How the Rest was Won

And here we go!  Down with the Star Wars set and up with the Old West.  Mommy spent a good deal of time gathering costuming for the actors and actresses, and of course there was plenty of work to go around as well.  You can see the set for yourself throughout a few of these pictures here on this page.

Those are actual toothpicks in the cactus, by the way.  And that bale of hay there is covered with flame retardant material three times over, just to satisfy the fire marshal.  Which it probably won't.  Speaking of bale... or bail...

Here's the jail.  Nerdo is the sheriff in this part of town, a sort of character inspired by Don Knotts in "Hot Lead and Cold Feet" or some other movie like that.  The townspeople there are Mary Shannon and Nate, both who live there or work at the bank.

We had a great message from Pastor Lance, one we all worked on together some time ago.  It was about the rodeo, about holding on firmly - all while having one hand in the air.

We had rodeo games too - Josh here below had kids use a lasso to get some adult volunteers who had stick horses on their backs.

It was a lot of fun, a lot of noise, and of course all kinds of cowboy music.  Madison and the other kids really enjoyed the day, and they all walked away talking about "holding on, and praising God."

As for the drama, it started out really well too.  The actors are all so good, and Daddy came back to the stage this series, as you can see above.  His character "Dusty" has been around at KidPak for over a decade, and it was quite some time ago that he was last seen on KidPak's stage.  This time around, it was just so much fun.  Having a talented cast like this makes it so easy.

The new books were given out, new music, new costumes, new everything.  It was a great start to a new series, with lots of easter eggs and shout-outs to classic western movies or characters.  Madison wore her cowboy hat and new boots we got her yesterday - we'll have to take a picture of her on stage next week.  Or we could do that for the Old Time Western Booth we're planning on setting up for the following weekend.  The idea is to make one of those sepia tone photos that kids can find online.  No doubt, Mommy and Daddy will be involved in that again.

The rest of the day was a bit of well-deserved rest. We thought about making a fall trip out to get pumpkins, but the truth is we were just too exhausted to do much of anything today.  So there were naps, and video games too.  Madison played a lot of piano this afternoon - things are getting a little more tricky.  It was much more time consuming, getting all geared up to play some new tunes that were a challenge to get the fingering right with.  Nevertheless, she stuck with it.  Of course, the reward of a Vinylmation figure was hanging out there too.  She drew one from the bag, and this guy was ugly.  In fact, the last two have been supremely ugly.  But there's something about ugly things like this with kids.  It's like, "Ew!  Gross!"  And then it goes up on the shelf as a display item.

We continued our October movie series with "Wallace and Gromit:  The Curse of the Were-Rabbit."  Which again, is a genius of a movie.  Absolutely brilliant.  Love this movie, and we have to watch it each October.

We went to bed later tonight - there was a Presidential debate on.  This election season is not pretty at all, that's for sure.  It gets you so mad, you want to turn off the television, turn off the radio, turn off the internet, and just do that whole Psalm 46:10 thing:  "Be still and know that I am God."  That might be a good thing to do right now, actually!