Bigger Big Ticket Festival

Such excitement! Two of our favorite bands will be gracing the Big Ticket Festival stage this June in Gaylord. I for one am so excited that the God given talent of our friends will be shared with other festival goers. Benjamin Scott and Michael Maher were selected at the Big Ticket Tour event in Highland last Saturday to join the festival. Now they are all hustling to get their accommodations (slim pickin's already) and tickets (before the prices go up on the 31st). The Big Ticket Festival is always an awesome time but this year is going to be phenomenal with these church families there. It's Happy Dance Time!!!! I can't wait

We survived WinterJam 09

Almost 70,000 decisions to accept Christ! That about sums it up and makes all my stories small in comparison. But I'll share them anyways. This year WinterJam was at 2 locations in Michigan. Grand Rapids on Thursday and then Ypsilanti on Saturday. What is WinterJam? For those who don't know, it's a concert with many very popular Christian artist performing and a speaker or two. There is no pre-sale of tickets, just $10 at the door gets you into this awesome event. This year it featured Toby Mac, Hawk Nelson, the Afters, Franchesca Battacelli, Stephanie Smith, New Song and Pure NRG with speaker Tony Nolan. Both locations came very close to selling out.

Eddie from New Song is one of my favorite buddies and we had a good time jawing backstage when they were in Ypsilanti. He took a trip with a few from the tour to see Motown's Hitsville during the day. JoJo got to meet Toby Mac's son, Truitt aka Tru-dog, who raps on a couple of his cd's. He looks about 11 or 12. She was star struck and didn't say a word. It was pretty funny. I used Brittney Maher as my assistant all day and she was put to good work during the show, playing a game called Banana Grams with some of the tour. It really was a great time. The tour manager is a great guy that we have worked with a few times so it went really well.

Naomi spent the earlier part of the day with her "Aunt Danna" and then later with her big sister 2 (B-2). Brooke. She is really making progress with getting comfortable with people. She goes to a few of our close friends that she sees on a regular basis and doesn't freak out when I leave anymore. We are overdue for our post adoption interview so that will be happening real soon I'm sure. I'll keep you posted on that.

This n that

Where did the days go? Mike has been busy getting ready for the softball season. He has taken on the role as co-leader for the Sports Ministry at the church. The softball drama is more than I can bare.
Jo's Upward basketball season is coming to an end this Saturday with her last game. Her team has made leaps and bounds in their skills and really played excellent last Saturday.
Brooke is still battling away with two biology classes in her last semester of college and talking about moving AGAIN.
Naomi has decided it is a blast to shut herself in the closet, sit in the dog food bowl and play in the water bowl. I had her pictures taken at the church last week from a company called Antiquities. They put the kids in costumes and have really cute settings then the pics are printed in the antique sepia style. I figured she'd look kind of silly in a lacy dress so I opted for the denim overalls without a shirt under and her hair in piggytails. She was adorable of course but decided she didn't want anything to do with smiling for the photographer, regardless of the fact that he had bubbles. For the fundraiser we got a 10 x 13 and then I got a package of two other poses for helping out with it. I'm actually pretty grateful that the pics weren't something I couldn't live without because they weren't cheap.
Mike and I went to a class at the church called Liberated that gives you hints about cutting your grocery bill. While we were listening to the great tips we were cutting coupons. I loved what Mike said: "if you had told me 10 years ago that I would be spending a monday night in a church cutting coupons....I would have told you -you were on crack". So we ventured out to test out our new knowledge at the Kroger in Grand Blanc last Friday night. A Big Date Night, eh? Mike was doing a happy dance when we left. We saved $75, about a 47% savings!
I'm having a busy week. We have 2 WinterJam events. One in Grand Rapids on Thursday and then one on Saturday in Ypsilanti. Jo's favorite, Toby Mac, will be there, along with Hawk Nelson, Franchesca Battacelli (spelling?), and one of my favorites, The Afters. I don't know how these artists do these shows night after night. It's crazy. Hopefully I'll have some good stories to blog next week!