way down south to follow her dreams..... She seems to be enjoying her job and manages to make it home a few times a year. I have recently officially retired from Portland Public Schools, as of April 1, 2005, but have chosen to continute substituting. I typically work in about 5 different schools in the Portland area, the majority being request work, which allows me to know ahead of time where I am to work the following day. That works for me!!! Someday I will retire from teaching, but I have the distinct privilage of being able to follow children through their wonder years. I see them in kindergarten, first, second, third........and sometimes meet up with them in hight school. What teacher is able to say that about their students?