VBS at the Refuge, 2010!

Okay! So here are some pictures from the VBS that the

Refuge held a few weeks ago! There are quite a few pictures

so I won't be real "wordy" on this post, I'll pretty much just

title the photos.Here's the Bible verse that the kids were trying

to memorize during the week.

Joshua 1:9.

One of their crafts.

These were "trumpets"...
Song time.

Oooohhh, some snack supplies! :D

Story time.

Explaining the game.

There were a whole bunch of bent soda cans and juice

bottles and the kids had to try and build as tall of a structure

as they could. It was supposed to symbolize that nobody is

"perfect" but everyone can still work together and everyone has

a unique place.

Kinda neat...

How do we do this??

Oh Yeah!!! We have the most awesome VBS EVER!!!

We hype the kids up on Red Bull!! :D:D:D

Can this go here??

Craft time. Setting up the snack plates.

Snack time!

Aww, it's so cute!

A little teddy graham campsite!

We happened to see Wolfgang and Robbie one day :D

The theme of the week was to be active in telling other

people about Jesus, so each day the kids would decorate

a foot and we would tape them to the window! At the end
of the week we had almost all the windows in the activity center full!

Story time.

"T the awesome snack lady" getting the snacks ready!

Craft time.

Well it was fun! Hope you enjoyed the pictures! :)

Our Campout...

So, last week while VBS was going on, Karley and Cameron

stayed at our house. And Jess and Jen stayed at T's house.

So Rach and I gave the grandparents a break and had a campout

in our backyard with the kids!Complete with tent and all!
We decided that it would be "more fun" for the kids if we had
them all help us get the tent set up ;)

We had a campfire and s'mores planned but figured

we should wait until it got dark to start the fire. So we played

all the outdoor "kid games" we could think of!

We played "Spud", "Mr. Fox", "Red Rover", "Sardines",

and "Hide-n-Seek". And that kept us busy until the sun

went down!

Since we don't have a fire pit I made our "campfire" in our grill.

:D And it actually lit!

Rach and Aunt Amy were teasing me that we were

going to have to eat microwave s'mores because they weren't

sure I could build a decent fire...

We ate way too many s'mores... But it was great!

Cousins!

Before we settled in for the night I made everyone put

on an extra layer of bug spray.

Crystal was taking pictures so I had to try and look "cool"... ;P

I've heard somewhere that the average person ingests quite

a few bugs a year so I took some extra precaution with this

wonderful 'breath spray'... Just kidding!

Yes, the tent started looking awfully small when we were all

piling in... awfully small...We were pretty crammed, and me, Miss "don't breathe on me

I get claustrophobic" got to sleep in the middle... :]

It was close in there, but they slept pretty well. I got a nightful

of stargazing?? :D

Aanndd before we knew it morning was there, and the beautiful

sun was shining!

We had a good time, and I'm pretty sure the kids enjoyed it too! :)

Good luck getting this one to load...

So all, I thought I'd put up a couple of video's from the concerts that we went to last weekend! Make sure you to to the bottom of the page and turn off the playlist before you start these! Oh, and you might want to turn your speakers up a little louder! :D Make it feel more "concerty"!
This first one is from the Remedy Drive concert on Friday night.

And this one is from the Friday concert too. We were too close to the speakers to get good ones of while they were singing, but these were fun ;)

This one is Rush of Fools singing "Undo" at Ignite Chicago.

Third Day singing "Cry Out To Jesus" at Ignite Chicago.

"God of Wonders". With lots of crowd voices...

Doing some neat jammin'.

"Gone." :D

Hope you enjoyed these! I know I did...

I love having kids around...

I just overheard this conversation between Rachel and Karley...
K: What you doing "Waycho?"
R: Standing right here...
K: Why?
R: Because I can.
K: Oh, okay! I luh you "Waycho!"
:D I'm not even going to spellcheck this post!!

Never ask your Mom how to title a blog post...

Hey!

Well, I figured It'd be a little boring to just have your basic

blog titles like "Tuesday", or "Ignite Chicago", or "Water Fight"

so I asked Mom if she had any ideas for a crazy title. It didn't

even need to have anything to do with what I was blogging

about, but I just wanted to have a more attention grabbing

post title. Mom wasn't much help though... So thus, the

title we have.

But... Here are pictures from the Remedy Drive concert

that Criky, Zoe, Mrs. Z, Mom and I got to go to on Friday!

Of course while trying to get into the "concert going mood"

we took silly pictures on the car drive!

Hi MOM!!!
Hi MOM again!!!! :)Yes, so... like I said, silly pictures.
I "needed" a snack for the way there...
Pretzel M&M's made a great one!

Awww, we're so sweet...

Practicing our "don't mess with us" faces :)

The neat-o sign!

Waiting for it to start...

We're so excited!!!!

Sigh... I couldn't figure out what camera setting I needed

in order to get very good pictures :(
And we didn't have as good of places to stand like we

did at Ignite... But we still had tons of fun!

So, I guess just enjoy these blurry everybody-else's-hands-in-pics...

Yahoo!!! :)

We weren't really very far away from the stage, but

since I'm a little shorter than... everyone else there, you

get to stare at the backs of a bunch of strangers...

All of the Remedy Drive guys had neat reflecty strips on

their clothing! The camera flash really made it stand out.

Even though its blurry I like this picture!

Lets not call it blurry... We'll just claim its... Artistic?? :)

With all the jumping, sitting, kneeling, and headstands they do

on the keyboard, I wonder if they've broken any??

Sing Mr. Guitarman, SING!

Beating on a drum (while yet again standing on the keyboard),

and the drumstick accidentally flew out of his hand and hit

somebody in the crowd... Oops!
But then the hit-by-drumstick person got to play the drum

for the rest of the song so I'm sure they didn't mind!

Nice.

Granted, that's what they get paid for, but bands always look

like they are having so much fun on stage!

(I'd just look like I was going to puke...) (Or, I'd get

up there and everyone else would puke...)

Remedy Drive was the only band playing that night,

so I got to hear all my favorite songs of theirs!

:) Every once and a while I'd look back and wonder what

our Mom's were thinking... :)

And every time they'd plaster on smiles and wave!

Hahaha!

And later they assured me that they "Really enjoyed

getting to hang out with us"... :D

They put on a really great concert!

Lots of fun, and just enough serious.

And their main theme was Hope and Perseverance...

Quite timely for me at least...

I'm really glad we got to go!

After the concert was over the band guys went to the back

of the building to talk to people as they left and sign

autographs...
So Zoe and I went around and had our concert shirts signed :)

Here's the drummer, Daniel.

And Mr. Guitarman Paul.

The headstand-on-the-piano guy, and singer David. :)

I'd gotten a black shirt. And black sharpie doesn't really show

up on a black shirt so they signed really tiny on the white writing.

Aanndd then we got home and I realized the shirt I'd gotten

was the wrong size... :( So I gave it to Rachel!

But that made me feel better because she hadn't gotten to

be at the concert...

And the bass player, Philip.

(Who we decided that bass playing is just his alter-ego.

He looks like the guy who was Crystal's tandem jumper
so that's really what he does!) :)

We told our Mom's to get in a "afterconcert" picture, and

that they had to look happy! I think they did a good job! :)

Wahoo! That was awesome!

:D Dairy Queen was right down the street...

And Crystal just spit lemon-lime arctic rush all over the table :/

Instead of wristbands or anything, in order to go into the concert

we had to get sharpie dots on our hands...

And WE got to go!!

So now let's take crazy pictures on the way home!

(Because it's fun to freak the driver out with a

camera flash in the back of the dark car!)

We're so tough!

Peace!

Lovely...

OOOooohhhhh!

Mustaches! (Is that how you say the plural of mustache?)

:D Move the camera around while going past other cars

and take a picture and this might look like something you'd

come up with...

Or this if it's a semi!

Thanks Mom's for taking us!

We had a great time!!!

Your loving daughters. :)