this was a great day....

Today, Maddie and Jennifer were baptized at RVCC's Annual Baptism. It was awesome. I am so proud of them both! I could go on and on about how this makes me feel, but I will reserve that for another post. Thank you to our Church family at River Valley, they are responsible for helping both Maddie and Jennifer come to the place in their lives they want to publicly show their love for Jesus! Here are a few pictures.... this baptism sponsored by Hall's Automotive, LiveWorship and Nike.... Just Kidding..





Tyler Cornish was baptized too! AWESOME!

this test is full of crap...

74%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Mingle² - Dating Site

Thanks to Marko...

... and I thought at the last moment... this probably was not a good idea...

Last night as a group of girls decided to slide down the giant slip and slide at our Youth event, I thought...It is awesome to see all of these kids having fun together. Immediately after that thought, a large number of High school boys slide took off sliding in pursuit of the above mentioned girls... and at the last moment I thought... this probably was not a good idea. A crash at the bottom of the hill ensued and there was a bloody nose, apologies and a rush to go get ice to keep the swelling down. It was the only accident of the night, but enough of one to make me question if there should have been more rules in place to prevent such casualties. But then again, the scratches all over my back and stomach from sliding off the end a few times are proof that I don't always follow rules anyway.

... finally posting the Charlie Hall picture...

Back in June...I talked about getting to meet Charlie Hall, who has a huge influence on my music. I told you I would post a picture...so here it is...

in honor of the Simpsons....

I was a big Simpson's fan back in the day....which was 20 years ago. What a run that show has been on. I believe it is just as popular now as it was back then...it has been in reruns for 15 years! Here are a few of my early Simpson's favorite moments...

1. Great halloween episodes! My favorite was the Simpson's version of Edgar Alan Poe's "The Raven". Classic!

2. Christmas episode where Marge takes the kids to the mall to Christmas Shop and finds out that Bart is getting a tattoo. Caught in the midst of his really "Bozz" tattoo, Bart's tattoo reads "Moth" instead of "Mother" and Marge had to spend the Christmas money on having it surgically removed. When Homer gets home from work, he finds Maggie sucking on her Binky and poking the bandage on Bart's arm over and over again... while Bart repeats..."OUCH... quit it!"..."Ouch... quit it!". When Homer asks why Bart has a bandage on his arm, he replies, "It use to be a real bozz tattoo until Mom had it surgically removed."... one of my favorite lines. Funny stuff.

This is me... Simpsonized..

we had a great family day at Kings Island...

We went to Kings Island today. We had a great time. It was so much fun riding rides. The girls had a blast. Maddie got sick on the Monster and then got shook up pretty good on the Racers. Caroline is a dare devil...she was not tall enough to ride most of the bigger rides and she had a melt down when she could not ride the White Water Canyon. She was able to ride it last year, but the new owners of Kings Island (Cedar Fair, Inc.) bumped up the height requirements on all of the rides. They have reopened the Son of Beast...they took out the loop. That is one mean ride...WOW! Awesome. I had a chance to ride the Beast again...28 years after the first time I rode that coaster and is is still the best!

Here are a few pictures from our day!

our Youth group went bowling tonight....

We went to Shawnee Lanes bowling with the youth group from RVCC tonight! We had a great time. It was great to see so many participate again. Our attendance has been pretty low all summer long, but tonight we had 16 people and a ton of fun. Here are some pictures from the event...

i sat on the edge of my seat....

I sat on the edge of my seat. Patiently awaiting his turn to bat again. The crowd was full of energy, on their feet. You can feel the tension in the air. First pitch...ball 1. Second Pitch was low and away. The third pitch was a slider taken for strike 1. He fouled off the next pitch to bring the count to 2-2. The next pitch was low and away again and the count was full. The flash bulbs were going crazy. Everyone on their feet, including me. The next pitch was about thigh high and it was gone. Mike Bacsik gave Barry Bonds a pitch he could drive out of the deepest part of the ballpark. History! Barry Bonds just hit homerun number 756 to break the record held by great Hank Aaron for the last 33 years.

I have been blessed to see many milestone in Major League Baseball. Pete Rose break the all time hits record. Cal Ripkin Jr. break the Consecutive Starts record. Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa chase after Roger Maris's single season homerun record and countless other great moments in baseball history. I love baseball for the nostalgia and the history. It is still the Great American Past time. I witnessed history tonight and it may never happen again in my lifetime, but then again, records are made to be broken.

i finished Harry Potter the other day...

So, I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I must say it was a great story. i will not tell you anything about the story, in case you have not read it yet. I would hate to spoil the ending ;).

I spent a week ignoring anything and everything Harry Potter until I could get the book and start reading... I did not want to know the ending before reading it for myself. I accomplished that task! Here are a few things that I liked....

1. Our little Harry Potter discussion group at work was dead on...we had the booked nailed! Our theories were good, even though Eli did not like it. Sorry Eli!

2. I loved how Rowling portrayed Neville Longbottom! His story of redemption is classic!

3. The life in the the tent....was boring, but took us through some things we needed to know.

4. I enjoyed watching Harry mature in this book. He had always skidded by on a little luck, great friends and being brave enough to take risks. In this book, he had to be brave because he understood the prophesy, but he really had to piece the history together in his head to outsmart the enemy. It was obvious that He had become the man Dumbledore had hoped he would be while living out in the tent.

5. Snape...You love to hate him. What a great character. Rowling kept me so back and forth on my opinion of Severus Snape that I just did not know where he would land. Fantastic!

What a great series of books. Regardless of whether you like them or not, they are well written stories that have inspired a video gaming generation to pick up great literature and jump into using their imaginations.

I bought a camera...

OK, I finally broke down and spent my money on a new camera! A Nikon D40! It is an entry level Digital SLR and I love it. Of course I still have a lot to learn about al that it can do, but I can already see the advantage of taking pictures with the Nikon. The kit lens is fantastic. It is an 18-55 Wide Angle lens that is great for closeups and snapshots. I am excited to get a nice telephoto lens so that I can pull in some of those great shots. Actually, I really want the ability to get close to Maddie and Caroline during school programs, church musicals, soccer games, tennis matches, etc. Our previous camera is great for snapshots, but just did not cut it for anything more than 20 feet away.

It has been a long time since I was excited about photography. I took some classes in college, but the professor hated every picture I ever turned in to him. At that point in time, I gave up taken pictures of random things. I became a very pointed photographer. I only took pictures of important things like family events, vacations, etc. My Dad was an amateur photographer when I was a kid. I received a Nikon 4004S 35mm Camera when i graduated from High School from my parents. it is still one of my prized positions. It has taken 1000's of pictures with that camera and it still works perfectly.

i am again excited about taking pictures of random things...

BUT...I am no Jaki Good ;)