Yo Ho!

Yo-ho! The pirate ship is being assembled in the auditorium, and the cast members are getting their scallywag gear on. Pirate music is playing loud, and everyone in the office is saying, "arrr!" Even Madison is in on it! That's right: it's almost time for the Pirate series to begin! Here's a photo of Madison from last year, when we stayed in that pirate-themed room at the Caribbean Resort in Disney World. That trip was a romp and a half, but in just a few days we'll be returning to pillage and plunder some more. We're pretty excited about it, already planning this or that. No matter what, on the schedule is a whole lot of relaxin'. Needless to say, excitement is in the air!

As we work above and below deck, here below is an entry from the pirate's devotional log that Captain KidPak wrote while crossing the seven seas:

Sir Francis Drake was the most successful privateer that ever lived. He was so successful at what he did that he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I in England in 1581. You’re probably asking, what exactly is a privateer? Why, that’s easy! He was a pirate, of course!

Privateers were basically a bunch of pirates who worked for their countries. They did this by plundering the gold from their country’s enemies. Privateers from England (called Sea Dogs) constantly raided their enemy’s mighty Spanish Galleons for gold. Those were their orders, straight from the queen herself. She gave pirates like Sir Francis Drake what is called a Letter of Marque. That meant that he had orders from the highest authority to plunder the enemy’s camp!

At the end of the book of Matthew, Jesus gives us our orders: our very own Letter of Marque. He tells us that we are to do some plundering of our own, each and every one of us. That’s right: we’ve got orders to plunder the enemy’s camp. So that makes us all privateers, doesn’t it? How do we plunder the enemy’s camp? “By making disciples of all nations.” Arrrrr! I think you’re catching on! So follow your orders, mates! How? That’s easy! You do that in the simplest of ways. Telling others about Jesus is one way. Inviting someone onboard to church is a great thing to do as well. No matter what you do, remember to act as a Christian would. Who knows? Someone might be watching you – and the very way you live your life may get someone wanting to go to church.

We’re all on board this ship together, so let’s all have a romp and plunder the enemy’s camp! Those are your orders, privateer!

Repent Ye Scurvy Dogs!

We've been getting ready to set sail this weekend with a new series called "Arrr!" Each service, we ask a question - for example, this Sunday the question is, "Arrr you burying your treasure?" This should be a fantastic month, as everyone will be quite proficient at saying the eighteenth letter of the alphabet.

Speaking of which, here's a photo of Madison as a pirate - this is a Facebook promotion for the new "Pirates" movie, where you can upload a photo and add things to it, like make-up, hats, knives, and extra eyeballs. I chose the more conservative route, obviously.

Today we spent a lot of time working on the new material, from writing to stage work to the display case, which Mommy sets up each month to match the theme. This month's display case looks great - take a look!

She works hard each month coming up with all the display case designs. Last month there was a wrecking ball in there with "Under Construction." The month before had baseball cards and props, and the month before that there was a Roman Arena. Mommy spends a lot of time setting these up, with Madison alongside her to help out - or play with the toys!

Here's a small promo Daddy wrote up for the skit portions for our upcoming pirate series:

Not that long ago, and not that far away, there were the great shipping merchant vessels of old, carrying their massive cargoes of gold, silver, and other valuable riches to their homelands. As they sailed across vast oceans, the calm, serene skies and peaceful waters they glided through gave those on board these ships no warning that lurking nearby there were…pirates! Ferocious pirates such as Francis Drake the Sea Dog brought fear to the Spanish Main and the Treasure Fleet, while notorious pirates such as Charles Vane brought fear to everyone.

Names like Blackbeard, Captain Barbosa, Long John Silver, Captain Jack Sparrow, Black Stache, Captain James Hook, Captain Crunch, Captain Feathersword, Captain Ron, Captain Stuben, Captain Tennille and the Scurvy Nun all became household names and legends of terror on the high seas. Pillaging and plundering the loot of many Spanish Galleons and English Merchant ships alike, these scallywags would instill fear in the common sailor and rule the high seas with an iron fist!

The Golden Era of Piracy was at hand! Indeed, wherever you saw the Jolly Roger, you knew pirates were about, lying in wait. Ah, I see the old flag flying even now – don’t you? I wonder what adventure lies in wait for us now, young sailors? You’d best be getting your sails up – and you’d best start believing in these pirate stories.

Why? Because you’re in one, mateys. Arrr!

We especially like the reference to the Scurvy Nun. If you have no idea who that is, below I present a rare photo of this famous pirate, shortly before her famous run to Tortuga:

Arrr! Mommy actually got me a t-shirt of this pirate nun with the words printed on it:

"REPENT YE SCURVY DOGS!"

It's a really funny t-shirt actually, but probably only if you've seen this nun before.

____________________

Obviously, she's not a real pirate: this is Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, a pretty important figure in the Catholic Church.

...or is that just her cover?

Eye of the Storm

Madison had no idea. In fact, I suspect a lot of the children in Hall and Forsyth Counties probably had no idea, that is, unless they spotted their nervous parents watching the news and doppler radars. Last night, more tornadoes tore through Georgia than Daddy has ever experienced in his lifetime. You could hear it outside, and see the horizon glowing with the steady and constant barrage of lightning streaking across the sky and downward.  We were in the midst of the 2011 Super Outbreak, the largest tornado outbreak ever recorded.

To the north of us, we tracked on the radar as storm after storm devastated the counties above us. To the south, things weren't much better. The storms of April 27, 2011, will be difficult for many to forget.

Yet look at that gap in the radar above. Right in the middle of all the madness, right there without a drop of rain, is us. What are the odds of that? Whatever they are, we are certainly grateful this morning: there are awful pictures from towns such as Ringold, Trenton, Cartersville, and of course Tuscaloosa.

This picture below shows all the tornado warning areas, presently confirmed tornado hits (the orange spots), and where our house is: the white star.

See how it goes completely around us like that? As you can see, we're very grateful this morning. Like I said, Madison had no idea. And that's just the way we'd hope it would be.

________________________

Today was our last day of the music class semester, which Madison has enjoyed quite a bit. We've made new friends, and of course learned some notes on the keyboard and symbols on paper. We've learned rhythm - sort of, and we've had a whole lot of fun. It's been a great class, and we'll be back just in time for the summer camp. Should be really fun.

Another camp we're looking forward to this June is Summer Xtreme. At least, we're looking forward to it for Madison. This is the day camp that our children's church does for the kids - her age group has a lot of different activities, certainly much different than the ones the older kids do. Madison will do gymnastics one day, see a puppet show the next, be a part of a dance studio the next, and do karate another day. All this and more. She'll have a ball, while Daddy desperately tries to keep his sanity as usually (it's his most dreaded week of the year).

Tonight's ballet class went well: Madison has one more before vacation, and after that, it's the big recital! What fun! Daddy's going to bring a video camera or something. What a big moment. I'm probably more excited about it than Madison is!

Tool Time Girl

Today was our last day of our Under Construction series. This whole month went by rather quickly, but it was extremely fun. In fact, you could say it was an absolute blast!

Mommy dressed up Madison very cute - all ready for some work on the construction site. They visited Daddy for a few hours today, but soon it was time to head home and hunker down, getting ready for the big storms.

Madison makes the perfect Tool Time Girl in these pictures - Daddy took several of them as we all had some fun on the stage together. Here she comes, ready for Tool Time!

You can see she's brought her tools with her - or, at least Handy Manny's tools: Rusty, Squeeze, Felipe, Turner, Dusty, Pat, and Stretch. This series, she's been carrying them around with her all over. In fact, why don't you take a peek at some more photos of Madison at the worksite? Below is a quick one-minute slide show of some shots of our very own Tool Time Girl, hard at work and helping out as we're Under Construction!

Today's blog has been brought to you by:

"When you need more power!"

Today's Posting: in 3D!

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

Life goes on! Today was a scheduled "crash day," where we spent some time recovering from the recent onslaught of activity. We cleaned up around the house a bit, and even took a collective nap. The weather was perfect outside, that summer day where the storms came in late afternoon, the rumbling overhead and the drip-drop of rain on the leaves in the trees - which all served to cool things off just perfectly outside.

We had a peculiar "hail storm" today, where there really wasn't any precipitation but one solitary chunk of ice that plummeted down from the heavens and landed on our porch. Surely, more landed elsewhere - and yet this was the only evidence of hail, or anything wet at all outside. Daddy quickly picked it up and showed it to Madison, who was quite impressed that there was ice outside.

Today was basically a "Veg Day," which doesn't describe the diet we had. It describes how active we were today, which was pretty much not at all.

Daddy did make a trip to the grocery store with Madison. We needed hot dogs, because later on, we spent some time testing out the new Grillmaster. As usual, the starter wasn't working (and I haven't even used this thing once), but once the fires got going (by match), the grill got pretty hot - and soon we were snacking on tasty hot dogs and baked beans.

We watched a few movies today, and put some Easter things away, but didn't accomplish much outside of that. No, we've accomplished quite enough lately. Certainly Mommy has done more than enough to deserve a small break.

But soon it'll start up again. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da!

Happy Easter!

This morning as Madison left the house in her beautiful Easter dress that Mommy had found, she immediately spied what she was looking for: Easter eggs! It was early, but about five or so were left in the front yard as a teaser - the real hunt would come later. Still, it was a nice surprise before church, and it made for a nice photo opportunity as well: Mommy snapped this shot of Madison before church.

But soon, it was time for the big day - and the two final performances of AD33. My goodness, church was filled this weekend. Every seat filled. Overflow was overflowing. Simply amazing!

Here's Madison with Jesus, just five minutes after he rose from the grave - for the fifth time! You can't keep this guy down. Something tells me, this time it's for good.

Daddy took Madison upstairs to see the final portions of AD33, as his terrible Pharisee character was no longer needed. Our good friend Javier was nearby, portraying the King of kings, so Daddy snapped a quick couple photos for Easter. I really wanted Madison to see just a glimpse of what Easter was really all about. Of course, she couldn't necessarily understand it all - but today's service (or at least the parts she saw) served well as an introduction to something greater than any bunny rabbit or eggs.

AD33 went rather well this weekend. We had an audience of over 20,000 through five services, but the last two services were the best.

Though we were pretty wiped out, we still made time to go to Ye-Ye and Nana's house for Easter. It's tradition! When we arrived there, we found a wonderful meal spread out across the table for us. Great Grandma was there, and Madison was able to give her the gift she was working on over the past few weeks, seen here and here.

Dinner was great, and so was the key lime pie that Great Grandma brought. But soon, it was time for the egg hunt! God blessed us mightily, as we were able to use a lot of the leftover eggs from the church: we're talking TONS OF EGGS.

Lots and lots of them across two front lawns, and all for Hannah and Madison. Talk about an egg-stravaganza! She had a great time looking for eggs with Hannah today. The weather was perfect, and so were the smiles. Both were quite excited to go on the hunt!

Even the boys were in the backyard, on the "advanced course," looking for those harder-to-find eggs (some even camouflaged). But Madison and Hannah were kept busy by all the eggs in the front yard, each one containing some little prize or candy.

It was quite some day. It took them a while to find all the eggs, and even afterwards it took a while to check out all the loot. Aunt Shain and the cousins made Madison a great basket: a rabbit hole filled with goodies, and a future entry in Madison's Book Club.

The basket was a rabbit hole, with a large stuffed rabbit inside. This was a great surprise for Madison, who pretty much spent the rest of the day playing with the dolls and reading her new book.

But she also had to check out Ye-Ye's bunny rabbit empire! Daddy and Mommy got this for Daddy as a joke several years ago: they had all of these pieces for sale at the dollar store, so the entire "bunny world" was extremely cheap. Daddy does like to look at the Christmas villages, so we thought it would be funny to get him this gaudy bunny village - with all the pieces. It's so cute that you cringe - and yet, to continue with the joke, Ye-Ye faithfully puts it out each year. This time though, it was sincerely appreciated: Madison loved looking at all those pieces and exploring Ye-Ye's Bunny Empire.

It was a wonderful day. But as it grew later, we all grew much more exhausted. Time was catching up with us from a hectic week. Tomorrow, I imagine we'll all be in a vegetative state! But until then, we've got enough energy and time to post here and say it was a wonderful Easter.

Happy Easter!

AD33

So, tonight we had our big performance of AD33 again. It was a huge deal, as lots of people came from all over the place. After all that practice, the time was now, and the story of Easter was told once more.

Daddy played a Pharisee, and our friend Javier played Jesus - and did so very well. There's so much pressure on whoever it is that plays Jesus in a play of this sort. Lots of battles in ways that many others would never understand.

As you can see in some of these photos, there was spectacle as well. An angelic scene here above is an interpretation of the beginning of time and all that goes with it. Basically, it is needed to set up the need for redemption, which is of course the story of Easter.

We have two more performances Easter morning, after which everyone will collectively crash and collapse with huge sighs of relief. We've only had a few minor bumps along the way, but on the whole, the performance was unforgettable.

The crucifixion and resurrection scenes are incredibly powerful and moving - all of our team did such a fantastic job putting it all together. Thousands have seen this production so far, and tomorrow promises to bring more. AD33 has been a special performance, and despite my villainous role, a honor to be a part of. Mommy, of course, is the real hero: she's been doing and keeping track of all the costuming for this major event.

NOW, what exactly has Madison been doing all this time?

Madison is spending the day with Nana and Ye-Ye again, the ultimate babysitters really. Madison has such a great time with them - it doesn't take long to get her out the door when we're mentioning going by Nana and Ye-Ye's house.

When we called moments ago, she was attacking Mr. Potato Head with some knights or something. We'll have to go see what that's about in a bit.

Tomorrow is Easter, of course. We've got a pretty big day planned, as always. Great Grandma is coming, and everyone will be over at Ye-Ye and Nana's house. I know there'll be an egg hunt, and I'm also fairly certain we'll have a visit from one certain Easter Bunny!

But the day is all about Jesus. That message can get lost with all the baskets, eggs and bunny rabbits. And though there's nothing in particular we have against any of that, it is vital that the true meaning of Easter be passed on to not only our daughter, but all our children. This, of course, is what Daddy does for a living - and why. So tomorrow, on Easter Sunday, we'll tell the story once more. We'll be sure to teach our children well.

"Train a child in the way he should go. When he is old, he will not turn away from it." Proverbs 22:6 NIrV

Back to the Egg

So we're finally here at Good Friday. After all the days of practice for AD33, the performance was tonight, and packed to overflow. The production went very well for a first night, with only a few small hitches here and there, but overall it was exactly as advertised: a spectacle.

Madison didn't go tonight, but rather went to Nana and Ye-Ye's again, this time to do Easter Eggs. They also did crafts celebrating Earth Day, one of which was a potted plant that Madison gave to Mommy. It was very sweet, and Madison was quite proud of it. As a part of Earth Day, they watched Disney's "Oceans," and did Earth Day things like ... uh... what exactly is it you do on Earth Day? Perhaps you should dye your Easter eggs green.

Yes, back to the Egg: this morning, when Daddy and Madison woke up (which was pretty late!), we immediately set out to dye Easter eggs. It was quite a project! Mommy was busy sewing last-minute items for the production, so Daddy and Madison attempted to do the eggs on their own. Daddy carefully mixed the vinegar with the little color pellets, with his assistant Madison helping along the way. Cautiously, we added the cool water using precise measurements - and pretty soon we had ourselves about nine different bowls with colored dye in them. Earlier, Mommy had boiled the eggs, so we were all ready to go!

Madison was having a great time coloring the eggs. Some, we even drew on with our white wax crayons - only after the egg was dyed would the drawn image appear. In this case, it was a simple smiley face on it. We also put on some glitter upon the eggs, but that wasn't as fun as dipping our eggs in the colored dye. Not long later, we had ourselves a dozen colorful eggs, most of which which we placed on our Easter plate.

So Madison dyed Easter eggs not once, but twice today! Sounds like a pretty good day to me!

She's Crafty!

Madison is seen here, still working on that project she started a few weeks ago. She's painting it a nice white color, and after it dries, she'll put some flowers inside.* This is going to be given to Great Grandma this Easter - which is only a few days away!

Madison had music class this morning, as usual. It's been a lot of fun. This morning, it was Daddy and Madison at class, while Mommy has been sewing away, creating gladiator and angel costumes for the big AD33 performance. Tonight is the final dress rehearsal, and things promise to go late into the night. THEREFORE, Nana has offered to take Madison to ballet practice, and let Madison stay with her for most of the evening. It might be a long evening!

We certainly hope not, of course. But everything needs to be just right for our big performance that begins tomorrow evening. Thousands of people are coming from all over for a very big weekend Easter celebration, and we hope to tell the story in a captivating way.

Golly, can you believe Easter is only a few days away? Better get those eggs out!

____________________________________

*Ironically, we bought the flowers at Lowe's and got the wooden project from Home Depot!

Shofar Sho Good

Madison helped celebrate Passover by blowing the ram's horn - this is actually her first try at it and she's pretty good!

Rise of the Apes

MADISON'S BOOK CLUB

Today's entry for Madison's Book Club is a small little book called "Goodnight, Gorilla." This story features a mischievous little monkey who follows around the night guard at the zoo. At each stop, this naughty monkey uses the guards keys to release a new animal, which obviously leads up to a funny ending. Madison likes this book, pointing out the "naughty monkey." We're not going to correct her quite yet (by telling her it's a gorilla). After all, we're thrilled she's pointing out and naming all the animals - not to mention she likes the little monkey.

This summer, there's

another "Planet of the Apes" movie due out called "Rise of the Apes." This is one of the summer movies Mommy and Daddy are looking forward to, although it looks a bit darker and less campy than the previous installments. In fact, it seems oddly out of place when put it context with the other movies, although it is supposed to take place before the events of the very first one. Still, we'll probably go see it - though certainly not with Madison. It may be tacky, but Mommy and Daddy like these monkey movies. A few years ago, Mommy gave Daddy one of the ultimate Valentine's Day gifts: the entire "Planet of the Apes" series on DVD. I'd never seen them, so we had a Apefest, and spent a week watching them back to back. We are certainly in the minority on this, but even as Planet of the Apes fans, we enjoyed the Tim Burton vision for the series as well. It'll be a long, long time before Madison sees any of the movies, and even then, I'm not sure she'll "get it."

Just remembered something: Madison's Uncle Dave also likes the series - we threw him a Planet of the Apes party one year. Everyone had on monkey masks, and we had the house decorated with bananas, stuffed monkeys and action figures. Obviously, we got him the box set as well. The party was hilarious - and fun. Yes, Madison, your parents can get quite weird sometimes.

Tonight was a first dress rehearsal for AD33. It turned out pretty good, although exhausting for Mommy. Tomorrow will be a day to recover somewhat, although there's still plenty of work to be done. Madison hung out with everyone today at church and was exposed to her first iPad. She played with that thing all night long during practice, pressing numbers and letters and continuing her fascination with learning. We just might have to get her one of these things.

It was a long day, and it's looking like it'll be a long week too. But now it's time for bed - it's pretty late.

Goodnight, Gorilla!

By Jove!

Today is Sherlock Holmes Day, which meant a little fun this morning while we were at the tax office getting our taxes done. Good news: we get a pretty decent refund! Of course, that's all because of the adoption. We invested so much into that, and now we're starting to see it come back a bit - at least financially. Obviously, from Day One it's been worth it and so much, much more.

While things were being prepared for us, Madison watched "Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler," a VeggieTales production that features Larry the Cucumber with a deerstalker cap and magnifying glass. It's a mystery, but also a nice lesson on treating others the way you yourself want to be treated. Yes, we've got the Sherlock Holmes thing down today. In fact, tonight's bedtime story was a mystery, and an intriguing one at that:

This was a story that Daddy told, and a mystery set up from the get-go. Would Madison figure it out on her own as the story was being told? She's a smart one, as you well know: she figured it out about two-thirds into the yarn.

Once upon a time, it was tea-time with Princess Madison. She had her friends with her: Winnie the Pooh, Alice, Kai-Lan, Mr. Peanut, Minnie Mouse and Papi the Chihuahua. But today was no ordinary day: in fact, today was the day that there was... a mystery!

The tea was delicious, and it was time for cookies - but suddenly Alice exclaimed, "The cookies are gone!"

Indeed they were! Someone had taken the cookies! But who could it have been? Princess Madison looked around the table at the possible suspects. She put on her special hat and got out a magnifying glass: it was time to look for clues. First, she interviewed the suspects.

"Alice," she said. "Did you take the cookies?"

"NO," Alice said. "I wanted to share the cookies with everyone, but found them to be missing."

Princess Madison saw Papi the Chihuahua, who was looking a little nervous. But anyone who knows chihuahaus, knows they tend to always look like that.

Then she asked Mr. Peanut, "Who would take the cookies?"

Mr. Peanut replied, "Perhaps we should look to the cookie jar for clues."

Kai-Lan, Mr. Peanut and Princess Madison looked closely at the cookie jar. It was open, and didn't have any cookies in it.

From the table, Minnie Mouse asked, "Do you see anything?"

That's when Princess Madison spied something with her magnifying glass: tiny drops of honey! And Alice noticed something too: a trail of cookie crumbs, although very small. The entire party there decided to go on the hunt: the game was afoot!

Madison was in front, following the tiny trail of crumbs with her magnifying glass, as Alice, Minnie Mouse, Mr. Peanut, Kai-Lan and Pappi the Chihuahuah followed close behind. Down a small path they went on their merry chase. Who took the cookies?

That's when they saw Mr. Owl overhead. He said, "Welcome to 100 Acre Wood, friends!"

They had followed the cookie trail all the way to 100 Acre Wood! And that's when they realized the one person who was at the party at the beginning wasn't there anymore: it was Winnie the Pooh!

"A-ha!" Princess Madison called out. "It all makes sense now! We found honey at the scene of the crime. Winnie the Pooh is no longer at the party with us, and we followed a trail of cookie crumbs to 100 Acre Wood!"

"Winnie the Pooh took the cookies!" the others shouted, and quite hurriedly they raced to Winnie the Pooh's house. They were just about to knock on his door, when suddenly the door opened!

"Hello friends," Winnie the Pooh said warmly!

"Did you take the cookies?" Papi asked.

"Why yes," Pooh answered. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I can be quite forgetful, I'm afraid."

"But why did you take the cookies?" Minnie Mouse asked.

Pooh replied: "I took them so I could coat them in honey. I was about to bring them back so you can try some honey-covered cookies. But, I see you've all come here!"

Everyone was delighted, because that did sound rather tasty.

"Well," Princess Madison said. "I guess that means our mystery is solved!"

And indeed it was. Everyone came into Winnie the Pooh's house just after that, and finished their tea party there. It was quite nice, and of course the cookies were delicious.

_______________________________

"Never theorize before you have data. Invariably, you end up twisting facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. " - Sherlock Holmes

How to Make a Palm Cross

Today is Palm Sunday, which means once again I ordered palms branches for all the kids at our church. Also, I gave them the little sheet above to show how to make a cross out of the

long green palms.

Here's Madison holding up a few of the crosses that she and I made this afternoon at the kitchen table. It was a very nice day - we all had a nice peanut butter and jelly sandwich dinner out on the back deck today, which was perfectly relaxing. That was the theme of the day: relaxing.

Okay, at least for Daddy and Madison. Mommy spent much of the day making portions of gladiator costumes for the upcoming AD33 performance. The rest of the week, we'll all be at practice leading up to Easter Sunday (when we all get to take a deep breath). Until then, it'll be lots of time invested in preparation for the big day.

Girls' Day Out

It's a girls' day out! Madison spent the day with Nana, Hannah and Aunt Shain - and what a pretty day to spend together. Mommy was out doing research, checking out the Atlanta Passion Play for it's final series, while Daddy was busy with the outreach ministry here. We thought it would be a great opportunity for Madison to join the girls for a Girls' Day Out.

What a day full of activity it was too! Here's Madison with Nana, making a solar silk screen t-shirt for herself at the Gwinnett Cultural and Heritage Center. Try saying that three times fast. Anyway, she did many activities here with the girls.

She saw several exhibits, one of which featured a great horned owl named Burt. Madison knows exactly what an owl says - and she can also tell you the name of the player on first base: Who! Here she is saying, "Who!" The two of them are looking upward at Burt, who is giving them both the eye. But they didn't give a hoot.

Another exhibit featured Madison diverting water by creating a dam - with a big lake as a result. Also, along this small river you see, there are water wheels and other neat things to learn about water. If you're wondering what exactly the big occasion here was, the center was celebrating Earth Day, and having all kinds of activities for the kids, like this below:

Yes, we've got a big bag filled with crafts and activities she did throughout the day. She made flowers and picked up all kinds of little extras along the way. Madison did so much, and had a simply wonderful day with everyone else. She really enjoys spending time with everyone, and had a very special day out with the girls.

"Send out a 911. We're going to have some fun."

- Hannah Montana

What a McDay

Yes, we went to McDonald's today. Want to know why? Take a look back one year and find out for yourself! We went through the drive-thru and got ourselves some fries and a happy meal.

It was a massive day for all of us. AD33 practice went on and on, and it matters weren't helped by this:

We had ourselves a substantial storm tonight. You can see where one wave has already passed us by - this nasty bugger gave us all a tornado warning that forced our play practice to go downstairs into the basement area for a while. But it isn't over yet. We're under a tornado watch until 6 am, and as you can see looking above, there's another line of red coming our way. Oh, goodie.

This has been going on for the last three weeks. Maybe twice a week we'll have some major storm like this sweep through, and it's usually at night. Fortunately, Madison is asleep for a lot of it. She sleeps very well at night, and tonight should be no exception: she was up really late. She did take a good nap this afternoon, but still she's been up too late recently.

She's been having fun at the church with her new friends: all the kids and adults at AD33 practice. She runs around chasing, or gets into sword or knife fights. Yes, that's not a recommended church activity. Still, when you have these props floating around, you can see the potential for a four-year-old to grab one and start yelling, "Arrrrr!"

Today we put a lock box on the old house, which sort of makes it official: we're selling it. Madison visited her old stomping ground again with Mommy. The two were cleaning up further still - we're almost done there.