Friday, April 29, 2011

More Sounds of Spring.

A week after heading to the waterpark to see Me and My Monkey, we headed back for another tribute band: Petty Theft.
As the name suggests, this group pays homage to the great Tom Petty. It's fronted by sports radio host Mike Rhyner.

Ryan opted out of this outing, but Katie went along for the music and sunshine.

I was pretty tickled just to have the chance to hold my sweet husband's hand for the evening.

We're big Petty fans, so this concert was filled with sing-along moments. Tons of fun.



The bonus: Fireworks! Because of bad weather a few weeks earlier, the fireworks were rescheduled for this night. The musical accompaniment even included Katy Perry's latest single: "Firework."

So I guess you could say we had a BLAST!

Monday, April 25, 2011

Happy birthday, ChaCha!

Oh, no. We do NOT spoil our precious kitty, ChaCha! Doesn't everybody get birthday cakes for their cats?

Sweet, sweet ChaCha. We are so glad you joined our family five years ago!

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Easter 2011.

I hate to admit it, but this Easter was a disappointment. Because of my mom's move to a retirement home, followed closely by the decision that she no longer drive, we were all stressed to the limit. Plus, we were still overwhelmed with the enormous task of clearing out her old apartment.

So when it came time to do the ol' egg dyeing and Easter baskets, we went through the motions, but it just wasn't the same.





On Easter morning, the kids (and Brett) found their baskets on the kitchen table.


Brett went GAGA for his alien (in lieu of a bunny)!

And I loved the flowers the Easter Bunny brought me!

After our Easter breakfast, we headed to Heritage for church. Upon arrival, we could see that Saturday night's winds had done some damage to our building.

Our steeple fell!

I've been working in the church A/V booth for eight or nine years now, and it's no surprise when things go wrong in the booth on Easter and Christmas. We've had random computer crashes, unexplained squawky mics, lights that decide not to shine, you name it. We chalk those goings-on as casualties of spiritual warfare and move on. So needless to say, when I saw that steeple on the ground, I had to think that maybe Satan had fired a warning shot.

My concerns were unfounded, and both services went well: We worshiped, we praised, we uplifted, celebrating the resurrection that changed the world. And I let myself think the hard part of the day had passed.

I was wrong.



The rest of the day, while it had its moments, turned out to be not as joyous as we would have liked. It ended up being less of a celebration of our Savior's triumph over death and more a reminder of how messed up our world is.

But even that is an Easter lesson all its own. Because Jesus died for us, we have hope of a life much, much greater than this one, an eternal life free from tears, quarrels and disappointments.

Friday, April 22, 2011

More monkeying.

Ah, spring. Busy days, pleasant evenings, and in our case, opportunities to get outside and enjoy some local music!

For the second year in a row, we were thrilled to catch Me and My Monkey, the Beatles tribute band, as part of a local city's Sounds of Spring concert series.

The concert was just outside that city's waterpark. (Last year we were in the parking lot, so the grassy lawn was a big improvement over that gravelly locale.)

We picked up some Anna's Chicken to devour as we waited for the sun to go down.

We were worried that high winds might cancel the performance because of the portable band shell the city uses. The show did go on, but it was so windy, the guys had a hard time holding on to their moptops.



We enjoyed the concert, singing along the whole time. The consensus was that we preferred last year's concert (with more of the early tunes and less of the later, harder stuff).

In spite of that, we had a blast enjoying the music of our favorite band...

and watching our neighbors dancing along.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Hangin' with CJ.



Rangers starter CJ Wilson is a pretty cool dude. He's a phenomenal pitcher, and he really knows how to relate to fans. One of his events was a fundraiser at Splitsville in Arlington. We went to rub shoulders with this hero from the Rangers' run to the World Series last year.

GameStop was there with a mobile gaming truck.

CJ is into racing (which explains his Twitter name, @str8edgeracer). A couple of his cars were on display.

Inside, we found ourselves a booth to await the man of the hour.

CJ greeted everyone as a group,

and then it was time for autographs and photos. He was kind enough to converse with Brett about the Rangers' amazing 2010 season.

Family photo!

Pretty cool to have CJ's autograph!

After the meet-and-greet, it was time to bowl! Captain, the Rangers' mascot, even got in on the action.

The kids and Brett bowled pretty well; I did NOT. Good thing CJ can throw strikes better than I can bowl them!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Family treasures.

Among the many, many keepsakes we found while cleaning out my mom's apartment were these gems:
the doorstop I made in 6th grade exploratory shop class

Sesame Street finger puppets that I played with for years (and then we kept them around for visits from friends' children)

an old Santa book and construction paper stockings I made in 5th and 1st grades

Daddy in 9th grade

Don't you know there's a good story behind this page of the scrapbook!