Mara Jade

So Mara Jade was in action a bit today, although it was ultimately proven to be just a training scene.  We wanted a bit of tension, as you don't know where her allegiance is - or at least the audience didn't.  Today, she was involved in a bit of combat with Camille, who is playing a Senator from Naboo.

It turns out that this is just a training session.  Still, we had some exciting music from Episode I playing, and the lighting, as you can see, set the scene rather nicely.  We're having such a great time with this series, with each of the characters so far.  Mara Jade was somewhat of an unknown character, although some of us super fans knew exactly who she was.  This unknown quality made her more interesting, and given the fact that she is not canon yet, it gave us an opportunity to do something fun with the idea of a character who has reformed to do good, and yet still has retained some of the darker habits of her past.

This lends itself nicely to a few messages, of course.  Although we have other characters that will be great to do a few things with.  Anyway, it was another simply amazing service.  We have such talented volunteers, and God's grace over this series has been wonderful.  We had a trivia game this morning, and despite the challenge of the questions, the kids got most of them right - which goes to show you that they're all really into this series!

The message about a "sword of light" carried the morning, about God's Word being sharper than a two-edged sword, and a light unto our path and feet.  It was a great day, and of course those kids all had their own lightsabers by morning's end.  They wrote scriptures on one side as they rolled up the lightsabers and whacked each other all the way home!

Or... at least that's what Madison did to Daddy.  It was a good day though, for real.  We got home, and Daddy stayed home, struggling a bit with his tummy.  Mommy took a bit of a nap, while Madison attended to her virtual crops.  Yeah, she's doing Harvest Moon 64 still.  This game is easily one of the most addicting substances known to humanity.  Fortunately, it has an end, where the disgruntled uncle comes and criticizes your noble efforts.  But until that point, you just have to ride it out, farming each day, and interacting with the townspeople.  That's what Madison did a little of today.

She also did her piano, of course.  She finished for the week with her piano homework, which seems to be a bit quicker to start out with this season.  Nevertheless, she's on top of it, and as a reward, she got to pick yet another Vinylmation figure.  She likes these guys and gals a lot.  Just sayin'.

Tonight, we got some popcorn out and watched the movie "Underdogs," which was in itself a bit of an underdog movie.  That is to say, it wasn't well received here.  This may be because of the female voice actress that starred in it, the one that had just licked a doughnut in a doughnut shop - and then put the doughnut back on the shelf.  Way to sabotage your own movie, princess!

But I digress.  The staff that worked on this did a great job.  There were some parts that we laughed out loud at, although it had a slow start.  By movie's end, we were all glad we chose this one.  

Soon after, as you might suspect, it was time for the devotional, "James and the Giant Peach," and night time prayers.  We got to bed early tonight, because as always, Monday is a big day.  It'll be a great one too - just a long, long one!