End of January

Maddie was at FCY for a great night with the youth, back to a normal youth service from last week's huge United event.  It was a more quiet evening, but always good for Maddie to be at church.  She was ready to come home though - she studied a little for a history test tomorrow, and after that we squeezed in two episodes of "Monk."  We're on season five, so we just passed the halfway point.  I know there's the new movie that just came out, but we wanted to wait to watch that until Maddie got to see all the episodes, just in case there are any spoilers in the new thing.  

Speaking of "new thing," we got these new KidPak hoodies recently.  Camille, Joey and I were wearing our brown hoodies, and given our statures... well, we kind of look like Jawas.

It's cold outside, and I still have this bug.  It's a lot of nose-blowing, but there are unique things we're trying to help my poor lungs out, including keeping my head under a towel over a steaming bowl full of salt water, with a hint of vapor rub in it.  Deep breaths.  These thieves cough drops are invaluable.  The infuser has been great too.  I actually slept through the night tonight without any real trouble, although the NyQuil really got me loopy in the morning!

Anyway, it's been getting better at least.  Maddie and Mom have been healthy, and I'm grateful it's just me.  Maddie had a normal day at school, her last day of the month, and fairly non-eventful.  Tonight, we continued our reading with the Nac Mac Feegle, and enjoying a new character named Geoffrey, who seems nice enough.  He has potential to help Tiffany out greatly in the coming chapters, it appears, as a threat is certainly looming.  The plush entourage was down the hall to hear that, and a few other things.

Maddie and the texting group have been sharing a lot of videos lately, and there have been a few with Rick-rolls that have been pretty funny.  It's a great prank that keeps going on and on.  It's like this small weird rubber duck that we keep sneaking into various places to surprise one another.  I found it in a bath towel hanging over the shower, right when it fell off and on top of me.  Maddie has yet to find it's next location, but it'll be a surprise to her when she gets it.

We get these texts while at the office, and it's funny because we're all there now.  We've been filming some new things, new game segments and pastor messages.  Some of these are hysterical, and a lot of fun to be a part of.  I'm doing voice work too - we've got some animation we're working on which should be fun. 

Did I mention we ordered new kamas for Maddie?  I think so.  Anyway, we did, as her others have actually broke recently.  She's just so tough on her equipment!

We're supposed to have some more wet weather next week, so a lot of rain this season.  We need it, so that's good.  January, in fact, has been good.  I know I was sick for a whole week here, but the timing has been fine on that - if I was sick on the cruise, that would have been bad.  Or even this upcoming weekend, when it's Daddy-Daughter Date Night.  The point is, things have been good, considering it's January, a month that's not exactly known for much.  In fact, looking back, we've had some great memories, from the Cirque du Soleil night to the Jurassic Park event and the Gladiators game.  United Night was awesome last week, and despite the upturning of all of the props and whatnot, even that seems to be turning okay.  

Maddie is doing fine, healthy, and enjoying being with friends at FCY and taekwondo.  2024 is off to a pretty good start, and February of course has some big highlights on the way!

Obadiah

Okay, I stayed at home today due to illness.  Still coughing and what-not.  But I did get out to get Maddie to school, although tonight we didn't go anywhere.  We opted to watch a few episodes of "The Chosen" instead, as we're moving forward and reviewing the episodes as we gear up for season four.  It looks particularly heavy, based on trailers, but we'll see how things go.  The series is so good though, as it gets you diving into Bible stories, not meant to replace the Bible, but instead get you looking back at those scriptures in the New Testament (and in some cases Old Testament too).

Speaking of which, having finished the book of Genesis, I was curious about the fate of the lineage of Essau, so yes, the next book I read was Obadiah.  And yes, given that it's the shortest book of the Old Testament, I finished much quicker than Genesis.  The commentary with it was a great look at the area we know as Petra today, and of course there was a discussion about the fate of Edomites, and even the crazy fact that King Herod himself was from that lineage.  By AD 70, the entire family line is gone, obliterated by the Romans.  It's a sad piece of history.  You can see them just consumed by hatred for the family line of Jacob, perhaps all because of that perception of Jacob "stealing" the birth rite.  During his lifetime, Essau makes friends with Jacob, but the families nevertheless do not get along throughout the rest of history.  Essau's descendants try to block the Hebrews from their passage into the Promised Land, but even worse, there are the things chronicled in the book of Obadiah.  God's judgment was on the way - Jacob's family line was the fire, and Essau's was the straw.  If only both family lines could focus on God and making themselves more loving towards one another, perhaps things would turn out differently.  The comparison to Judah is something I thought of, how Judah let go of his angry sibling rivalry, even offering himself up to become a slave to save his own brother, all for a father that did not love him as much.  These descendants of Essau were far from showing that sort of love, in fact even celebrating when others were hurt or worse.  They clearly should have focused on their own hearts, and focused on God.  The end result is nothing - a life built in the rocks, but not on the Rock.  And no matter how high up they perched themselves, there is no escape from the harvest that they've been seeding for so many years.  Anyway, that's Obadiah in a nutshell.  Next up is back to the chronological order of things, and the more substantial book of Exodus.  We're pretty excited about watching a few of those movies again, and an upcoming Hillsdale class too, one that's brand new.

Today we were gathering apostles somewhat - we'll hopefully have our twelve cast by this weekend.  Pastor Lance is wanting me to be one again, despite my advancing years here.  I'm not a spring chicken anymore at a table full of youngsters.  Some beard coloring will help reduce the years, I suppose, but yes, this Easter you can once again look for me at the Last Supper Table.  I used to really hope that some day I could do something like that on stage, and now I'm up there somewhat reluctantly in front of 33,000 people or whatever... I love it, don't get me wrong.  It's just funny how big of a deal it used to be, and how nearly routine it is now.  For some of the guys at the table, it'll be this hugely exciting new experience, and I'll get to share that with them once more.  

Maddie had her internship today, and she had her Stardew Valley tonight, a game she's enjoying a lot lately.  This and Animal Crossing are games she's enjoyed a lot over the years, constantly coming back to them.  

We read tonight before bed, and e said our prayers after that.  It was a quiet day today, and I needed it.  Hopefully tomorrow we'll all feel better.

Famous Driving School

Maddie was back at Chestatee today, and she is excelling at that.  She's also registering for school classes next year, another math, some mandatory classes here or there, plus photography and maybe a driver's education class.  We'll see as the week progresses, but there's also a gap in the schedule that might afford her the ability to sleep in each morning, getting to school a little later.  We'll see how all that goes.  If things don't pan out for driver's ed in school, maybe we can send Maddie to the "Famous Driving School."

In the meantime, it was the worst sick day of all for me, for some reason.  I stayed in the car the majority of the time I was waiting for Maddie in the car line and waiting for her in the parking lot at Edge Martial Arts.  I filled my time watching Herbie movies and television shows.  I've now gotten through five Herbie movies, and just have the one to go.  I've never seen the television show before, but tonight I got to see episode one where Jim Douglas and Herbie are back, stopping a bank robbery and more.  Apparently, the two are helping one another at a Driver's School called "FAMOUS DRIVING SCHOOL."  

This seemed like a good idea for Herbie, who apparently wanted to retire from racing.  Driver's schools might put the teacher at ease, particularly when Herbie is in charge.  The only thing is the question of people actually learning to drive, or just expecting their car to do everything for them.  Which is what Herbie essentially does for one student.  But it's fun, and most of these again require that you not put too much thought into it.   Plus, there's a drag race in here, one that Herbie wins of course.  The show isn't quite as zany or action-packed, but it's pleasant enough, and by gum, it's canon!  Four more episodes here and we'll see what happens next in this mysterious chapter of the Jim Douglas/Herbie saga!

Okay, I've built that up more than it needs to be.  But I'm under the weather and it should be excused.  Today was a good day for Maddie at taekwondo.  No aerials, but she did have fun, and everyone seems be healthy.  That's one plus in all of this:  I'm not this sick on the cruise, or any other time.  It fell at a perfect time.

Moving on, we watched a few more episodes of "The Chosen" tonight, getting close to wrapping up season two again.  Strangely, there's this one episode that none of us actually remember ever watching before!  I think there was a mishap with the Chosen app back a while ago, and we actually missed this one.  Well no worries - we got a brand new episode tonight, essentially.  They've been great though.

Tonight we said our prayers and we read for a bit too.  The bad elves are preparing an invasion, so there'll be one more conflict here in Discworld before we say goodnight on the series.  Everyone went to bed tonight, but it was a super rough night for me - not much sleep.  This nose is so athletic, and maybe even training for races - it won't stop running!

Valentine's Day Gingerbread House 2024

 

Here's our third entry in the Valentine's Day Gingerbread House series, and it turned out pretty good!  Maddie and I ended the fast in glorious fashion by making a gingerbread house to celebrate Valentine's Day, which of course meant conversation hearts and heart-shaped candies, plus those heart lollipops too.  

The roof is made from Frankenberry, continuing our trend of using Monster Cereal in our gingerbread houses, the only one not used so far is ironically Count Chocula.  But we've used Booberry before and recently Carmella Creeper.

This format was pretty good, the curving roof a rather unique "slant" on the typical gingerbread house.  It is a Mickey Mouse gingerbread, which you can see the evidence of in teh picture below at center with the peppermint and the two red ears.

We had this one left over from Christmas, so we saved it for Valentine's Day and it came out well.  We spent a few hours on this one, watching "Gnomeo and Juliet" while doing our decorations.  

We did not go to KidPak today.  We did watch the online service, which was a lot of fun.  And we watched the main church service as well, so we caught both services online, and that was well and good.  Again, we stayed home because of my condition.  I'm not well:  respiratory stuff.

Mom had a great meal for us this morning, a skillet breakfast with my first meat in twenty-one days:  bacon.  It was a fantastic and delicious breakfast!  We finished up our LEGO Jurassic World after that, finally achieving 100%.  Maddie was quite pleased with this.  The last one achievement was just taking one photograph near the Indominus Rex paddock.    There were hundreds of achievements though, and it took us a little while to get to this point.  

Tonight's feature movie was the final Ant-Man movie, which we all enjoy very much.  It's a good flick, and a great conclusion to the Ant-Man series.  We got this one for Christmas, one of about three movies we got on Blu-Ray.  The amount of physical copies of movies keeps decreasing every year.  I don't know if it's because we're getting older or it's because there aren't that many movies worth getting anymore.  Everything seems to be guiding folks towards streaming services and so on.  We do like this one though.  The conventional wisdom was this feeling that Kang the Conqueror should not be so easily defeated, but watching this again you can see he was not defeated by just Ant-Man, but in fact an army of ants from a class two civilization up against one super bad guy also with super technology, but these ants are just as strong, and are numerous and are simply held at bay by a force shield until a betrayal by a yet another super powered bad guy, which disables Kang's technology, plus an unexpected sucker punch attack from the Wasp, who shoots projectiles... it's not like Ant-Man defeated this one Kang on his own.  He had pride in his own army and that kept him from stepping in earlier, and in the end without all his technology, he was just one human being.  I think the big win made sense.  Even more, the movie makes sense as a part three of a trilogy focusing on Ant-Man and his immediate family.  This movie had heart, and seeing Hank Pym standing triumphant with all those ants rushing by to save the day was pretty awesome.  The story is great, and we can't wait to see some of these characters in a few weeks on the Disney Wish.

Anyway, it's late.  Tonight we did read some more, and after that we said our prayers.  It was a good day, despite the illness.  And despite this relentless bluebird.  These bluebirds are nice and all, but some of them are astoundingly unintelligent.  They have this crazy attack mode when they see their own reflection, and it's bonkers.  They never learn either.  They just sit there, wasting their entire day, attacking their own reflection over and over again in windows, passenger mirrors on cars, or any reflective service around.  There's never a point where they go, "Hey.  This is a flat surface and not another bird."  This thought never occurs to them, and so therefore, they'll literally spend the entire day striking out at that window or mirror, unless of course they are chased away.  Which frustrated house owners do, of course.  But the thing is, after a few moments, the bluebird comes right back and continues where it left off.  It's so frustrating, because you want to be kind and helpful one moment and the next you want to get the bug-a-salt weapon out and nail that dumb bird!  

Moving on, it's late.  I'm clearly on some NyQuil here because I'm fading.  It's time for all of us to get some sleep.  It's been a good day, despite the illness.

Unlucky Bystander

So today was a sick day for sure.  I'm officially "not good."  Things sort of went from mildly bad to more bad today, so we just stayed home - and again, there was no Team Edge this morning because Maddie's instructor is also sick.  So it's going around, whatever "it" is.  Mom says she had this back in November, and I remember that.  Maddie had it earlier, I think, right after our vacation, although not to the extent of Mom and I.  Things aren't so bad that I'm not functional indoors - I just can't move around so much.  So I sat and played video games all day pretty much with Maddie.  Yep, we had one of "those" days, long overdue.  Some may say that's a wasted day, but a day playing video games with your daughter is a great time and a great memory.  We played this game for hours!

We were in LEGO Jurassic World, on the hunt for every hidden item we could find, and we almost got finished, actually.  I believe we're at 99.2%.  It's been fun exploring and redoing levels and trying to figure things out for ourselves without looking them up online for answers.  We've actually figured out everything on our own this time, although some have been tougher puzzles.  It's been fun playing as all the different characters too, sometimes opting for the more and more useless characters such as "UNLUCKY BYSTANDER."  

He's got not discernible skills.  And his screenwriting skills are questionable too.  We did a little research on this character, whose name is literally "Unlucky Bystander."  Apparently, it's a cameo by the screenwriter of "Jurassic Park:  The Lost World."  Fortunately, in the movie he is eaten, which explains why the movies got better after that sequel.

Other seemingly useless characters are "INGEN INVESTOR" and "DONALD GENARO."  Those two are fun to play as a combo because their weapon of choice is a briefcase that they swing around to defend against attacking reptiles.  The briefcase combo attack is lethal!  They can't be used for much else, but that's the kind of random fun we were having today.  It'll be bittersweet when we get to 100%.

Tomorrow we'll finish up, because today, I told Camille that we're not coming to KidPak tomorrow.  For one, I'm not well.  And really that's all that's needed to know - I don't want to get anyone else sick and I don't know how far I can push things on stage anyway.  

So the last day of the fast is today, although I wasn't terribly hungry throughout the day.  Maddie, Mom and I just had some soup and sort of hung out here.  Maddie was doing some things on her computer, and we all bathed and sort of cleaned up a little around the house.  

We read tonight, and I was too tired and/or unwell to go down to her room this evening.  We prayed, and she left to her room as I tried to get some sleep.  It was a longer night, but I know I don't have to get up earlier in the morning. 

We'll Miss You, Liver Lips

We had some heavy rain again today, and it was pretty rough at times, a downpour that just felt like something out of the tropics.  Not pleasant to drive in at all - I was home for most of the day, definitely under the weather now.  Coughing, drainage and so on.  I was having a bit of a Herbie Marathon, watching "Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo" and "Herbie Goes Bananas."  It's a tragic story, really, and back then writers weren't overly concerned about things like canon.  They just wanted to make another Herbie movie, so Jim Douglas apparently either got a divorce since the first movie, or he's in Paris, which evidently gives you free license to ignore any marital commitments.  Regardless, they don't explain, and just like that there's one character gone.  But worse is the fate of Herbie's love interest, a cute little car named Giselle.  Apparently that car died.  Yeah, it sounds like the reason she's not in any more movies is because she didn't make a turn fast enough and crashed so bad that she was destroyed.  Yikes.  Can you imagine what that was like for Herbie?  I'm sure there have to be car therapists out there to help these vehicles handle the trauma.  If you ignore all this, you can enjoy the movies for what they are:  harmless fun.  I'm intending to finish this Herbie-thon though - the next thing is actually watching for the first time the television show.  It's available online somewhere, just five episodes of Jim Douglas and Herbie together for a few hours.  And then there are two more movies, one with Bruce Campbell and then of course the one from 2006.  The Herbie-thon continues!

Moving on, today was a good day for Maddie at school.  Here's her vivid description of today's events:

Maddie: "I went interning and all with Mrs. Roper at first and then like I was doing a low relief thing for ceramics.  Uh... learned about 'Merica in US History.  (laugher)  Uh... jumped.  (long pause)  Yeah."

"Low Relief Thing for Ceramics."

Tonight we went over to taekwondo, and I stayed in the car while Maddie did some more aerials and kicked people.  She's really enjoying that class.  We drove home later, and because we're going on this Disney Cruise, we watched "Ant-Man" tonight, the first of the three movies.  Some of these characters feature prominently in the Marvel-themed dinner onboard the ship.  Pretty cool.

We also watched some of the last showings of the Country Bear Jamboree.  I guess the last time we saw this show was in 2019, so it's been a few years.  The pandemic saw to it that we didn't go back right away. But we were watching a livestream or two of it, and it was heartwarming to see so many enthusiastic fans also singing along with the music and even saying all the words.  These are my kind of people.  Such nostalgia and a bittersweet moment.  

Fortunately the bears are not going away, although Liver Lips McGraw is changing his name to Romeo McGrowl.  Not sure about that one, as we're pretty happy with the name Liver Lips, but we'll reserve judgement until we see the new show, as we're at least going to keep the bears for a while longer, and not take them out of the park completely.  I remember having a Country Bear Jamboree lunchbox when I was younger, and of course I've probably seen that show dozens of times.  We make a point of seeing each visit to the Magic Kingdom, no joke!

 

So I've been sick, so we did go to bed early.  Maddie's taekwondo instructor is also sick so there's no Team Edge tomorrow.  We're sleeping in, all of us.  We read tonight, and we said our prayers.  Hopefully tomorrow is going to be a better day!

Ohana Stateroom Door Decoration

 

So one thing we've been working on are door decorations for the stateroom door for our Disney Cruise.  We've done this before, as do many that go on the Disney Cruise.  You can see one sign that we made above, one that will go with some other decorations.  I printed this out on card stock, and next Mom will glue thin magnet strips to the back of it so that it will stick to the doors.  We're making some for Uncle George's room, and some other items for our door too, mostly with a Lilo & Stitch theme, plus Angel too. We're also still working on the pictures, one per day, for our family tree - We have a picture of Maddie now, plus Mom, and now me.  We've got small frames for each family member as we go along - I'll share the entire project when it's done, but it's a work in progress.

Today Maddie was at Chestatee again, and that's been going well.  She had a Forensics test, and that was all about blood.  She got a bloody good grade too - a 98.

Rain today, and frequently heavy.  Big and loud booms of thunder too.  I finished up the Australia walking and got my virtual badge there, and now perhaps off to Thailand, maybe.  The training continues, the heart exercise goes on.  Despite that, there are illnesses about - I'm in fact not 100%.  It's not too bad, but at the same time Maddie's Team Edge instructor just cancelled class on Saturday because of illness.  It's a winter thing.  

Tonight after taewkondo (and a few more aerials), we sat down to watch another episode of "The Chosen" together.  We're reviewing season two right now, and of course these episodes are all so good.  Maddie had a few little homework assignments, and tomorrow we'll have to order her some new kamas.  Today I sent her a text message with autocorrect, which read "we'll get you some new mamas."  So now they're "kama mamas."

Anyway, we read again, just a few pages about the Queen of the Elves making her big arrival into Discworld, and of course the elves' weakness to iron and a steam train going by.  Not a good combination for them, and we'll see how things go as we continue reading the rest of this month.  I think we might be finished by month's end, ready for a new series by that point.  

The rain is still coming down, and it was frequently heavy today.  It's supposed to rain a lot in the coming days, so we'll get some of that lake level back up again.  Of course, it needs to rain all the time in order for the lake level to stay up, given that the population below the lake has increased to much larger numbers.  A draught for this area would be much more severe now, given the amount of people draining the lake.  Thankful for the rain.

We said our prayers, and soon were off to sleep to the sound of rainfall outside.

UPDATE:  Mom cut out and glued those stateroom decorations on our refrigerator - they look great!

/// FAST UNITED ///

FCY United Night was in Braselton tonight at the campus there, and it was a great conclusion to the "FAST" series, which of course went with the month the church traditionally goes on a twenty-one day fast.  The theme brought students from all over to the campus, as there were giveaways (NASCAR tickets!), some fancy cars (seen above), and even some air brush t-shirts that I couldn't resist - I bought Maddie one right away, plus one for her friend.  

Yes, the gang from taekwondo showed up, and it was a great time together tonight, a solid message from Pastor Javon from Spartanburg, and on top of that all kinds of other fun with photo ops, games, a gaming truck, the cars, a dance party and more.  A great night!

I was in the new prop room for most of the time, getting things straightened up somewhat for Mom so when she comes down it will be easier for her.  It was a lot of good work, but it was great to see a nice place for Mom to put all that material.

Anyway, it was a good day today, and a long one.  Got a lot done, particularly if you consider the work tonight.  We're moving forward with Summer Xtreme messages as well as getting things done for the skit this Sunday, plus other things on the grocery list.  It'll take time but we're getting there.

The fog was so intense tonight on the way there, and the rain was so heavy on the way back.  More rain is on the way - it's going to be tricky driving.  We had to take our time on the way back, a long drive made longer by the care I was taking to be alert.  Lots of water on the road.  

We read tonight, and didn't really have time to watch too much due to the lateness of the hour.  But we prayed and it was easy to fall asleep tonight.  

Rain Again

Rain again today, and we need it of course, but it's this cold miserable rain that makes it even less appealing to be outside.  Or drive outside.  Mom and I don't like driving outside at night in the rain.  Fortunately, we weren't doing that tonight, as we had the night off, so to speak.  No taekwondo or FCY.  It was movie night, and we concluded the "Mighty Ducks" trilogy with a viewing of part three.  It's a step down from the previous three, but it certainly has its moments, and it's good to be with most of the original crew again.  I was thinking we could watch the television series again after this, but they've inexplicably taken it off the streaming service, and so now there's no way to actually watch the recent Mighty Ducks television series.  Glad we saw season one while we could, I guess.

Anyway, Maddie was at Chestatee Elementary today, once again.  I was writing a lot today - we got a new message for Summer Xtreme done, the usual stuff for this weekend, and even wrote a few more radio ads for a car dealership not far from here.  Last year I wrote some radio ads that John Smoltz read, which was kind of cool.  I'm also writing some for the current third base coach for the Atlanta Braves.

***********************************************

Hey there, this is ___________, third base coach for your Atlanta Braves.  If there’s one thing I love about being at third base, it’s sending folks home with a big win.   That’s why I’m excited to give you the sign right now to go to Lake Hartwell Chevrolet in Toccoa.  This winning team delivers quality customer service, and they won’t balk when it comes to giving you the best deals on a great selection of Silverados, HD2500’s and SUVs.  And their service department is the best in the league, a friendly staff of talented all-stars that will keep you going with a great drive every time.  If you want to be a winner, do what I did, and visit my friends at Lake Hartwell Chevrolet, Big A Road in Toccoa.  And tell them Coach ______ sent you!

***********************************************

Hey there, this is _______.  As third base coach for the Atlanta Braves, players count on me to tell them when to stop and when to go with a big winning play.  

That’s why I can’t wait to tell you about my friends at Lake Hartwell Chevrolet.  They’re a team of all-stars that won’t give you any curveballs from left field.  No, this downhome friendly staff consistently deals out hall-of-fame customer service, giving you the best savings on a great selection of Silverados, HD2500’s and SUVs.  And their service department leads the league with talent and customer satisfaction, keeping you completely on top of your game.
  So do what I did:  go with a winner.  Visit my friends at Lake Hartwell Chevrolet, Big A Road in Toccoa.  And tell them Coach _______ sent you!

***********************************************

Makes me want to go to a baseball game again.  Maybe we'll get to a Braves game this year!  Anyway, getting a lot done.  The new message is going to be super fun, although we won't see that one until July, I think.  It's good to get all this done ahead of time, of course.  I'll probably post a little bit of that later.  The "Tropical Freeze" theme is going to be really awesome.  

The walking continues - I'm just a day or two away from getting another badge for walking in Australia, and these have been pleasant journeys on the treadmill.  I have to pick up the energy a little though, and get back into jogging - I'm hoping to get in better shape for maybe a run on Castaway Cay.  We'll see!

Our fast continues too.  The three of us watched another episode of "The Chosen," the one that introduces Simon the Zealot.  And I've been meandering in the book of Genesis right now, discovering new things.  That Hillsdale course was fantastic.  

I removed my name from this certificate because it's really for Mom and I, who went through the whole thing and are ready to go on to the next course covering the book of "Exodus." 

Oh, and check this out.  Each day for the next few weeks I'm going to be updating some of these photos for these small frames.  Each one is to be hanging from a "family tree," so as you might suspect, each frame will have pictures of different family members.  First up is Maddie - I sent this picture to her today to show her what hers looks like.  Pretty nice!

Tonight we read from "The Shepherd's Crown" again, moving along with the story somewhat.  We'll keep going this month until we take a break from the Discworld.   It's been fun.

We said our prayers together tonight, and it was easy to go to sleep.  Busy day but nice day!

Warmer... Slightly

Today was a decent day, a Monday that featured rain, rain and more rain.  This came with a warmer temperature - it had to be a lot warmer in order for it not to freeze.  So on one hand we were grateful for the slight warming trend, but on the other hand, if it hadn't warmed up so much, we'd be playing in the snow today.  And honestly, that would have been pretty amazing.  As is, I think it's going to be just a cold rain for a bit.  The birds were grateful outside on the back deck, as we've kept them going these last few weeks with plenty to eat and even drink.  The bird bath we've kept liquid most of the time, melting that solid ice in the morning and frequently making sure they're able to still drink from it.  The birds were dipping into that a lot today, even though the rain was coming down.   

Maddie was back at school, and she says it's going well.  She was of course at Chestatee Elementary, where she'll be for a little while longer.  There was a substitute there today, and she did okay with the kids there.  Her forensics class is going bloody well.  She's studying blood this section, so a lot of bloody jokes here.  Interestingly enough, we're receiving a lot of fake blood in the mail these past few days and the next.  The Easter production is upcoming, and it's good to have that ahead of time, versus the last-minute trips to Marietta or wherever.  So blood is the theme of the day!

Maddie's other classes are going well too - she's studying World War I right now, along with the League of Nations and other stories of that time.  Ironically, we'll be eating at a restaurant called "1923" soon enough, maybe right around the time Maddie gets to the twenties.  Or at least close enough.  That restaurant is on the Disney Wish, a restaurant themed to that particular season, using decor and a lot of early animation from that time.  We'll have a full report on that later, of course.  But tonight we had looked up a video about that place, and it was pretty cool.  Looking forward to it!

There was taekwondo tonight, and that was normal.  I was getting some work done, including one of the messages for Summer Xtreme upcoming.  I nearly finished it up, but it goes very well with the "Tropical Freeze" theme.  I was doing this while watching Maddie spar for a bit, and then train further with her form.  She's loving that class, and that's great.  

We got home from there, after a stop at the gas station.  Those little stops at the gas station are nice - we pick up a few snacks and drinks sometimes, one of them being a coffee drink Maddie saves for the next day.  We're still fasting sweets and meats, so I don't get anything.  But the employees know us well enough each time we come by.

Tonight's feature was "The Mighty Ducks 2," which we all enjoyed again of course.  Maddie had her Mighty Ducks jersey on again, the one featured in this particular movie.  We went to bed not long after that - we were tired.  But we did read, of course.  The plush entourage was down the hall listening to a few more pages of our current book.

There's been this weird little rubber duck that we've been hiding back and forth.  One day it will be in a towel in my bathroom and the next it shows up in Maddie's book bag.  It kind of goes back and forth, and it's been a fun little game we've been doing.  Maddie hasn't found the duck in a bit, but I'll know when she does.  It'll turn up, and it'll be in my face somewhere!

We said our prayers, and that was it.  Time to call it a day!

Boy Howdy

 Check out this ice!  Maddie went down to the church fountain area, and it was solid enough that she could actually stand on it for a selfie!

It was pretty cold outside though - all day long.  This morning at KidPak there was plenty of warmth, and fun too.

This morning we hit the dusty trail once again with "Trailblazers" at KidPak.  It's been an eventful week, and I couldn't write a script for various reasons, but Camille took some of my earlier material and came up with a fantastic new script that was just so much fun for everyone, plus it really laid out that bottom line about God's Word very well.  It was a really super solid morning in the KidPak auditorium, and Mom got some great pictures, one of which you see above.  Here's a few more below:

It was a fun morning - we went home pretty hungry, but these Factor_ meals have been so good with vegetarian options.  There was this roasted corn and zucchini mix that was delicious, plus some seasoned green beans that were really good too.  We all had a great lunch this afternoon, and after that we were zonked.  Mom got a bath, and Maddie and I went back to Jurassic World in search of one more red brick, plus a whole bunch of gold bricks too.  It's been fun doing missions together, one of us sometimes a full-sized dinosaur squeezed into various places that make no sense.  I did one mission as a Gallimimus while Maddie was doing all the work.   But that's what makes the variety fun. 

Tonight's programming as expected included "The Mighty Ducks," which is still a great movie.  We loved it so much (again) that we're going back to the sequel tomorrow.  Going to an ice hockey game means watching these movies afterwards, and wearing that "Mighty Ducks" jersey she has.  We watched an episode of "The Chosen" after that, and even an episode of "Monk" later on.  In between all of that there was a bit of cleaning up, vacuuming and getting dust bunnies off the table.

It was a good day - we had a lot of work going on the last week, so it was good to get a little rest on the day of rest.  We read tonight, and there's trouble on the horizon for Tiffany Aching, but at the same time the book does have that feel of a final lap in the Discworld, with various characters popping in or at least being mentioned.  There's something more looming, of course, and Tiffany will have to deal with that as well.  We'll keep reading, but this is book five of five of the Tiffany Aching series, and Maddie's enjoyed it, particularly the Nac Mac Feegle.

We said our prayers tonight, and that was pretty much it for a decent day.  This morning's service was good, and we're glad to keep the Trailblazers going.  Boy, howdy!

Star Wars Night with the Gladiators!

 

Tonight was Star Wars Night at the Gladiators hockey game, and it was pretty fun!  This was a Christmas present for Maddie - along with an extra ticket to bring a friend.  Maddie chose her friend Maddie, and the two of them got ready for the big game.  Maddie wore her new Mighty Ducks jersey, and we braved the cold (temperature in the twenties as we arrived!), and got to the arena for the big night.

This was one funny addition to the night - they were playing "Duel of the Fates" before the Zamboni drivers went out on the ice tonight.  Audience members voted for who they thought should win, and it seems the audience was in favor of the dark side tonight!

Our seats were fantastic, dead center in the club seats with a perfect view of the whole game.  The two Maddies were enjoying the game, along with snacks and/or a meal.  Mom and Maddie both had spicy chicken wings, which according to them were pretty good.  

Before the game began, we were wandering out there in the lobby area, and that was super fun.  There were dozens of 501st members out there, all of them more than happy to pose with us for a photo.

Maximus (the team mascot) was wearing a pretty awesome Darth Vader Gladiators jersey.

The dark side I sense in these ones!

So Maddie wanted to pose with a beaver.

Ah, here we are with some characters from "The Mandalorian."  See my hat?  I'm a Mandalorian too!

 

These costumes are our favorites of the night.

But how can you forget Chopper!  He looks great... and quite dangerous!

Clash of lightsabers!

Ginormous cookies!

The girls pose with some good guys...

...and they pose with some bad guys!

Chopper looks great!  Keep an eye on that jawa though!

Good idea, Chopper.  Get away... go get some free merch!

Outside in the bitter cold, the girls meet some fashion-minded Imperials.

Kylo Ren says "hi!"

It was a close game with some Star Wars themed mini-games for the audience, like the "pod racing" event where rows of people passed along large pictures of pod racers, seeing who could get theirs to the finish line first.   Plus all the music and an exciting intro video that tied "Rogue One" to the Gladiator players.  Tonight we all got these hockey pucks that were soft like stress-relieving hockey pucks, ones with the Gladiators logo on them.  There were all kinds of extras tonight!  We all had a great time at the game, and as you can see, Maddie looked sharp in her Mighty Ducks jersey.  It seems super likely now that we'll be having a Mighty Ducks marathon!

The rest of the day was relaxing for Maddie, having fun with games at hoe while Mom and I were at the church working on the props and costumes and so on.  Lots of clearing, purging, and moving things about.  It was a pretty big work day, one where we earned a fun night at the game.

We got home tonight and it was late of course.  We read, and we prayed.  And it's cold out there.  We got under a mound of blankets, nice and cozy!