Bits and Pieces

This week has been a long one! I've made 2 trips over and back to church camp in Illinois. (Dropping off and picking up) We spent yesterday evening in downtown Indy for the Southern Baptist Convention. Here's what I've learned this week...

This was so cool. It's not every day the kids from your church can sing with well known singer in front of thousands of people and have it web cast live. I'm not sure they all could grasp how special this was, but I was on the floor snapping photos grinning ear to ear! (Sorry I ripped off your photo, Pastor Jim, but it was better than mine. Too busy smiling, not enough time spent checking my camera settings)

Being backstage at an event is really fun also! Stinkin' spotlight messing up my shot.

It takes a good crew of adults to herd a crowd of 40 kids through a convention center. Oh...and kids love escalators!

Musings from Camp

• Kids are smelly after being at camp all week in 80 & 90 degree temperatures
• Always be in charge so you can casually put the most stinky boys on someone else's van
• (Sorry Diane and Sarah - I owe you a Starbucks!)
• Getting back at 10PM is infinitely better than returning at 1AM
• Empty your kid's bag as soon as you get home. The foul stench will only get worse the longer it sets

With that I'm off to empty out a duffel bag!

Rockin' the Convention

We took several kids from our church into Indy tonight for the Southern Baptist Convention. They were part of a kids choir that sang with Travis Cottrell this evening. It was a long evening, but the kids did a fantastic job. As we were walking through the convention center to our vans people would see them in their matching shirts and congratulate them on a job well done. Those kids felt like rock stars by the time they got to the vans. It was quite funny. And hey, I got to meet Travis Cottrell! I'll try to post more pics later.

My Favorites - Part One

I've been trying to keep in the habit of blogging once a day. Occasionally I hit a day, where there just isn't much to report. Dennis and Vickie watched Rachel for us this evening while Dusty and I ate a heaping amount of Thai food. I returned shoes to Kohl's and bought a magazine at Wal-mart. As you can see my day was full of excitement and suspense at every turn! So to give me something to post I'd like to introduce "Heidi's Favorite Pics". You're on the edge of your seat....aren't you. So from now on when I get in a jam I will just post a couple of my favorite photos that I have taken in the past. Hold on...here we go!

This is Rachel at 3 months. I didn't plan this shot, just grabbed the camera while she was laying in my lap and took it. Sometimes you just get lucky!

The back of the Statue of Liberty. Why? Why not! You always see the front of the statue or from the side with the NYC skyline in the background. I just loved the detail.

Going to Camp

Got up at 6:00 AM this morning to drive Aaron and 3o other kids from our church to kids camp in Robinson, Illinois. We loaded them in on the church van, a 15 passenger van and a mini van. We were quite the crew! I thought we was going to have problems with traffic since I-70 West was shut down between here and Terre Haute due to damage from the flooding, but we rolled down US-40 to Brazil and got back on the interstate with little problems. I'm glad we took that route because on the way back we could see that the westbound lanes of the interstate were backed up for 5 solid miles where they were routing traffic off! Hopefully everthing will be back up and running when we go to pick them up on Thursday. Thanks to Diane and Angie for driving and thanks to Diane for the photos. Here's a sample of our morning!

Be Flexible!!

This morning we all got up to head down to Spring Mill State Park for the Woodmizer Picnic. I was really looking forward to a day away with the family. There was going to be plenty of fun activities and good food. They were giving away prizes and the grand prize was a 5 night Carnival Cruise!! I just knew we would win. :) The radar looked horrible for our area, but it was not showing any rain at the park. So off we go. We were headed down Highway 67 when we came to police blocking the road and turning us around. Flooding. No way to get through. No problem, I pulled out the trusty road map and we made our way over to IN-37 which is the major highway that runs to the park. Ten minutes later we hit stopped traffic. Blocked again! Turned on the radio and learned that the entire county was under a state of emergency and the roads were impassable. Then I did something I have never done nor hope to ever do again. I turned the car around in the road and headed down the shoulder on a 4 lane highway in the wrong direction. (I wasn't the only one). We headed home...through a monsoon!

There was no way I was giving up my day of fun. We stopped at home and conjured up a plan, and here's how the day went:

1. Lunch at Wendy's (Rachel's choice)
2. Watched Kung Fu Panda (Rachel's 1st time at the theater)
3. Went to the zoo
4. Drove around Monument Circle
5. Drove Aaron past the new Colts Stadium
6. Dinner at McAllister's
7. An evening swim at the Tetricks

And you know what....we had an awesome time together!

Where's my pot of gold?

We've had a lot of storms around here lately. Fortunatley we've missed most of the really bad stuff. Here's a glimpse at what rolled in this evening.

After this storm rolled through and dropped us some rain, I looked out the window to see this

This was one of the most beautiful rainbows. The photos don't do any justice. It was very bright and a complete arc. Actually it was a double rainbow with a fainter band of colors on the outside of the entire arc. Simply beautiful!

Sneak Peek - Madison

Here's a couple of sneak peeks at Madison's photos that I took on Wednesday. Can't help but smile at that cute little sweetie! :)