Glorious Day - He has risen!

No Easter drama this year. It has been a strange winter and spring without the chaos of being the costume nazi. Some days I missed it and others I rejoiced. I'm sure God knew what he was doing when it put it on the hearts of leadership to take a different direction this year. But to tell you the truth we weren't so sure what to do with ourselves on Sunday. After church we fumbled through with our friends the Scotts who are usually in the middle of the whirlwind on Easter and celebrated with a cookout of the biggest chicken breasts I've ever seen. Scary to think of the amount of steroids that must have been pumped in to these feathered friends. Anyway, back to Easter... We had a little egg hunt with the Scotts and the Taylors then feasted. It was pretty uneventful but refreshing. Much different I would guess from the day when Jesus rose from the grave. I look around my neighborhood and wonder if my neighbors are truly aware of the sacrifice God made for us or is it all about bunnies and eggs for them. What a sad trade off that is.

Naomi's Easter Bonnet

Why is it that my little asian hillbilly will only wear ridiculous hats? I've got a half dozen super cute hats that she won't have anything to do with. Naomi has become quite the Elmo fan and would watch Elmo in Grouchland all day if she could figure out how to run the dvd player. I wonder if they have Elmo in China. She has also turned into a pretty good mimic so we have to watch what we say these days. The other day Jo said "Holy Crap!" and we heard a little unexpressive echo across the room.

Jo is on spring break this week. We don't have any big plans but she is attending a birthday/bowling/sleepover with her friend Madasen Taylor and has plans for a couple of other sleepovers before the week is over. It's strange not to be elbow deep in the Easter drama this year (we didn't have it this year) but actually refreshing. I've been getting some things done that needed to be done. De-junking and donating it to the church garage sale. Aahhhh! Jo even dug into her closet and sorted out the clothes that don't fit anymore.

Brooke is in the midst of her final days of college with plenty of papers to write, exams to study for and portfolios to submit. Her graduation ceremony is the first week of May and we are looking forward to seeing this day. She just moved again, yes again, this time to a house with only two other roomies. She celebrated her 24th birthday last week and I was asked if Naomi was my granddaughter...how's that for feeling old!

My grandma (she's 71), Mamaw McCormick, fell and broke her hip on Friday. She had to have surgery on Saturday. I went to see her Sunday morning and she was still doped up on pain meds and thought she was participating in a game show. She thought the nurse call button was the buzzer and she would push it and then the nurses would ask a question. An intern came in and asked her more questions, ex: do you know what day it is..., which she answered wrong most of time. She was actually pretty amusing. She kept telling me that Hurley lost, I'm guessing that had something to do with the game show theme bouncing around in her head.

Sunday night we took Grandma Judy to the Pistons game against the Bobcats. We got tickets for an awesome price through the Upward Basketball program. Jo got to shoot a basket after the game.

We are looking forward to the Worship Blast at the church on Friday with some of my favorite bands including Benjamin Scott, Michael Maher and My Syndicate. The following Friday we'll be at the Rock and Worship Roadshow in Lansing with MercyMe, Jeremy Camp, Hawk Nelson and Tenth Avenue North. With all this busy-ness I am really glad I got some of that spring cleaning done. Now if we could just get the spring weather back again I would be real happy.

Mike is on 2nd shift until the end of this week and then he is off next week because he is required to use some of his vacation time in the first quarter. I'm sure he'll spend most of it working on the man cave. But I plan on getting my honey-do list whittled down a bit too.

We have our first of two required follow-up sessions with the social worker for our adoption on Monday. It seems so silly. She is really starting to warm up to other people and has actually stayed in the nursery at church during the entire service for the last 3 weeks. Hallelujah! Now if I could just get those naps under control...

I pray that all of you will have a blessed Easter holiday.

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!

It's Pot Hole Season!

So today I went on a mission to find some pot holes. Yes, I know that sounds strange but I just pitched the idea of doing a "Pot hole Patrol" page on our website dj buzz page and thought a few photos of the axle breakers might be useful for this.

I knew just where to go. Having flashbacks of driving of my dad's sweet white buick lesabre with a baby blue landau top and catching a glimpse of a shiny object flying off the road into the weeds after hitting one of the numerous pot holes found on the infamous "truck road" behind the high school. I decided to take a trip down memory lane aka "truck road". I remember walking up and down the area with my friends in a tizzy trying to find that rim like it was yesterday. I finally gave up and headed home only to have my dad make me go back and keep looking. It wasn't as tramatizing as when he made me go dumpster diving after school when I accidently threw my retainer away in my lunch bag but none the less it was definitely one of those moments that has actually remained in my swiss cheese of a brain. Truck road didn't disappoint me. It was just as pot hole ridden as it was in the 70's. A pot hole plethora! Just when my excitement started to subside, I discovered some freshly filled ones as I emerged onto Hartland Rd.. You'd have thought I had hit the jackpot. Wow, wouldn't it be cool to actually get photos of workers filling them???? So you guessed it. I followed the patches like Gretel's bread crumbs to these guys, who graciously obliged my strange request to take their pictures. I'm sure it gave them something to talk about over dinner anyways.

Ikea therapy

I feel like such a slacker with my posting. I have been very busy with radio work lately and keeping up with Naomi's messes. I am so very excited that two of our talented friends were selected to play in the Big Ticket Tour and possibly be selected to play on the Indie stage at the Big Ticket Festival in June. Joey Brady and his band My Syndicate will be performing with the tour in Grand Rapids this Saturday at Resurrection Life Church in Lansing and Michael Maher will be with the tour in Highland on 3/21 at Cornerstone Church. I have one other friend who should be on the tour but he didn't submit his work. I won't mention names cuz he knows who it is and I'm sure his wife will read this and rib him about it!
Mike still has a job despite the recent announcements - Praise God! Brooke is on break this week from Oakland University but was scheduled to work most of the week. Hopefully we will get to see her this weekend. Jo-Jo regained her freedom after a week of being grounded for denying her responsibilities and seems to be back on track. She got to get her Grandma Judy fix and spent the night with her on Saturday. We have an extra long "stomp" practice here at the house this friday because half the team was absent last week and the talent show try-outs are coming up fast. Naomi's schedule is still whacked and some days I can't get her to take a nap for nothin'. She has figured out how to get her shoes and socks off and so you will most likely find her barefoot these days, which just confirms my earlier observation regarding her being part hillbilly. I have been battling with the little voices coming from the Girl Scout cookies in the cupboard calling me to eat them. I am extremely thrilled to have a dozen matching drinking glasses and a new light for the front doorway from Ikea. Now I just have to find the time to hang it. OOOOhhh I can't wait to see it up!