...Forward Day Two

 Forward, Day Two.  

It started out earlier, and that was just fine.  Maddie joined up with Mia and the Braselton campus this morning, sitting with them for the first session.  And that was really great.  The Tribe games, the dating games, the worship and the message - things are going well here at Forward.  

Maddie also went to an information session about Free Chapel College, and she did that with her own initiative.  She sat in and gathered a good bit of information.  She was even in the photo posted online, sitting in and listening to the presentation about daily schedules and what to expect at Free Chapel College.

 

Afterwards, we went over to Sugarloaf Mills, and there we were waiting around in the luxury of air conditioning.  We met up with Kaylee, and that's when we got some food.  Maddie had wings, and I got some more shawarma, which was amazingly spicy.  Kaylee got some Popeye's, and we also had a few of her fries as well.  We walked around a good bit, and the girls had their time together so I could meet up with them later.  But one mandatory thing I insisted on us doing:  the shooting gallery at Bass Pro.

Yes!  And after a good bit, we went back to the Conference.  And it was hot outside.  Really hot.  No rain today, but we got there, and I got in without any trouble, thanks to a "go wherever I want to pass" that I acquired earlier.  Maddie and Kaylee sat with their Tribe "Icon" and got ready for another great night at Forward.  

It was a huge service, and of course Pastor Franklin was the speaker on Friday.  Everything went very well.  I was blessed with a new shirt from the team, a long-sleeved shirt that copied the design of the Atlanta Olympics in '96.  Maddie's been getting merchandise too, including a new John 3:16 sweatshirt, plus at the mall today a new plush Stitch.

After service, we were all quite tired.  Maddie and Kaylee hopped in the car, and we drove back to Edge to wait for her parents to pick her up, and then Maddie and I got home before midnight.  We were ready for prayers, a good night's rest, and ready to do it all over again tomorrow for the last day of Forward. 

Forward 2024

So here we are at Forward again, and things started this afternoon with Maddie and her friend from taekwondo, Kaylee.  You can see Michiah here as well, dressed in the bright pink t-shirt that all our volunteers are wearing.  This is Forward Mountain, which has been with us for quite some time lately.  It gets a fresh paint job each year, along with a new label.  This year's label celebrates the twenty years Forward has been in existence.  I remember the first ones at the main campus at Free Chapel, something we put together after doing so many visits to Winterfest.  We just figured we could do something like this on our own, and here we are getting the Gwinnett Arena and pretty much filling it up.  I remember those early days - I remember us stopping to pray for New Orleans one Forward Conference, as that night Hurricane Katrina was coming inland.

Anyway, back to the present.  Twenty years later, here's Maddie and Kaylee at the Chick-Fil-A that's next door to the arena.  We saw Brock there, and he actually dragged me back to the kitchen to introduce me to everyone else there.  I felt like I was in the inner sanctum!  

Of course, while there we saw all kinds of other Forward people, dressed in the various tribe colors.  After eating, we went over to the arena, and got ready for the conference.

Okay,  while waiting outside we spotted this advertisement, and this chiropractor's smile was pretty intense... so we had fun dong our own versions of it...!

Oh, and here's something else - Maddie and Kayle high-fiving one another before going down the big plunge.  The crowds had yet to really jump in, so this was good to hop on before things started.

We waited on line with a lot of other good friends, but it was pretty hot to begin with.  Fortunately, there came the overcast skies afterwards... and then there was a good steady rain too!  I got my umbrella, but we were pretty wet by the time we got in there.

But we did get in, and Maddie had a wonderful night.  

Huge night.  Lots of students, and it was super incredible.  Maddie and Kaylee loved it.  They were talking all the way home and even if it was late, they were still wired and talking about all the events of day one.  

It was a great start.  We got to sleep after prayers.  It was late.  And it was busy today - less than an hour south of us, both the President and the former President were engaged in a Presidential debate, and there seems to have been a clear winner.  The decisiveness of the victory is such that there is panic on one side, and things are shaping up to be yet another precedent-setting election year.  We'll see what happens as it unfolds, but it's all crazy, and it was all happening just down the road from us here.

We said our prayers tonight, and soon enough, we were all fast asleep, ready to start again with day two tomorrow.

Tour of Coffee Shops

 

So yeah, here we are at another coffee shop, this time back at Farmhouse.  Maddie hadn't been here yet, so she was happy to come along.  We were here for coffee and snacks of course, but the primary reason was to get out of the office and focus entirely on a Summer Xtreme skit, which we were able to actually finish up.  Yeah, we got done Day Four of Summer Xtreme, which should be super fun.

Notice the hat Maddie is wearing?  Today is 6-26, which is also called "Stitch Day," because Stitch is experiment 626.  Mom and I were wearing our Stitch t-shirts, and on our way down to Braselton later on, we were listening to that soundtrack of course.

Fun day.  Hot day though.  The car said 100 degrees all the way home, and I thought it was just an aberration, but the temperature stayed that way all the way from Farmhouse to about the lake area.  So I think it might have actually been 100 degrees outside!

Anyway, we went home to pick up Mom, and the three of us drove down to Braselton for the FCY United Night that was going on there, a big night where the FCY teams from different campuses were joined together at Braselton for one big service.  It was a great night!  Maddie met up with many friends and had a good time, even getting a new hat for Forward.

These custom hats were made on the spot, and Maddie likes hers a lot.  She'll be wearing it to Forward tomorrow.  She's very much looking forward to that!  Mom and I were at the church because we were organizing the storage area there, moving things about including books and props.  At the end of the night, we were pretty zonked - we went home, read another odd story about EV-9D9 from "Return of the Jedi," and said our prayers.  The Plush Entourage is getting bigger, now with a few new friends Ajax and Javier III.  We tucked them all in, and it was time for some sleep...

Back On Board

We were back at the Boarding Pass this afternoon, for yet another session of writing for Summer Xtreme.  It was part of our tour of coffee shops this week, the second one for Maddie who was all too happy to get up a little earlier to go and try out a new coffee shop.  She got herself something nice, a strawberry blend that was a little different, and together we sat on the airplane, enjoying the flight with some nice light snacks and coffee.  Maddie's new friend Ajax was there to keep us company too!

We made a lot of progress, but the place was closing a little early, so believe it or not, we just went out to the Gainesville Square afterwards, and there we finished up the next day of the Summer Xtreme skits.

Yeah, we got day three done.  Tomorrow we'll try for day four at another coffee shop.  Maddie will try them all soon, just the local ones here on the square.  There's at least two more, so we'll see how it goes after that.  Forward is soon afterwards, of course.  

We watched "The Chosen" tonight, another episode, and we also saw another episode of season two's "Loki," which features a bit of key lime pie.  If not for "Loki," we wouldn't have the key lime pie craze at the house!

We read after that, finishing up an odd story with Max Rebo, and we said our prayers.  Tomorrow we get up early and try to do it all over again - bigger day tomorrow!

Wings and Things

We started out this day at the chiropractor, and that was nice.  

Or, at least as nice as Maddie can be when she finds the mini etch-a-sketch in the family room!  We all needed an adjustment, and it was good to see Doc Williams again.  Everyone was sharing their stories, including Maddie's adventure at the tournament.  It was a fairly quick process, so after that, we went over to the library.  Why were we there?  To get Maddie registered to vote!  Yes, she's old enough to do that in this upcoming election, so we picke up the forms for that, something we'll fill out later and submit. 

After the library, we grabbed a bite to eat just up the road at a wings place.  Maddie enjoyed the spicy wings, although we all agreed that we'll be on the lookout to try other places that serve wings too.  Still, it was a good time overall.  This despite the super loud hair band music from the 80's.  We're not talking that mainstream stuff either.  Despite that, it was still fun to get out and eat wings.  

Speaking of hot stuff, it was super hot again today.  This miserable heat dome is ready to move on, but it's saved the best for last the next few days. We're suffering under all this heat - it's been intense.  We got home and we cleaned up some, and Maddie got ready for taekwondo, which was good tonight.  It's the long night, so she had a great time with all the others.

Certainly a lot of laughing!  No sparring yet, but she'll be doing that soon enough.  In the meantime, there was plenty to do.  We got home late, and after a few rounds of "Tropical Freeze," we watched another episode of "The Chosen."  I was also watching "The Muppets Mayhem," which is still a wonderful show to me.  I love the Electric Mayhem - call me a "Mayhead."  Fer sure!

A-hem.  Moving on, it was time to get some rest.  Tomorrow we'll start writing again, and we'll do some coffee shops this week too.  And at the end of the week... Forward!  It's going to be a great week, so after some reading tonight, and prayers, it was time to tuck the Plush Entourage in and get some sleep!

Goodnight!

Castaway Cove Party Games

Maddie was our photographer again this morning for KidPak, and it was a fun morning with the kids for some Castaway Cove games.  The series is a light-touch on skits and so forth, as we're focusing on Forward and Summer Xtreme.  But we're definitely having somewhat of a beach party here, and the kids are pretty loud and loving it.  Maddie took so many great pictures again, I couldn't share them all with the church staff account.  And of course here, I only have a few of them.  She's doing very well technically, and her eye for composition is very good too.  

Oh, one more thing this morning:  baptisms!  Our good friend Emma was baptized this morning, and she gave a shout-out to KidPak and the Easter production and Christmas production - she's got an amazing testimony about those productions.  She was a dancer for us, dancing for the "Son of Suffering" song as Jesus carried the cross on stage.  And she didn't even know the full story of Easter then.  Only after she watched the video for it later did it grip her - she accepted Jesus right then.  And here we are, three years later or so, getting baptized!  We were so glad the story came out so Pastor Franklin could hear it himself.

After church we went over to Aunt Shain's house, and there we celebrated a few birthdays, and the Fourth of July as well.  It was a nice big meal with burgers and the usual summer food spread.  They always do nice for Mom, making gluten-free options for her.  It was nice to be together as a family, and there was a lot to talk about and share, including stories from Nana and Ye-Ye about their recent trip to Montana.  And of course Maddie's recent accident with a sword!

We got home after that, and Maddie and I tried a level of Tropical Freeze, and I did my walking and we watched an episode of "The Chosen," revisiting some of season four before we continue into uncharted territory later in the season.  And we also watched "The Empire Strikes Back" too - that was because we're done with the one "From a Certain Point of View" book, and we're moving on to the edition tied to "Return of the Jedi" next.  "The Empire Strikes Back is one of my favorite movies ever. It's still so good, and I still catch new things each time.  Of course, we have a few backstories to add, and some others from the book we choose to ignore because they're not written all that well.  Just like the previous Expanded Universe stuff that was replaced.

Anyway, we said our prayers tonight, after reading of course.  And then it was time for some sleep.  I'm tired!

Inside Out 2

 

We went back to the theater today.  Yes, we went from "inside out" to the theater.  This might be the most we've enjoyed seeing a Disney Pixar movie in quite a long time.  We saw "Inside Out 2" today, and Maddie even made sure we had a proper dress code before going!

And yes, we brought along our plus friends too.  We left Disgust and Fear at home, but you can see Maddie all blue with Sadness, Mom yellow with Joy, and of course I'm red with Anger.  We had our typical seats in the very back of a fairly big auditorium over in Dawsonville.  It was, as expected, a movie with a lot of emotion.  It was really, really good too.  Maddie enjoyed it, but so did we.  

It was too hot outside, but we're doing well inside.  We're getting ready for Summer Xtreme with some writing.  The booklet is done, and we're editing and marching forward towards getting the scripts done.  There's been some Forward stuff to do, and we're just busy in a few different directions.  But it's good to have some family time.  We were playing "Tropical Freeze" a few levels, and we picked up a rotisserie on the way home to eat for dinner.  

 

We stayed inside today, and that's okay.  We read tonight, and got to sleep early after prayers.  Got a big day tomorrow.

Stiches Out

Maddie got her stitches out this afternoon, and it couldn't have happened sooner for her.  We went over to a new family doctor in Oakwood, one that the whole family may be going sooner to.  Today was a good visit and things turned out well.  Hard to believe this was a week ago.

It was a pretty full day today.  Maddie got to sleep in today, not going to the church this morning.  I was there and we were filming some more Summer Xtreme stuff, where I'm dressed in this inflatable gorilla suit as a henchman named Frank.  It's going to be fun.  I got home after that though, and while at home, I finished up the skit for day two of Summer Xtreme, wrapping things up.  We're using the new AI music generator to create background tracks for our skits too, and that's working out well.  In fact, AI is a tool that we're using to create music and even imagery on the screens as well.  It's been pretty fascinating.

  

Here's a picture that Made took on the way home of the sunset tonight.  We're still in that heat dome, and the temperatures have been soaring each day.  Unfortunately, the AC unit is still not moving the condensation out the pipes out the house, so I'm having to lug a lot of water each day from the attic.  It's an educational process.  I had no idea the amount of gallons each day that thing creates.  

Anyway, at least the house is cool.  And taekwondo went well, of course.  Maddie wasn't sparring quite yet, and she'll wait another week and a half before that happens.  But until then, she's right there with the rest of the team, and they're all training hard in a new direction.  Talk is of a new competition coming up in September in Gatlinburg of all places.  That looks like it could be something she and the team will go to.

Here are some of the bead wristbands that Maddie's been working on.  She's doing a great job with these!  So tonight we watched something on television again, and then we read - we're finishing up one Star Wars book and going on to the next.  Maddie chose to do "Return of the Jedi," to complete the trilogy of books "From a Certain Point of View."  After that, we'll probably revisit the Kingdom Keepers.  But for now, it's time for prayers, and sleep... goodnight!

Coffee Productivity

Okay, so we did make it to a coffee shop today, and as you can see Maddie is with us at Inman Perk on the Gainesville Square.  We were there for a few hours, just a few, so we could focus on writing the second day of Summer Xtreme.  We got a lot done, actually.  We also got coffees and even some ice cream there.  It's just a great atmosphere to write, any coffee shop.  We'll be back at another one as we continue our coffee shop tour, probably next week.  Maddie wants to come with us - we'll probably go back to Boarding Pass.  We'll see!  It was a super productive meeting, and there was a really great 

Anyway, she did have taekwondo tonight.  No sparring yet, but she's getting those stitches out tomorrow.  She's got a big story to tell there.  I wasn't inclined to share pictures so much, but I have a few more of the actual incident here.  And look how tough she looks in these pictures:

This lower one is just such an action shot.  It just screams, "Don't mess with me."  Master Edge - who is in the background - suggested making it into a t-shirt.  I'm not quite there yet, because to me it represents a moment of time that was difficult to experience.  But it's been a week, and she's overcome, and the weekend itself was absolutely fantastic for her, a really fun time, and this is all in the rear view mirror now.  She's ready to do the next competition!

We had a good day today.  Mom got the garage cleaned out expertly, but stayed indoors, understandably.  It's still hot outside.  No rain.  Water levels are going down, and certain counties are experiencing the beginnings of a drought.  This heat dome is a pretty big story for the summer, an ongoing sort of relentless theme.

We watched a few things tonight before reading and prayers.  It's been a quiet week here, but a work week really.  We had this big SX24 meeting that Maddie was there to see all the different campuses and their plans for games and so forth.  It's going to be a fun time. 

But now it's time for some rest.  Got a big day tomorrow!

FCY Lead-Up

Maddie is here talking with Emma at FCY tonight - she had a great time, of course.  FCY is in gear, getting things ready for Forward, so things are a different sort of tone here at FCY each Wednesday leading up to the event.  There's a great deal of hype, but also a certain busyness, as everyone is working hard to make that event the huge deal it's supposed to be.

Maddie was at KidPak today, and unfortunately we didn't get out to the coffee shop or anything.  We had a lot to do around the office, including the finishing touches on filming our "Castaway Puppets" series, which she was outside helping with.  To begin with, she was holding up a palm tree for us, that is until she got stung by some insect.  But she was out there helping us finish up the Castaway Cove videos.  

Mom is a lot better now.  Maddie is too, and she's excited about getting her stitches out, which should be this Friday, one week from the time that she earned them.  Her forehead seems to be healing nicely.  She's been careful.  

She's been helping with Mom a bit, and also working on her Stardew Valley game.  By the way, she still does Wordle with the rest of us each day, posting her latest score.  She's enjoying her week of rest this week.  Forward is coming up though!

Tonight we watched "Loki" afterwards, and I've been also re-watching "The Muppets Mayhem," which is possibly the most underrated Muppet show there is.  It is an absolute gem.  I'm still loving this show, still laughing out loud, and still just super thrilled with all the nostalgia and cameos.  As for "Loki," we're loving this again - the third time?  We were all enjoying some key lime pie flavor ice cream as we enjoyed this series.  It was late tonight, but we read afterwards, just a bit from one of the short stories "From a Certain Point of View."  After that, prayers.  It's been a good day.

Collecting Beanies

Here's a Hidden Mickey, or perhaps a not-so-Hidden Mickey.  We went a local coffee shop today, and there we started writing Day One of the Summer Xtreme skits.  These are bigger, and require more attention and more of a creative process than just me.  I had Camille and Chris with me for this one, and Camille kept looking up at me and started laughing.  I had no idea why until she pointed out the two wreaths on the door behind.  So we snapped the picture, a Hidden Mickey.  Day One is done, believe it or not, and I feel pretty good about it, especially a fictitious game that we developed, something similar to a Pokemon game, but instead of collecting little creatures, the player collects Beanies - basically just baked beans with a personality or power.  Yes, this is a Nerdo thing during the skit.  He's collected quite a few of them, including these guys:

Electro-Beanie

Very Berry Beanie

Ghost Beanie

We're going to do more with these.  It was a fun little idea.  Anyway, we got a big weight off the shoulders with the first skit, which is always the weightiest because the first words are the most difficult to move into place.  But we'll continue our Coffee Shop Tour with another visit either tomorrow or the next day, as we move on to the second skit.  Maddie will be with us for that one, as she likes visiting these places.  I asked her where she wanted to go, and she mentioned Inman Perk, so be it!

The rest of the day was somewhat predictable with work, heat, air conditioner condensation leaks, and then sitting down to watch "Loki" and "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody."  There was an episode we watched that we marveled at - there is no way that would air today, given the atmosphere of the world.  I won't get into specifics, but how great it was to go back in time for a bit with this fun show.  Simple humor, and of course a lot of jokes we're writing down for future reference at KidPak!

We read tonight, and we said our prayers.  Mom's been under the weather, mostly tired, and perhaps just a reaction to something she ate this weekend or just an overtaxed system.  Or a legitimate virus.  The good news is that she's a lot better today than she was yesterday.  We got to sleep on time, and got ready for another day to tackle tomorrow beneath this oppressive heat dome.  Making the best of it!  At least the AC works!