Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I'm sitting on the couch at my parents' house with Emma and Alex and Ga and watching the Macy's parade, which has taken a brief down-turn while starring "Lance Bass" for a few minutes. I lost interest.
What a great day - it's one of those days that really does serve to make you thankful. From huevos rancheros for breakfast with mimosas to the delicious turkey dinner, the food is delicious. Plus, football is on pretty much all day long so we can watch and analyze and hopefully turn the sound down and make up the conversations on the sideline and all of the play calling in the huddle. BEST DAY EVER.
But seriously, how many days are we thankful for what we have? I'm not thankful very often, that's for sure. But all good things are from God, so today I thank Him for my family, and for relaxation, and for delicious food and even for watching parades and football.
Have a great thanksgiving! God Bless, everyone.

Crazy for Jinks! (X-treme)

We're crazy for Jinks! I went out with my friends Dana and Becca to see one of our friends, Brian Jinks, in the musical "Crazy for You". He did a great job as Pete, one of the cowboy trio, and we had a lot of fun at the show - and eating pizza and Dave & Babies style buffalo chicken artichoke dip. We finished off the curtain call by waving our "extreme" arms at the stage, but sadly, it was missed by all. But it was a great night! Bravo, Jinks!

Music

I have a friend who believes that contemporary Christian music (aka Praise music) is not appropriate for a Christian to listen to. Now I know that sounds weird, and I thin it is, too, but here's the reasoning: Christian music should be only Scripture set to music - sharing our own stories of faith and struggle are not really Christian. So that made me kind of upset, because I think that fellowship (even the indirect sort that we experience hearing Chris Tomlin talk about his faith) is important in our lives. If we're listening to music that is Christian but is glorifying the individual instead of worshiping God, then that's a different story. But I go back to "It is Well" and "Come Thou Fount" - both traditional hymns with beautiful music and lyrics that have stood the test of time, even in the conservative church - that are great stories about the lives of two people struggling in their own lives. Anyway, I just thought about that today while I was raking leaves at Bill Woodhouse's home (before the delicious veggie soup and lemon bars! Thanks Jan!).
Which reminds me...cinnamon raisin bread is on the menu for today! I'm excited to get home and enjoy the warm fire.

Almost there...

The longest weekend ever has commenced....and will hopefully be over soon! I can't believe how crazy last night was! We had a great group of kids come and they were pretty energetic. Maybe when they come tonight, they will have spent all day playing outisde and will be tired from that. Great kids, though, just hyper!
Tomorrow is Suzannah's baby shower which is so fun - I hope I have everything together for it! I had no idea it was so much work to pull all of that together. I hope she enjoys it and it's not too busy for her. I am so excited for baby Dylan to come into the world!
Pray for my sanity for this weekend - and for finances. It's not cheap to put on a baby shower and to run a VBS for these kids (thank goodness for reimbursements on that one!). But until then....well...pray! :)
P.S. They just opened a Sonic in Pittsburgh Mills! (Tarentum). Yay!