The Newsboys

Rachel and Ethan and I had a really fun day on Saturday.  I met a PW friend at Panera Bread for lunch, and then we headed on down to Cedar Rapids for the Healing  the Heartland festival.  There were some fun activities to watch (like a strong man group that showed their stuff, and some skateboarders that were fun to see), and then a FREE concert.  There were a few testimonials and altar call type moments, but aside from that, the concert was wonderful!  It began with David Phelps.  We enjoyed his music!

He sang for around an hour.  Next was BarlowGirl.  They were quite a rockin' band, that's for sure.  The crowd really got into their music.  They spoke about purity, and promote not dating.  They were fun to watch.

 

Ethan was bored through some of the day...

Rachel was waiting patiently for the Newsboys to start.

Here is a picture of what she and I saw for most of the day...

so when it was time for the Newsboys, we went and stood up near the stage.

Michael Tait.  What a voice that man has!  He was fun to watch and really got the crowd into the event.  He read some Scripture verses, and sang, and sang, and sang!

We were pretty close to the stage!

For a while they moved the whole concert out to the "B" stage, but the keyboard wasn't working well, so they moved back to the regular stage.

just LOOK at those drumsticks fly!

It was just an awesome concert!  Rachel and Ethan are still talking about it, and we are all still singing their songs!

A New Venture in Life

for Rachel and Ethan.  They joined the Swim Team this year.  They have practice every day, and a meet once a week or so.  They participated in their first meet tonight.  It was Ron and my first experience in attending a meet.  We made a list of things to remember for the next meet.  More food.  Snacks.  Chairs.  Hat.  Blankets.  Sweatshirts.  Hmm...perhaps you can tell it got CHILLY out their tonight.

Here are, of course, some pictures.

Rachel, first.

ready...

set...

go!

Rachel did a great job tonight!  We're proud of her.  I can't wait to see how she improves over the course of the next few weeks!

Next....Ethan

Way to go, Ethan!  We're proud of you! We're looking forward to watching you improve over the course of the summer!

 

Baseball Season

Ethan is the only kid playing baseball this year.  He had his first game this week.  While his team didn't win, they only lost by a few runs, and Ethan had some great hits in his turns at bat!

Hit that ball!!

Run to first.

SAFE!

Safe on second!

Safe on third!

And then....5 runs OR 3rd out.  Rats...he didn't make it home.  BUT...this is just the FIRST of many games this summer!

Happy Birthday, Ron!

We celebrated Ron's birthday last week.  We let him choose what he wanted to do, and camping was his choice of a birthday celebration activity.  Fortunately we have a nice campground that is fairly close to home, so even with the boys working at the pool, we could easily run back and forth.  We got there around 3 and set up the tents.

and then Ronnie got a GREAT fire going.

We all sat around and enjoyed the sunshine and the nice fire.

Cameron built things out of little pieces of fire starting wood...little things easily occupy this child of mine.

We prepared camper pizzas and fruit pies

which Ronnie cooked to perfection, while Cameron built things, Rachel read a book, and Caleb and Ethan had light saber fights.

Then we ate..and ate...and ate..YUM!

Breakfast was Spam and eggs.  KT REALLY wanted some...

c'mon, Rach...won't you PLEASE share that SPAM with me????

Could anyone resist that face?  Rachel sure couldn't.  She gave KT her very last bite of Spam.  That is true love!