March 13, 2007

We are prepping for a 4-day, 6-concert event coming up this Thursday through Sunday. I'm actually really looking forward to it but am a little anxious about the set-up. There is often a lot of prep work that goes into a show and we've been getting ready for this one over the last couple of days. Load in is tomorrow and the first concert is on Thursday.




Sound Engineer in training:


I like this picture the best; Rob looks proud! :)

Gloria has been allowing me to do her hair lately. She has very specific ideas in mind and expects me to get it exactly right. It's so much pressure!! On Sunday night during Committee meetings, Elsie apparently invented a new hairstyle while practicing on the gal that was watching over the girls. Gloria has gone on and on and on all day about how Elsie should write a book about hairstyles she invents and she could become famous!! These can be the first "how-to" illustrations for Elsie's book:

Pretty cute!

March 12, 2007

Rob has an addiction. It's no secret and he's been warned about the side effects by people who are recovering addicts. Rob is a gear-aholic and I am an enabler. When we met in 1986, he had a really nice boom box to play his Howard Jones and Chicago cassettes on and I was really impressed. Shortly after we met he completely disassembled the boom box just to see what was inside and to see IF he could put it back together. As long as I've known him he's been on a quest for the perfect speakers and the perfect sound. He started out with Radio Shack components and either traded them or sold them at some point along the way and step by step graduated to the next better speaker/amp/eq/etc. He is always very creative about how he acquires the increasingly better gear and it usually doesn't come out of pocket. He's a wheeler/dealer and there always seems to be someone who is willing to trade and/or buy just what he needs just when he needs it. This is the latest and greatest acquisition:

The picture doesn't do it justice but it is a Ramsa 840 40x18 monitor console with two power supplies. It is HUGE.

Shortly before he found this amazing bargain on E-bay he found some fabulous amps he couldn't live without so he sold/traded/bought/swapped/etc a bunch of gear so he could finance this new purchase. While all of this makes for a better, bigger, more expensive sound system, it also, in the long run, brings bigger, more expensive events and he has great instincts so I put on my blinders and say, "whatever". BUT, there is a lot of time and energy and sweat that goes into all the swapping/switching/changing when these trades/purchases take place. This is where it can be called an addiction because he absolutely THRIVES on all of it!! It makes my head spin and makes me tired just thinking about it, but he will spend hours and hours planning and soldering and whatever it takes to perfect the sound coming out of his speakers.

I'm afraid Gloria may inherit these tendencies. She had a great time helping Rob put new ends on the cables for the new amps.

In this picture she is telling me how she is going to spend all the money Rob is going to pay her for all of her hard work:

Peas in a Pod:

Dale's fiancee', Brandon, is on spring break and drove down for a visit. She is going to school to be a veterinarian.

Brandon brought her beautiful Great Dane, Vanilla:

Gloria thoroughly enjoyed visiting with both Brandon and Vanilla!

Zach may be inheriting some of Rob's tendencies as well as he has been sorting his old Pokemon cards and preparing to sell them on E-bay.

March 11, 2007

Another gorgeous day! It was so nice that we decided to have children's church OUTside! We talked about the verse that says, "Do not be anxious about anything but instead, pray about everything." (my paraphrase!) Lana told the story and as she was talking about how God takes care of the birds of the air, the birds were chirping and singing overhead. It was beautiful!

My kids never seem to get tired of me pointing the camera at them!

March 10, 2007

There are three things that really bug me- wasting time, spending money needlessly, and collecting stuff that will use up my valuable time and energy just to maintain it. So it makes absolutely no sense that we spent our Saturday just hanging out at the auction, wasting time while spending money on junk! AND we had a great time!!

This is "Junior", a very talented auctioneer. It was fun just to watch him work.

Gloria had her eye on a beautiful pink doll bed but when the time came to bid on it, it went for $25! I stopped bidding somewhere around $10.

We were at the auction off and on all day from about noon until 10:00 p.m. Gloria probably had more staying power than anyone- she really enjoyed people-watching.

The hot dog was delish but the bun fell apart resulting in this unhappy face:

Gloria and I walked back to the shop on the greenbelt. It was a gorgeous day.

Zach had his heart set on a set of Star Wars figures and he won the bid at $10! What a steal!

At the end of the day, I wrote a check for $74.00 but I've already checked Amazon and the books I won at the auction will go for over $100 if I list them and they all sell (two of the books are signed by the authors). Not a bad day if you ask me!

We invited the Adams' over to help us burn London at about 9:00. Gloria and Megan discovered that the orange cones Rob bought at the auction make great intestinal-type noises when you sit on them:

After all Zach's hard work building London, it was almost a shame to light the match!

Zach's London was much slower to catch fire than Gloria's was, so we added a little something to help it along. . .

It's amazing how many uses there are for goof-off!



It worked out perfect that the fire died out without burning the entire "city" since only 4/5 of London actually burned in 1666.

March 9, 2007

21 years ago today I officially started going out with this handsome hunk of a boy:

He was 18 and a senior in high school and I was 19 and a freshman at NNC. The weekend we met he told me he loved me and that he would marry me in 4 years. . . it was love at first sight. He was teasing me today about my cold feet shortly after we started dating but I hung in there and I'm so glad I did! (He was slightly off on the 4 year prediction- it was actually 4 years and 5 months).

Today was still beautiful even though it rained off and on. My lovely crocus's that Kristin planted for me a few years ago are starting to bloom:

My poor, deprived kids really need some new, age-appropriate, backyard apparati (apparatuses??). This morning they strung the alligator teeter-totter up onto the tree house to make themselves a swing. Zach is becoming quite the engineer!

The burning of London has been post-poned due to rain. :(

Tune in tomorrow to watch this busy street go up in flames:

Tonight was the first soccer game of the new session. We stayed in the same league as before but the good teams that slaughtered us moved up to the A league and several of the C teams moved up into the B league with us. Even though we lost again tonight, it was much more evenly matched.


Rob has been miserably sick the last couple of days and hasn't been able to eat much of anything. I was surprised he was able to play and not surprised when he fell asleep immediately afterwards:

The boys playing Game Cube at the end of a long day: