Jolly Holiday

We started out a bit busy this morning with two different activities - first the usual trip by Lowe's to build something together.  This morning's trip started with us getting our monster truck kit, although we didn't have time to actually build it yet.  We picked it up, and just as important, we picked up the patch that shows our completion of the project.  Don't worry - Madison won't get the patch until she builds the monster truck.  In a few weeks there is yet another monster truck to build, and there is actually one you can order from Lowe's online, so we might do that too - and have ourselves an armada of monster trucks.  Then we can have races.  We can put pathetic wooden cars in the way as obstacles, only to watch them crushed, crumbled and chomped by the oversized wheels of monster truck awesomeness!  But I am getting ahead of myself a bit.

This morning's big activity was the Mary Poppins camp, where she goes to practice ballet.  This was a two-hour event, starting with the picture you see above.  There were crafts and of course a dance routine to run through.  All the parents as usual jockey for positions in this small room, and watch the tiny dancers attempt to remember this one dance routine they just learned less than an hour ago.  All set to the music of "Mary Poppins."  It's adorable, of course.  And it's fun - Madison enjoys these camps, including the Nutcracker-themed one she attended last November.

Afterwards, we went to work - and stayed there a while.  We were setting up for one more service of Northern Lights, the one that will wrap things up.  We finished with our ongoing drama, our serial.  But there was still a bit to do to set things up for videos, a spotlight skit, and of course the message.

The message is about the light of the world, which we posted here previously.  It starts with the Northern Lights, and goes on from there.  I really like the concept of God being 'the Father of Heavenly Lights,' a reference in James that we start with.  We sort of show some examples of the Northern Lights, and of course shift over to a discussion about being the light of the world, shining out in darkness.

Once upon a time, Daddy saw the aurora borealis.  I had no idea what I was looking at, but sure enough, that's what it was.  We were in South Dakota, of all places.  We saw it in the  middle of the night, an explosion of silent color streaking across the sky in waves of green and blue and white.  We had no idea what we were looking at, because this is the sort of thing you only are supposed to see in Alaska, right?  But there it was, going on and on - it was almost like a dream.  If not for the fact that I had a good friend with me, I would have thought it was a dream.  Sure enough, we were seeing the northern lights.  It is something so beautiful, and I hope some day Madison will get to see it.

But of course not today.  Can you believe when we got home, our Viking snowman was still standing tall?  The weather was chilly just enough to preserve our icy snowman, helped out of course by the fact that the shade of the house keeps him out of the sun.  He should melt tomorrow or the next day, but there is literally no snow left in our neighborhood except for this mighty snowman we've assembled a few days ago.  Madison posed for a picture with the snowman for good measure - a picture taken a few days after he was first built.  We love Viky!

Tonight we started a new theme:  Hawaii.  Madison wanted to watch "Lilo and Stitch" once again, and so we did.  But we had to have all the stuffed Stitch dolls downstairs.  And Madison had to be wearing flower leis and a grass skirt.  It was just like the old days - she doesn't remember the urge to do the hula when the Hawaiian music starts.  But we all love this movie quite a bit.  There are three other movies to watch - and a few episodes of the television show. She's anxious to get those going as well, but that might have to wait until tomorrow.

Speaking of which, we have to get some rest for tonight.  Tomorrow is a big day!