Quick Weekend Trip

We buzzed over to Mom and Dad's after church yesterday to spend Memorial Day with them. Sunday evening was hot dogs and brats followed by some messy smore making.

Today we squeezed in a picnic at the lake before a thunderstorm moved in and followed it up with some cake for Dad's birthday which is tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Buggy

Happy 5th Birthday Rachel

Rachel and I started our day with a free chicken biscuit breakfast from Chick-fil-a. Then Memaw and Granddad arrive and we visited for a while. Rachel was surprised when her cousin Makenna and aunt Sarah rang the doorbell. We all headed out to McD's for a Happy Meal. Memaw and Papaw came later in the afternoon and we had a party going on.

Makenna was just as excited about presents as Rachel!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SPECIAL GIRL!

Let me splain...

...no, is too much, let me sum up!  It's been a non-stop week of activity.  I've farmed Rachel out to 5 different families in the last 6 days while I took care of photo shoots, chiropractor visits, a 2-day girls getaway and tonight's Jars of Clay concert.  I've promised her that we'll do something special while Dusty and Aaron are away at Man Camp tomorrow and Saturday.  So here's the recap for the past week.

Tonight we took in a Jars of Clay concert.  It was the Rewind Tour.  They performed all the songs on their 1st album -  plus some.   Here are me, Aaron, and Aaron's friend Joel with the band.  The boys got autographed CD's and we had a great time with the Painter crew. 

If only the people in the front 2 rows would have not stood through the entire concert, it would have been a bit easier to get some good photos, so I'll post my best one and defer to the photographic excellence of Mr. PEC who spent 1/2 of the concert sitting on the floor in front of the stage. :)  I'm sure there will be plenty of great shots over at Painter El Cinco.  On a side note I met Jen Murray who sat right in front of us.  She writes a really fun blog called 4tunate.  She and her husband are raising 3-year old quadruplet boys.  I really enjoy her blog!

Wednesday evening was Awana award night.  Rachel was awarded her 2nd year Cubbies ribbon and certificate.

Tuesday and Wednesday, Heather, Sarah, and I headed up to Shipshewana, IN to go to the flea market and antique auction.  Lots of fun and lots of eating ensued!

Here's Heather hauling out some of the junk...er, I mean treasures she found. :) 

We stayed at a really nice bed and breakfast and had a FABULOUS breakfast and brought home an oatmeal recipe that we will all be trying out.

This huge old camera was at the auction. Really neat, but where would I put it? :)

On the other hand Sarah managed to score a treasure of her own.

This is the wonderful wheel that she thought was wood when she was bidding. Only after she won the bid did she discover it was actually made out of iron and weighed at least 60 pounds. She fought bravely to get it all the way out to the car. Heather and I carried the rest of the stuff and laughed.

Saturday I did a family shoot out at Arbuckle and then Dusty and I went downtown and I shot a wedding on the canal.  If you want to see any of those pics, head over to my Photography Facebook Page  After the wedding was the "Incident mentioned in the previous post"  Got an estimate today....ouch!

Finally on an absolutely unrelated note...as if this post isn't long enough...I leave you with a photo of my lunch today.

For anyone who knows me, you know that vegetables are not high on the list of things I really love.  And if you really know me well, you know that broccoli is one of the vegetables I most dislike.  Thanks to Heather I have found a recipe for crunchy broccoli salad that I really like.  There may be hope for me after all.  Hey Dad, make sure Mom gets a good look at this photo.  Perhaps it will alleviate any lingering guilt she may have for forcing me to eat broccoli as a kid that one time! :)

Ooops

Downtown driving + thinking you're getting ready to turn the wrong way down a one way street = momentary laspe in judgement.

Laspe in judgement results in fender bender in which thankfully the other vehicle was not damaged.
Thought I was turning down the wrong street and turned the car back into the flow of traffic and got sideswiped by a SUV.   Blah!

Tuesday in the Backyard

Test Run

Rachel and I headed over to the conservatory at Garfield Park yesterday.  It was not raining and I wanted to give the new camera a test run.  Mainly so I could use it and figure out where all the buttons and settings were.  It had the added bonus of getting me out of housework for the day.

One of the workers there let Rachel feed the koi.

Then we swung by White River Park for a couple quick shots.

Mother's Day Outdoors

Warning:  There will be a lot of photos in this post.  Mother's Day is about treating mom and that is what this Mom likes to do.  After a great morning at church we grabbed a quick bite to eat.  The kids got me the newest MercyMe CD, so I popped that in the car and off we went.  We drove down to Cataract Falls and spent some time there and then we weaved around on some back roads until we got to Cagles Mill Lake.  Spent time relaxing in the sun.  Rachel got wet and filthy...a great time.

After a fun day outdoors, we headed home and went over to Daniel & Becky's and I got to see my Mom.

Cue the theme to Mission:Impossible!

Earlier this week we caught wind of the fact that Jars of Clay was going to be doing a concert and you could get tickets for free.  The local radio stations were handing them out in various locations around the city this weekend and next.  First place up was in Broad Ripple from 12:00-1:30 PM.  That's a little bit of a haul, but concert + free = good!  Rachel and I headed out in time to get there at noon.  We arrived and there was a bit of a line waiting at the door, but there wasn't that many there so I thought:  No problem!  We got up to the door and found out that the tickets were gone!  Turns out there were only 50 per location and you could get up to 4 per family, so we were out of luck.  Determined not to waste a perfectly beautiful day we snagged lunch and headed to Holiday park.

We enjoyed the sunshine and playground. Rachel got to meet up with her buddy Hayden and all was OK in the world. Especially after ice cream. :)

Later in the afternoon, I found out that another radion station was passing out tickets in Plainfield at 5PM. It was 4 PM. In record time Aaron, Rachel and I were headed out and this time: SUCCESS!!

Indy Farmer's Market Opening Day

Rachel and I headed out to the farmer's market downtown yesterday.  It's mostly bedding plants, herbs, and lettuce this early.  Of course there's always the amish baked goods and street food vendors to save the day.  So we snagged some cookies and shared a yummy soft pretzel.

And if you go and it happens to be Cinco de Mayo you get treated to a mariachi band.

Rachel grabbed the camera and started snapping away.

We also snagged some asparagus which Rachel has never ate, but has promised to help wash, cook, and eat. Hmmm...we'll see.

And on an unrelated note: I discovered that it was a good idea that I hadn't planted anything in this flowerbox yet.

Spring Storm

Cousin Time

Thursday Madelyn and Molly came over for a while.  As soon as Rachel saw that Madelyn had on a shirt that she also had...of course, they had to dress alike.  They spent the majority of the time outside enjoying the sun.  And Molly....she spent most of the time doing this: