Jawas

Another great morning at KidPak - Madison was a Jawa on stage, which involved a bit of method acting.  This week, she was out scavenging for parts in the wastelands of Hall County, looking for mechanical bits amongst piles of wreckage.  Okay, not really.  Her real practice was spending the day Saturday yelling out at random intervals, "Utini!"

Episode II of our ongoing Star Wars themed drama went well, with the audience loving our story with Stacey, Mara Jade, and more characters.  While on Tatooine, Stacey just had to take a selfie:

She's that sort of character.  But today we introduced another character, one a bit more menacing.  He's a bounty hunter, and he's out for his 35,000 credits.  Which, yes, is the same amount Chewbacca was worth in "Return of the Jedi."

Today's bottom line is all about "the Force of God."  In the book of Joshua and the book of Judges, there is a guy named Othniel, and his name literally means "The Force of God."  He battled against giants, this force of God.  Obviously, we had to preach about Yoda today, how 'size matters not,' and how 'greater is He that is in you.'

The whole service once again had a Star Wars theme, including the game we had at the beginning, where teams were looking through a trash bag each, each filled with wads of paper and five little pictures of Yoda.  It was a frantic search to be the first team to find five pictures, and yes, it was a mess on the stage.  The game was called, "The Great Trash Compactor Dive," something Daddy made a logo for using imagery from that scene in the first Star Wars movie.

Here's a screen shot of one of the videos we filmed, called "Chattin' on the Death Star."  It's a talk show that takes place in a studio on the Death Star, because why not?  And speaking of why not…

It turns out when Han and Lando said, "It's not my fault," that they were telling the truth!  It turns out someone unplugged the Millennium Falcon in order to plug in… her curling iron...

ANYWAY, it was a great morning from start to finish.  We worked hard on the theme to make it just right, and it turned out just right.  Next weekend, we'll be talking about lightsabers - which should be fun...!

We got home, and after eating lunch, Madison was over to the piano to finish off her practice for the week.  This took a bit of time, and afterwards, she was rewarded with a Vinylmation figure.  She reached her hand into a pillow case to grab one random figure, and she pulled out one modeled after Buford, from "Phineas and Ferb."  She still loved it!

We did a lot of Disney Infinity this afternoon, using Yoda of course.  Nana and Ba-Ba arrived early evening, and they had a great drive up.  It seemed a little longer to them, as they tried the Athens route.  But there was no traffic at all.  Which is why Daddy likes that route a whole lot better!

So there was a lot of catching up tonight, sitting around the table and sharing stories, pictures, and even a few videos.  It'll be nice to have everyone here this week.  Tonight the Olympics in Rio conclude, and as we hoped, it all worked out just fine.  For the USA, it was better than fine.  Sure, there were a few disappointments here or there, but there were an equal or greater amount of surprises for us, and a few legends were born as well.  It's been great watching the events along the way, and I'm sure we'll be watching more even after tonight has passed.  NBC's coverage has been astoundingly awful, but we'll get around to seeing everything eventually.  That used to be a good station, too.

Anyway, it's off to sleep tonight.  We read from the devotional, and read some more from the latest Elsa and Anna book, which features a polar bear problem.  We'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what they plan to do about that, although I have a pretty good guess...