Superhero Shoot

Here are a few sneak peaks from today. I think I'm becoming the unofficial photographer to Batman. This was not the 1st time I've had a Batman to photograph. :) Thanks Will for a fun time!

Unfamiliar surroundings

Sarah and I headed down to Evansville this weekend with Diana Davis to lead at a women's retreat for Southside Baptist church. Diana was the speaker for the weekend and did a fabulous job as always. Sarah led worship and I provided musical accompaniment and comic relief. (Are you beginning to see a theme? I told the couch story again) Funny thing was that the retreat was a a Catholic retreat center. I got to see various renditions of different pope's portraits.

The pope in tapestry

I slept under a crucifix

All in all we had a good time. The staff at the center were great. The ladies from Southside were a lot of fun. And if you know me and Sarah - we make our own fun wherever we go. So we had plenty to laugh about as well. However at one point we really missed the "boys" from the praise band. We had to do all of our own hauling. After all isn't that what the boys are for? :)

PS - As a public service announcement, my brother would like me to tell you that he is posting again over at Fuzzy Memories

After

It's a beautiful thing!

Freshening up

The trim on our house was in desperate need of a new coat of paint. Let me just say how impressed I am with the person we hired to paint. He painted our neighbor's house last summer and they were very happy with his work. He spent 2 day prepping the house and has went above and beyond. Several of the boards were starting to rot and he completly replaced them. Spent time caulking and sealing. Here's an "in-progress" shot.

I should have the "after" shot for you tomorrow

I may be in trouble

Mom's over for a visit while Dad is in Texas with the Southern Baptist disaster relief team. Today after a fun morning at Mom's group we headed down to Plainfield for a little retail therapy. All of our wardrobes needed a little freshening up. Let me just say, Rachel is getting into the whole clothes shopping thing! She was pulling things off the rack, holding them up to herself, choosing what she liked the best. This may get to be quite troublesome when she becomes a teenager! She made out with some jeans from Old Navy and a shirt from Kohl's. I picked up a couple things for fall. Mom went crazy!!! Just kidding Dad, she did pick up a couple of items as well. It's all fun and games until the credit card statement comes! :)

And just because I want to do my part to keep PEC supplied with food shots, here is the breakfast spread from Mom's group today. Mmmmmm

Letting the Bull out of the bag

Throughout the summer you may have noticed the Painter El Cinco Bull World Tour update over to the right. If you're from Hope Community then you know what that's about. If not, then you just think that I'm weird. And you would be right. One evening after too much caffeine I took the bull logo from Painter El Cinco and thought it would be funny to paste it up on the blogs of my friends from Hope. It would spend a week or two on the various blogs before moving on. Back in May, after a night out with the ladies and probably too much caffeine again, we got the idea to search the internet for a stuffed representation of the PEC bull. After an Ebay search and consulting with my Wild Side friend, El Cinco was on his way from California.

The bull stopped by 8 blogs, visited 6 states, and caused quite a bit of fun. Eight women posing with a stuffed bull in a Mexican restuarant is quite a sight! We shot pictures all summer documenting the bull's travels. One of my favorites: El Cinco zipping down the Western Kentucky parkway at 70 mph while I take a nap. :)

Then there's Dusty, who has a better sense of humor than you might give him credit for. He gave weightlifting tips to El Cinco.

All in all we had quite a bit of fun with El Cinco. He's now residing at the Painter home. Perhaps he'll surface for some fun from time to time. It's been a great ride El Cinco!

Put the camera down and drive!

I grew up in a town of 5,000. To be exact I grew up 3 1/2 miles outside the town of 5,000. There were exactly 3 traffic lights in the entire town when I took driver's ed. I admit - I still gawk around a little when I drive downtown. This is the total opposite from what I grew up with.

OK...so nothing deep tonight. Just figured you were tired of looking at the slugs. :)

Ewwwww....

Note to self: The back screen door does not slide completely shut. It leaves about a 1/3 inch gap at the bottom.

Note to self: Slugs can and WILL crawl through that opening into the kitchen.

Further note to self: Stepping barefooted on one of them is not a pleasant sensation!

Goodnight Moon

A beautiful moon rising tonight. The view from the back deck. (Cropped in of course)

Fun at Chuck E Cheese!

Rachel went to Rylan's birthday party this afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese. It's usually not my favorite place to be, but at 4 in the afternoon it's not too bad. Here's Rachel with the birthday girl. Rachel rode this ride more times than I can count.

She also had time for a wide race car ride with Hayden.

Of course it wasn't just the kids playing - Shelby challenged Amy to a shoot out and all I can say is that Shelby takes getting smoked by a girl real well! :)

The best part was Avalyn's reaction every time Rylan opened a gift. This reaction was followed by unrestrained clapping and cheering from Avalyn.

We're taking this show on the road

Tonight Sarah and I headed down to Gasburg to be the "entertainment" for a Secret Pal banquet as Gasburg Baptist. Sarah spoke and led music. I provided the musical accompaniment and comic relief. In other words I played piano and told the "how I broke the pastor's couch" story. You can't lose if you have good material. If you haven't heard it, ask me sometime. In the next 3 weeks we'll both be at a ladies retreat in S. Indiana, state WMU banquet and state ministers wives luncheon. I need a shirt that says, "Sarah's Entourage". It really was a lot of fun. :)

PS - The bottle on the table - Welch's sparkling grape juice! You did hear me say that it was a BAPTIST church....right?!?

Pics, Pics, Pics

So I spent today firing off a little over 450 photos. I'm tired. Spent the morning taking senior photos for the grandson of one of our church members. I thought the weather was going to be an issue, but it was almost perfect for the outdoor shots. For the indoor shots we did some of Brandon in his taekwando uniform. That was a lot of fun. Got to do some things like this:

Then I finished up the day taking family photos at a birthday party and got to take this beautiful lady's photo!

Happy 92nd Birthday Leona!

Thursday night = Happy time

Thursday nights keep me sane! I know what your thinking - "Who's sane?!?" Thursday nights are ladies bible study followed by dinner out. We had a great evening with a lot of good discussion tonight. Then it was off to Texas Roadhouse for some meat! I do not like my steaks rare or even medium. No pink please. Some on the other had prefer their steaks still mooing at them. Case in point:

That thing was ready to crawl off of the plate and wander around the table it was so rare! (On the other hand, don't you like the artistic "Smiley Face" arrangement!)

See - Meat...cooked with fire...staying put on the plate - The way God intended.

Thanks for a fun evening girls!

No, I'm not above bribery

We're trying to break the thumb sucking habit at our house. No, not Dusty! Rachel has been a hard core thumb sucker since she was a baby. So I did what any self respecting, desperate parent would do - I resorted to bribery! Rachel's current fascination is mermaids. Last week I started telling her that I would take her to buy a special surprise if she would not suck her thumb. And to my surprise and delight it worked. (Of course she may still be sucking her thumb in the middle of the night, but I can't help that) Today we went and picked out a mermaid doll. Little Mermaid toy: $5 Potentially avoiding thousands in orthodontics: Priceless!

What can I say...

...there's not a whole lot to say. We get up, Aaron goes to school, Dusty goes to work, I do housework. Our life has been nothing short of rip roaring excitement. So since I have nothing of real substance to say today, I give you a video from earlier in the summer. Here's Dusty and his little buddy Hayden.

On a totally unrelated note: Colts - you let me down!

Sunday

My girl Allie and I were color coordinated today! We know what's stylish. :)

Ahhh Sunday: Worship our Lord, fellowship with friends....football! Go Colts!

Apples

Dusty and I took advantage of the beautiful day and went to the orchard with Paul & Heather and Jim & Sarah....oh, and these people!

What can I say, we're a crew! Lots of snacking on apples. A lot of this kind of action going on...

Lots of kids climbing in trees...

Kids of all ages!

Had a lot of fun together. And now I plenty of apples for PIE!

Big Girl at the Dentist

Today was Rachel's 1st trip to the dentist. She did a great job. When they came for her she walked right back, hopped up on the chair, and opened her mouth. Of course my favorite part is when the dentist examined her teeth, looked at me and said, "You may want to prepare yourself for orthodontics someday." WHAT!!! You've looked at her mouth a total of 5.4 seconds. She's 3! There's a long time until that. Whatever....I'm more concerned with getting her to stop sucking her thumb. I'm thinking of stooping to bribery! We'll cross the orthodontics bridge later...much later!

Off to Awana

In another step to move to a more normal schedule, we headed off to Awana tonight. Rachel had her 1st night in Cubbies class. I am helping in the Puggles class (2 year olds). Dusty and Aaron are both up in T&T. Rachel must have had a good time and some sugar in her class because she's been running around the house at breakneck speed yelling, "God loves us and sent His SOOOOOOOOON, God loves us and sent His SOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!!"

Don't these little guys look so cute in their shirts!

Happy Labor Day

Always double check the picnic basket!