Dunkin

 

FCY was tonight, and Maddie enjoyed the start of a new series there - it's called "Hear Me Out," and our friend Bailee was speaking tonight to the youth.  It was a good night there!

Beforehand, Maddie and I followed through on a small vow we made to visit the new Dunkin Doughnuts location that's right there by the church.  I think it's just called "Dunkin" now, which is a difficult adjustment for those of us who have known it as "Dunkin Doughnuts" our entire lives.  But given our recent basketball series started just this past Sunday, it's appropriate right?  "Dunkin"?

Anyway, it's this small building that went up, and since we had a little time before service we thought we'd drop by and pick up a coffee for her, and I got some bagel bites and a drink.  We also got a doughnut to split.

It was decent, but the point is, we went, by gum!  

Maddie was doing a lot of math tonight for homework.  The wind is really strong out there right now, storms coming through last night and soaking the area with a much-needed rainfall.  We spent a lot of time working today, getting things ready for Easter and of course KidPak.  

We're still in the basketball series, but we're always making messages, words, and graphics for the future.  I'm getting more acclimated to this AI tool.  We've watched a lot of basketball movies leading up to this series, come to think of it.  "Space Jam," "Luck of the Irish," "Absent Minded Professor," and "Flubber" are a few.  I've still got the next "Space Jam" movie to watch, and also "Hoosiers," particularly because it has Gene Hackman in it.  We got some new set pieces for the KidPak stage, and I have a new script with a referee in it, something reworked from an old sketch - a really old sketch - that we used to do back in high school.  Yeah, it's that old.  We'll be revisiting that again this weekend!

Anyway, it was a good day. We read tonight from "Maskerade," and then said our prayers.  Time to get some sleep!

Moving Forward

Okay, interesting things going on today with KidPak development.  I've embraced the AI stuff a bit more in regards to art, as finding royalty-free images - or at least paying for them - is something challenging because of time restraints or creative restraints too, to be honest.  Anyway, I was working a good bit on our next booklet and we're using this device online that has been super helpful in getting Bible imagery created in a unique fashion.  For example, you can see the stained glass coloring sheet above that I had it make, or the picture of a comical Moses looking confused at a burning bush:

It's a new world.  It's scary, because this is something that takes artists a long time to come up with - a lot of people are losing their positions because of this.  Even writers.   But my workload has increased a good bit, so simultaneously I suppose this is pretty helpful.  We do have a line that I won't cross though, in which the message of the day does not come from a computer.  Interpretation of scripture does not come from an artificial source either - that's all spirit to spirit, and while tools can be used to get things done quicker, or be used for jolts of inspiration, summed up, I think there are times where you just have to "do the work."  

Anyway, moving on.  We had meetings today, lots of them.  Easter is coming soon.  Meanwhile, Maddie had a good bit of math homework, so we didn't really watch any movies tonight.  What we did watch though, was the State of the Union speech.

Definitely some memorable moments in that event.  It was the longest in history, so that's of note.  There were really emotional moments with folks in the gallery, honored visitors young and older.  And there were controversies with noise from the opposition party too.  But yeah, while Maddie was doing a lot of homework, we were watching that speech with all the ceremony and so on. 

We closed up things with reading, and with prayers tonight too.  Storms are coming through later on, with some much-needed rain.  It was a nice day today - things are about to get colder again though!  Yikes!

Another Testing

Maddie had another testing tonight, and you can see above that it was a big group testing tonight.  No one was advancing to another degree belt, as tonight they were all just students on their journey onwards and upwards.  Maddie will be getting that third degree belt at the end the year, should things continue as expected.  As for tonight, everything went well!  There was sparring to start out with, and then following that there was the board breaking.  Maddie went with the strategy of screaming real loud to begin with when it came to enthusiastic cries of "Edge" and so forth, and then she got those boards lined up and broke them immediately.  I mean, immediately.  No second tries for her.  At the end of the evening, everyone did their forms too.  Maddie excelled with her form, getting a perfect score.  She had a great night.  I was taking pictures for everyone, but I got a few of Maddie too of course.  I shared all the pictures on the social media site, but here are just a few below of Maddie and her friends tonight.

Broken board after the kick, and the scream!

Elbow of Justice!  Breaking boards and breaking hearts!

Flying kick attack!  That board is about to go down.

Fun with sparring!

The set-up.  The boards are ready to be destroyed.

Chris, her friend, launches a flying kick.

Afterwards, we continued with a tradition after testing:  boba tea.  Maddie and I went over there to get some tea, and some new flavors that we both enjoyed!  It was a great, great night.  She did really well tonight and should be proud.  Of course, the entire team did really well.

We got home, and she got to work on her math homework, as Mom and I watched a movie, "Welcome to Mooseport," which wasn't too bad.  It surfaced recently as a suggested movie and not long later Gene Hackman passed away, so we thought we'd check it out.  There are a few other movies I loved seeing him in, and we might have to revisit those some time soon.  

Anyway, today was a quiet day.  Mom had a visit with the neurologist, and that was just a discussion of past tests, and possibly another test or two.  Nothing showed anything that was troublesome, and that's great news of course.  Afterwards, we dropped by another major store chain that's closing down, Joann's, which Mom always drops by this time of year, particularly for costuming for Easter's big production.

Tonight we finished our book before bed, "Lords and Ladies," and we started the next one, "Maskerade," just rolling right along in the Discworld!  It's been good reading!  We said our prayers tonight afterwards, and then we got the Plush Entourage all tugged in.  Time to get some sleep!

Cinderella's at the Big Dance

Today's skit was super fun, one of my favorites!  I've always fascinated by the combination of the "Cinderella" story with basketball teams, particularly because I always envision Cinderella actually playing basketball.  So today there was something like that going on stage.  We had the story of Joseph and his brothers in the Bible, and the comparison for our skit was Cinderella and her sisters.  Of course, things are quite different beyond that - you can see the visitation of the Basketball Fairy above, who has her own theme song that's pretty awesome.  It was a great skit and everyone did so well with it!  Here are some of the pictures that Maddie took of our skit, just part of an entire morning at KidPak.

Afterwards, Maddie had fun skating this afternoon!  She went down to Buford with friends from taekwondo and just had a great time at Skate Country, a place she hasn't been to in a few years.  But they had a great time together, and Maddie didn't do too bad with the skating!

The group went to the 5 Spot Cafe for lunch beforehand where Maddie got a Sante Fe omelette, and then they were off to skate for a few hours.  Meanwhile, Mom and I were over at Mellow Mushroom for a Pacific Rim pizza.  

It was a nice afternoon!  Today is Dr. Seuss' birthday, so in honor of the legendary author, we watched the movie "The Lorax," which was great.  We still have that Lorax mustache we picked up a long, long time ago.  So yeah, we each tried it on for a quick Lorax pose too!

We read tonight, and we're almost done with our book "Lords and Ladies."  We said our prayers, and then it was time for some sleep.  Goodnight!

Beignets

Okay, so Fat Tuesday is coming up, and so after Team Edge this afternoon, we drove down to Cracker Barrel to get some beignets!  We had a coupon, and we had an appetite, so this made for a nice meal after Maddie's workout and practice this morning at the studio.  It was a pleasant meal, although service was really slow - the food was good, as were those beignets!

This morning Maddie had her practice at taekwondo, and she had a private lesson after that, training for the upcoming tournament that she'll be attending in a few weeks.  She's wanting to get her feet wet with the competition, just to try it out, and she'll certainly be a little more prepared now.  

Today is the first of March, and so we're ready for St. Patrick's Day season.  We've been listening to a few of our standard themed music selections, and tonight we even saw "Luck of the Irish," which features St. Patrick's Day and basketball, the other theme of this month right now at KidPak.  

It was a quiet day otherwise.  I got my walking finished, and the Revelation studies continue.  Maddie and I went back to LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, and that was fun for an hour or so.  Tonight in reading, Magrat defeated the Queen of the Elves, and that was pretty cool to see this meek character stand up against the villains.  We're nearly done with that story, and although we could move on to the next Discworld novel in this series, there's also the Kingdom Keepers to consider - there's a new book, and we've got it ordered.  A special signed copy is heading this way, this one now signed to me!  Pretty cool, huh?  We had the author sign the last one for Maddie, but this final book in the series will be hopefully signed to me.  Seems appropriate given that I picked up that first book so many years ago in Disney Springs... wow, that was a long time ago.  Anyway, we may start reading those books again next, just to catch up.  Meanwhile, let's finish up this one story from Lancre - the elves have to be completely defeated!

Okay, time for sleep.  Tomorrow is church, and it should be a good day!

Horse and Carriage

An unexpected carriage ride?  Sure, why not.  Tonight we had a Daddy-Daughter Dance for the younger kids at Free Chapel, and something well over 700 people showed up.  

There I am above, the one to the left.  In the snowman costume.  I was Olaf tonight, and that was quite the workout.  I can't believe how soaking wet I was after a few hours of dancing, waving, running... it was a big time workout, actually!  

So Maddie had her taekwondo practice tonight, but she got a ride to the church and she jumped right in, helping out.  She was moving tables and chairs and helping clean up, working very hard tonight!  She got to spend a good bit of time with the princesses there too - Camille was Elsa again, and she had a full Princess court there with Cinderella, Moana, Tiana, Aurora, Anna, Snow White, and Jasmine there too.  Maddie had a picture with Camille as Elsa, and wow... can you believe it's been ten years since that first picture together with Elsa.

At the end of it, just before we were going, the horse and carriage was still letting dads and daughters ride around until the last ones.  That was very kind of them.  So we just so happened to time it as we were leaving that there were a few in the carriage, but there was room on top for Maddie and Emma.  So with their tiaras on (everyone got a tiara today!), the two hopped up at the front of the carriage and rode around the church parking lot for a little bit.  It was a sweet way to end the day.

Well, the rest of the day was quiet by comparison, at least here.  Maddie enjoyed her day at school, and I got a lot done with KidPak, and Mom has been busy working towards Easter's production as well.  Tonight we'll get a good rest.  Tomorrow is a little quieter, but we still have a few things planned.

We read this evening, and then said our prayers.  Time to get some sleep.