The kids from down the street came over this evening to hang out. Zach brought out a big bucket of Legos and they had a great time digging through it.

Zach has a lot of patience with little kids. When McKenna comes over she usually seeks out Zach to find out if he will play with her. He usually does.

Gloria had a good day. My sister hired her to baby-sit Ethan during Spencer's game this afternoon. She's feeling pretty responsible and grown up tonight:

Gloria loves to push Dale's buttons. She just picks and picks until he picks back and then she has a hissy fit. She's great at dishing it out, but usually not so great at taking it!

Outreach Event

Sunday's event was an outreach to migrant farm workers out in the Caldwell/Middleton area. Since it was "only" a stage and a sound system set-up, I decided to let the men do all the work so I could stay home and clean house. They've both been assuring me that I am not expected to be at all the events so I chose to take them up on it. I happily took this picture as they drove away at 8:30 a.m. Rob is driving the truck pulling the generator and Dale is driving the van pulling the stage:

Even though the guys had allowed themselves plenty of time for setting up the stage (about one hour) and the sound system (roughly 1 and a half to 2 hours), when they arrived out in the area where the event was supposed to be, no one was around to tell them where to set up. The migrant complex was large and had several places that could have been the right spot, but since Dale and Rob didn't know for sure, they played the hurry-up-and-wait game. By the time everything was sorted out, they were really under the gun. They set up the stage and the sound system in roughly 2 hours. The event was scheduled to start at 2:00 and it kicked off at about 2:30. The last time I heard from Rob was around 11:00 so I had no idea what they were dealing with but I was sure they weren't having any fun. Meanwhile, I spent the morning and early afternoon on some much needed housework. Zach had to be at a youth event at church at 3:00, so after I dropped him off I headed out to Caldwell to check on the guys. I was planning to attend the event and help with the tear down and, of course, take pictures and I was very curious about how it was going. They were still scrambling a little bit when I got there, but the event itself was going fine. Many, many volunteers donated time, money and energy in their efforts to talk to the migrant workers about Jesus. Besides good music and plenty of preaching, there were jump houses, hamburgers and hotdogs, face painting, and prizes and it was all free.

Some of the testimonials were given by people who had lived very rough lives and had been in prison for everything from murder to drug dealing. They were giving hope to people who had no hope and encouraging kids not to get caught up in gangs and drugs.

The Pursuit is a local church that we have worked with several times before. They hired us for this event and their worship band offered up some great music:

There were several different groups that played during the day:




Gloria had a great time mixing with the crowd. She played on all the jump houses, ate a couple of hot dogs and had her face and arm painted.

At the end of the event, they called up all the kids and started throwing presents out of large garbage sacks into the crowd. I watched as Gloria raced over from the jump houses with everyone else, excitement in her eyes. I knew she really had no idea what these children's lives were like and what these gifts were for.

She ran up to me to show me the great Barbie she caught and I quickly explained to her that there were kids in the crowd who had never had a Barbie of their own before and we looked around just as Rob came up and pointed out a little girl in a pink dress who had been too shy and small to grab for anything. I could see Gloria wrestling in her mind with wanting to do the right thing and wanting to keep the Barbie. It was only a split second before she ran over to the girl and handed it over. The little girl's mom smiled widely and thanked Gloria profusely while the little girl hugged the Barbie box. It brought tears to my eyes and brought me to the realization that no matter how hard I think my life is sometimes, it's really NOT. We do have a crazy, beautiful life and because of this outreach event, Gloria was able to be Jesus to a family and to understand that it's not all about her. I took this picture (with the migrant housing in the background) as a reminder to count my blessings everyday:

The event went very well and we were able to take it all down in an hour and a half. This picture speaks volumes about how we're all feeling after a very long weekend:

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Saturday was a recovery day. We were all so tired (except the kids!) that it was nearly impossible to accomplish anything. We did manage to run some errands and mow the lawn but otherwise it was pretty unproductive.

Gloria and Zach spent most of the day outside playing with the neighborhood kids. It was even warm enough for a good water fight. I was too tired and unpresentable to go down the street and take pictures, though! These two pictures were taken at the very end of the day just so I could post them to the blog!!

Ebony Fashion Fair

Friday was a big day. We had two events downtown that were about a half a block from each other. We loaded the truck Thursday night to prepare for a 9 a.m. load-in. We unloaded at the Egyptian Theater first to set up for the Ebony Fashion Fair. First order of business: donuts and chocolate milk (and Diet Pepsi for me, of course):

We hooked in the power. . .

. . . stacked the speakers. . .

. . . and ran all the cabling from the speakers to the racks (to the distro) to the FOH mixer:

THEN, we headed over to the Rose Room just a half block away.

The event at the Rose Room is a benefit for someone in need of a kidney. The set-up was fairly small and easy to put together.

After heading back to the Egyptian to meet with the technicians from N.Y. that would be running the Fashion show and doing a final sound check and run through, we went to lunch. Everything was ready to go except for a spot light switch out. As Dale would say, "Piece of cake."

Back to the Rose Room for a sound check with the musicians. Rob took a turn at the keyboard:

Rob ended up playing a few songs during the evening including Amazing Grace:

During the sound check at the Rose Room, Dale called and said the Fashion Show was in need of another spotlight operator. I was planning to spend most of the evening at the Fashion Show anyway, so I headed back to the Egyptian.

Dale and I were both in the balcony on opposite sides running the spotlights. He (and the director downstairs) gave great directions through the Clearcom headsets.

The Fashion Show was absolutely flawless.

The lights behind the models are coming from a fiber-optic curtain that the show travels with. It was really cool.

This is the largest traveling Fashion Show in the world.

The Ebony Fashion Fair show was really good. It's one of my favorite events so far. Everyone in the show was very professional and easy to work with. We were afraid this would be a really difficult event, but it was probably one of the easiest events we've run.

The event in the Rose Room went very smoothly on our part, too, but the turn-out was really poor. We were all exhausted after we finally took everything down and loaded it into the truck. I must have walked that half block 2 dozen times. On one of my trips back to the Egyptian during the evening, I was almost hit by a car. I screamed and jumped out of the way as my life flashed before my eyes. An SUV was going way too fast around the corner and just wasn't paying attention. She did call a lame, "Sorry!" out her window, but it didn't make me feel any better! In spite of my close call and my exhaustion, it was a good day.

Yesterday

Prep day for two shows. Gloria helped Rob test a cable:

Zach

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

I think Rob's working too hard. We were going over our to-do list for the upcoming weekend shows when he fell fast asleep:

I guess Gloria's working too hard as well, since she snuggled in and fell asleep, too!

They slept this way for at least half an hour before I had to wake her up for piano lessons.


Tonight was the last Kid's Club meeting until fall. The kids sang several of their favorite songs at the end of the dinner hour before heading to class:

It was also the last night of youth group. When I took this picture, Zach and Jered were each stretching to be taller than the other. It's pretty close, but Zach might have half an inch on him.

These are my two "Samuels". I love this picture!!

The whole group:

I'm not exactly sure what is going on here, but I think Steve is losing:

This actually looks pretty serious!! It's funny how they all have "angry mob" looks on their faces!! I'm pretty sure no one was seriously injured although Steve may be feeling some pain tomorrow!