Just Because....

it only comes around every 4 years I need a post for Feb. 29th.  We celebrated our Leap Day with sunshine and freakishly warm weather.

Rachel and I also enjoyed some time at our library with some beverages from The Literate Bean.  (The little coffee shop they opened in the library)

Tomorrow we are on Birthday Patrol.  My goal is to have my photo taken with everyone that I know of that has a birthday tomorrow....and there are several.  You'll have to come back tomorrow evening to see if that worked out. :)  Also I get to enjoy the symphony with a lovely lady from our church. 

Happy Leap Day to You!

Our new family addition

No, I'm not pregnant....and NO!, we didn't get a dog!  :)  We recently added another child to our sponsorship through Compassion.  I'd like to introduce Wannaporn Lerdsem. 

She lives in Thailand and was born on the same day as Rachel - May 25, 2005.  We have sponsored Mwajuma from Tanzania for four years now.  It has been a wonderful experience for our whole family.  Dusty and I had discussed sponsoring an additional child for a while.   I thought we would probably choose a boy from India since Dusty's job has him working with programmers in India.  However after searching Compassion's site I found Wannaporn.  She just stuck with me especially since she was born the same day as our little girl.  So last week we sat down together as a family and decided to proceed.  We can't wait to get more information about her and to begin to get to know her.  We pray for her daily.

If you've ever thought of sponsoring a child....just do it! :)  We sponsor through Compassion International.  It's a highly rated organization and I can't recommend them enough.  If you have any questions about sponsoring a child or would like to know more about our experiences please contact me.

On a totally unrelated side note, I made Kung Pao chicken with coconut jasmine rice tonight.  Not really important, but I wanted to take a photo of something today.

Have a great week!

I'm with the band!

Spent this weekend at the Transformed women's conference in Indy.  Our church's praise band was asked to lead worship for the event.  So after a LOT of practice time and a little effort to update some of our wardrobes and equipment it was Go Time on Friday night.

I happen to think that we sound better when color coordinated. I have no scientific proof of this, but it just makes good sense. And in true rock 'n roll style the color was black. The band rocked the house!! Take 900+ women singing and clapping, throw in some quality sound system work, creative lighting, and a pink guitar and you have a party! Well in reality it probably had more to do with the prayers and practice in the past few months. But there's something to be said for ending a rockin' version of Victory in Jesus on some great guitar riffs and 900 cheering people.

On a side note, here's a photo of me in my "I wanna be a rock star" shirt with my hair hanging down in front of my eyes.  (Just to bother my mom.....she hates it when it does that!)

Even our official photographer, Heather, was busting out her best rock star look! :)

But it looks good!

This past Saturday was the annual Awana Grand Prix. We maintained the Hackney tradition of "middle of the pack" performing cars that look good. :)  We found a jeweled "R" and Rachel picked out the colors.  Threw on some glitter and we were ready to run.

The "fabulous" car finished consistently 2nd or 3rd in its heats.  We weren't able to crack into the top 3 overall however.  We also missed the top 3 cut on design.  That top prize went to a car that resembled the dog van from Dumb and Dumber!  You just can't top that!

Rachel raced, I took photos and judged design, and Dusty was put to work at the finish line.

Also over the weekend was the Brownsburg Daddy & Daughter dance.  Rachel was so excited to get to spend the evening with her daddy.  Aaron was away on a youth trip so I took advantage of the time and went to the movies by myself.

Out with 200,000 of our closest friends!

Feeding into my sense of adventure (or maybe I'm just plain crazy), I talked Dusty into going downtown with me last night for one last taste of the Super Bowl action.  I gave Aaron the option of going or staying at home with a pizza and 2 liter of Mountain Dew.  He choose to stay home and babysit his sister.  Good choice for us, because I'm not sure maneuvering kids through the crowd would have been good.  Our 1st stop was the ESPN broadcast on the Pan Am Plaza.  Got right up on the barrier and watched as they broadcast on ESPN2.  Called by brother-in-law Joel (who's a huge sports fan) multiple times to tell him I was on TV right by Trey Wingo's elbow.  After soaking up our 15 minutes of teeny-tiny fame we moved on.

The streets were packed!  I mean shuffle along with the crowd, no elbow room, gotta go with the flow because you can't do anything else packed.  We made our way to Monument Circle and found some breathing room behind the roman numerals up on the monument.  This was the scene down Meridian St.  It was like this all over downtown.  The news helicopters were flying overhead and the broadcasts were saying that they had never seen anything like it in the history of the city.  They were estimating 150,000 - 200,000 people were downtown.  Police were forced to close off even more streets because of the sheer numbers.

While moving back toward Georgia Street we got into the middle of a crowd outside the Conrad hotel.  Since it's one of the most expensive hotels in the city I figured we were waiting for a celebrity to come out. I asked someone who they were waiting for.  They shrugged and said, "I don't know."  A few minutes later someone asked me the same question.  The response, "Who knows?"  Police and security insisted that no one was coming out and repeatedly stated that Madonna was not there! :)  Didn't diminish the fun.  Every so often some regular Joe guest of the hotel would come out and the crowd would cheer for the fun of it. :)  Celebrity rumors were everywhere....Johnny Depp's at St. Elmo's steakhouse....Madonna's at the Conrad....Ryan Gosling is over one the corner of Georgia and Illinois streets.  So we had our laughs with that and moved on after a few minutes.

So to recap here's the lessons learned

• If your going to rub elbows with 200,000 people...leave the kids at home
• Madonna is NOT staying at the Conrad
• If you skip dinner to get downtown in a timely manner, Cinnabon is an acceptable substitute
• Be grateful for the man who directed you to the LAST parking spot by the stadium
• The trouble to get there is worth it so you can call your brother-in-law and tell him that at that very moment you are on ESPN
• If you are from Los Angeles and I offer to help take your family's pic with the stadium in the background, I'll turn the flash off on your point and shoot camera to get a semi-decent photo