Mario Rock

We had a fun morning this morning with a message dedicated to worship, one using the theme of video games.  This message was created back when Guitar Hero was immensely popular, and I sort of resurrected that whole idea with a skit involving Mario and a guitar hero game.  Of course, over the course of the skit he has to learn that worship is not all about your own abilities or talent, but about God.  Maddie and a few others were Toads, which you can see in some of the costumes Mom made up below.  She ordered the hats, and just built things from there.

Mario winds up in Super Smash Brothers land at one point, and there he meets up with Link and the Wii Fit Trainer, who help him find his way, which of course is the point where the cast points upwards to tell God, "You rock!"

One other neat thing was the arrival of yet another family that watches us exclusively online, this family from Virginia.

Here they are posing on our stage with a group shot of the cast too.  We filmed something super short and we'll inject it into the upcoming video so they can see themselves soon enough.  But they watch every week from Virginia, just like the other families that watch from faraway places in the country, week after week.  We had that one family from Zambia that watched us online, but also other families I've met from Florida and Michigan too.  They all started watching back during the pandemic, which just goes to show that something good can come from nearly everything.

Fun morning!  Maddie had this idea after church, and I had my Chinese fortune cookie socks on, so yeah, we went to eat Chinese food afterwards.  Maddie loves the steamed dumplings (as do I), and she usually gets General Tso's chicken, along with won ton soup.  I went with Mongolian chicken, and Mom got our favorite the last year, a Jade Green deluxe.  It was all very nice.

We got home, and slept.  I meant to go to the prayer meeting tonight, but I haven't slept well the last few nights, and on top of that, Mom had some stomach problems to deal with on her own.  And Maddie had a cascade of homework, so we stayed home this evening, choosing to watch a Purim-related movie, "One Night with the King," which is of course about Esther.  Tomorrow is Purim, so we went with that tonight, noting the places where it doesn't follow scripture precisely, but nevertheless enjoying it for what it is.  I keep promising that tomorrow we're going to watch the Veggie Tales version of Esther.  Oh yes, that one's a classic!

It was a nice day, and the weather was great outside.  The trees are starting to bloom, particularly the pungent Bradford pears.  The constant rain keeps the pollen at bay a bit, but that season is here, and some of us are taking medicine to help with allergies.  Flower petals were all over the ground after Friday's heavy storms, almost as if it were snowing.  And speaking of which, they got snow in Southern California this week.  In March.  We haven't had any snow at all here, so things are kind of mixed up.  We're getting freezing temperatures again next week.  You just never know what you're going to get with this weird season.  Except rain, of course.  Lots of precipitation.

Anyway, we read tonight, from the devotional and from our latest Discworld book.  This one has been fun.  We're drawing to a close with it, and already Maddie is recommending our next book be "The Last Continent," which is Rincewind's final book, at least where he is a leading character.  We read from our video game themed devotional, which has a funny true story from my days in college and the game Gauntlet.  I shared it here before.  And then we said our prayers, ready for a good night's rest.