Cool Sunday

This morning started out with KidPak and Free Chapel's main service for Madison.  She was up in the main sanctuary, right up there in front as always.  The favor she has right now is pretty amazing, as you can imagine.  People get there early right now, waiting in line outside for the doors to open, and a lot of them are really wanting some of these prime seats up front, but Madison goes up and sits with one of the security ushers right up there in the front, and she gets to see all the messages each week.  God's Word will not return void!  

Here's a picture from backstage tonight.  I thought it was funny, because it was all guitars on their wall hangers, except that one squirt gun there.  Mom painted that earlier, and we're using it this series as our Blobfish Ray, a weapon that you zap other characters with, and they temporarily think they're a blobfish.

She comes down to KidPak afterwards, and that's where I was all morning with the cast, doing a final skit of our Spy Games series.  It went better than expected, this after a lot of travailing over the script, which was another one of those ongoing moments where I had a bit of writer's block.  The good news is that it went really well, with the kids really following along.  These series go by so quickly, just like they used to, lasting only a month.  And then we're off to the next one.  Lately, we've been doing six to eight series per year, but this year we actually will have twelve series under our belt.  All of them were from a previous year, although "Faith Over Fear" was a variation of the "No Fear" series we did some time ago.

The church is decorated pretty much as it usually is, with a few new items near the entrance inside, a few photo opportunities.  It looks nice.  Madison took these pictures above, and many more as she was waiting for me to get the car.  

I took this one, of course.  It was cold and a bit rainy outside.  Tomorrow is supposed to be colder, and the day after that colder still.

We were at home the rest of the day, doing a bit of decorating still, and also doing a new puzzle we picked from the library.  It's a jigsaw puzzle that is an image of at least fifty different Christmas ornaments all packed together, which basically means this one will take a lot longer to do!

We watched "Meet Me in St. Louis" finally, a movie we picked up from the library yesterday.  I picked it up because it is the source of the song, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," which is one of my favorite Christmas songs ever.  I thought it would be nice to see another new Christmas movie, and the movie was okay.  It wasn't our favorite, although it has a lot of familiar songs in it.  Story-wise, not much happens in it, but that's okay.  There's something about it that reminds me of "The Carousel of Progress" in the basic house structure and characters, and even the fact that there's a World's Fair involved.  

Okay, I just literally looked it up, and there's still World Fairs going on.  The next one is in Dubai, so I don't think we're going to make it.  For one reason, Dubai is a little bit of a drive away.  That's a joke.  The other reason is that I'm not sure if these things are the ginormous enterprises that they used to be.  From what I remember, the World's Fair was like some sort of mobile EPCOT center, complete with visions of the future, rides, and lots of advertising.

Madison, you haven't been to one.  But I've been to the New Orleans one back a few years ago, and it was okay.  I remember riding in a gondola over the Mississippi River, and seeing the space shuttle Enterprise.  I still have a program from the visit, and I remember seeing a huge storm coming in, driving by some of the scenery of New Orleans and that was it.  We enjoyed it, but I think the World's Fair has lost a lot of its luster since the days of St. Louis, and of course New York's epic events.  Mom went to the World's Fair in New York and frequently talks about it.  That was the one where Disney stepped in to do some great exhibits.  One year, Mom got me a few recordings of those for Christmas, and of course we can go to the Magic Kingdom to see Lincoln speak, "It's a Small World," and of course "The Carousel of Progress."  What a wonderful thing it must have been to go see all that.  It had a profound effect on many, that World's Fair.  You can see a bit of that in "Iron Man 2," "Tomorrowland," and "Men in Black."  

No one was ready for sleep tonight, so we watched another movie before bed, "Rise of the Guardians."  Having just read one of the books, we were more prepped for this one, although we watch it on and off each December.  It's a good movie though, so full of imagination.  I love that author and illustrator for all the other things he creates, and this one is special too.

One more Christmas Tradition!  The Gävle Goat had a ceremony today, as it was put up on the square there in Sweden.  We didn't catch the celebration, but we did peek in at the live cam.  We'll be checking in on that all this season!

We continued reading tonight from our Christmas book, and we said our prayers tonight.  I am feeling better.  I am cutting a lot of food out of the diet, and have to make some big changes.  And hopefully the stress will go down a bit too, or at least I can manage it more effectively.  The effects I've been feeling for weeks, the dry eyes and tingling in the skin... all of that wasn't as bad today.  Hopefully that trend will continue.

Madison was tucked in and I think she slept rather quickly tonight.  She's getting up early again tomorrow, because of school.  She got a shower tonight, and she's ready to go back.  It'll be a nice week.