Heaven Fest 2009

Our family LOVES to go to concerts. I wasn't sure how many opportunities there would be in CO and after having lived within driving distance of LA, where there are a multitude of venues for music and theatre, I was a little unsure of what we would find in the way of entertainment here in the rocky mountains (aside from all of that healthy, exercise-ridden stuff). Sometimes, a girl just wants to be entertained!

You can imagine how excited I was when I discovered Heaven Fest. I was listening to Way FM, which is an awesome Christian radio station and heard an announcement regarding the music festival coming to Denver in August. I immediately added Heaven Fest as a friend on Facebook and started getting updates. The prices were $29 or whatever you can afford (how cool is that?) and they had 80 bands on 8 stages. The girls were going to be with their mom, so I ordered two tickets for Jay and I and we waited with anticipation from the time we got to CO until the day of the concert. This was going to be our first show after the move and definitel one to remember!

The day started off right. We stopped at It's a Grind (our absolute favorite coffee shop) for a cup of joe and bagel and traffic was light up until we arrived a few miles from the venue and then we were at a dead stop. We had a couple of miles to go and by the rate of speed we were driving (zero) it didn't look like we were going to make it in time to see the first band on our list, which was Seventh Day Slumber. We saw some cars turning off on a separate road and watched this for about 20 minutes and finally took a chance and followed them. This turned out to be a very good decision. We were able to bypass a lot of the traffic and got checked in and dropped off our canned food (they asked everyone to bring a can of food for the food bank) and got our wrist bands and made it to the stage with only a few minutes to spare.

Seventh Day Slumber was amazing! This was our second time seeing them and hearing Joseph's testimony will bring you to tears (and to your knees.) He speaks with so much passion and you can just hear the love in his voice that he has for Jesus and for others. He is such an example of God's deliverance. The music was awesome also. They have such talent.

Next, we saw Kutless. This was our third time seeing them and they did not disappoint. They played several of their rock songs and were all over the stage. We could not help but sing along and enjoy the energy in the crowd.

After Kutless, Skillet came on the stage. This was my third time seeing Skillet, and Jay's second. I actually took Jay to see Skillet on our third date. We went to the House of Blues in Hollywood and saw Twelve Stones, Pillar, Skillet, and some other band that neither of us can remember the name of. Anyhoo, Skillet rocked! Actually, in the words of John Cooper, they "rocked our faces off." They played a song off of their new album called Monster and the crowd went wild. They incorporate all kinds of string instruments along with the guitar, drums and keyboard and have such a unique sound. The day just kept getting better.

Admittedly, it was hot....very hot. It was dusty.....very dusty. We were on our feet the entire day, there was no shade and porta potties are well, porta potties. Still, it was worth it and we would do it again all over again.

We wrapped up the day with Third Day. They came on late and we were all standing around wondering if technical difficulties were the hold up. After about 20 minutes, the announcer came on the mic and told us that what we could not see behind the stage was some very dark clouds and some very large lightning strikes and if we wanted to see Third Day, then we needed to pray. So, everyone started praying and Third Day was able to come on an deliver and amazing performance. I was especially excited to see them because it was my first time and they were absolutely incredible. Mac has the most beautiful voice and when they sang, "Thief" everyone was just silent and humbled. It was truly amazing.

At 8:30, all of the music stopped and they had a nameless, faceless worship team come up to the stage and lead us in worship and read scripture and then we all took communion together (among 20,000) people. That was an experience that, unfortunately, I cannot put into words. God's presence was so powerful and you could just feel His love cover us. It was an absolutely amazing day.

Seventh Day Slumber

Just us

Seventh Day Slumber

That's John Micah from Kutless hiking up the laddar

A little tired, a little sunburned, a little thirsty and a lot happy

The skate ramp

Another one of the stages

This is why you need to sponsor a child with Compassion International

Just a tad dusty

It was fun taking a shower that night!

Throw up your rock fist!

Third Day

A peak at the sky - not a drop of rain!

Fun with Alcohol Inks

I have been watching Jennifer Mcguire's Thinking Inking videos over at Two Peas and was inspired to break out my alcohol inks and start using them on cards.

On this card, I took some glossy paper from Ranger and stamped my image from SU!'s Fresh Cuts set using Top Boss embossing ink and then embossed the image using SU! white embossing powder. Then, I combined Current and Slate alcohol inks, along with some silver mixative and applied them over the image using my took from Ranger. I zapped it with my heat gun once more to dry the ink and then I stamped the Thank You from the same set using Staz On black ink.

I also applied the same color combination of alcohol inks and mixative to a white flower from Hero Arts and a clear button.

I added some green paper at the bottom that I punched using my eyelet border punch from SU! and some pink ribbon from Offray and then adhered everything onto Basic Black cardstock for some contrast.

Jennifer, thank you for inspiring me to use some of the products that I have sitting around but never got around to using.

Jen's Sketch Challenge 08/01/09

I made this card over a week ago (which was still late for the challenge) but as you will notice by all of the postings today, I got a little behind and am trying to get caught up.

If you have not been participating, Jen Del Muro does a sketch challenge every Saturday. She always comes up with fabulous sketches week after week without fail and I always find myself looking at card layouts differently after doing one of her sketches. Does that panel really need to be straight? Can I maybe use various patterns in my design instead of sticking to one pattern and cardstock? How about some more layers?

Jen, thank you so much for challenging us week after week!!!! Big hugs to you.

Introducing Christopher Lee

On July 19th, Jay's brother Eric and his wife Mindy welcomed Christopher Lee into the world. Both mommy and baby are healthy and doing extremely well.

We were able to drive out on Christopher's one week birthday and meet him face to face. He smells wonderful and is so very, very cuddly. He's also very squeaky. Every time I held him he would fall asleep and then start making these adorable little squeaking noises. He didn't make them when anyone else held him. He must have just felt so comfortable in my arms that he could truly be himself without fear of judgement ;).

Christopher's big brother Jason is adjusting well so far to the changes in his family. We brought him a big brother present and gave him lots of love and attention so he knows that just because he has to share now, doesn't mean there isn't enough love to go around.

Squeak! Squeak!

Jay's more used to holding little girls!

Are these not the cutest footsies?

He's WAY cuter in person, just doesn't like that flash of the camera!

4th of July 2009

One of the nice things about living in Colorado is that we're only about three and a half hours from Jay's family in Colby, KS. Our nephew Jason turned two in March and he grew up in our absence and we are just now getting to know him. It's hard to be far away and have missed so much of his development. We decided to spend our first holiday here with the family. We drove out on the 4th and spent the later part of the afternoon on into the evening at Jay's mom's house. Jay grilled some burgers and Mom's dear friend Marvena came to join our family and Jay's brother Eric and his wife Mindy and Jason. On the way to Colby, we stopped and purchased an absolutely insane amount of fireworks, only to find that Marvena had done the same. We must have shot off fireworks for about 5 hours. The kids had an absolute blast and (thankfully) no one was hurt! At about 10:00, we went into the front yard and could see the big fireworks from the fairgrounds. It was a spectacular show!

I just love the 4th of July. I am so blessed to live in this wonderful country where so many men and women have made tremendous sacrafices so that I can live in freedom and not a day goes by that I'm not reminded of just how precious my freedom is.

Jason's first experience with sparklers. He had a healthy fear of them.

Marvena liked setting off combinations of smoke bombs to make pretty colors.

Eric setting off some smoke bombs. They were Jason's favorite

Nicole, Kendall and Jay playing with fire.

This one is going to make lots of noise!

I love watching my man cook, even if it only happens outside over an open flame.

Vroom! Vroom!

Missing You

Well, I am missing everyone right now, but I made this card for my Mom. She has been so incredible in helping me during this transition. I can call her any time, day or night, and she is available to listen and offer support and encouragement. She doesn't make me feel silly or weak, I have complete permission to feel how I feel but she offers me great advice. I love my Mom!!!! Thanks for being there for me.

I did have fun making this card. I really wanted to do something in blue and green. I was able to use this adorable bird stamp and sentiment from Unity's July KOTM. I paper pieced the bird and then covered it with Stickles to give it some shimmer and shine. Then, I colored in the flourish with my blender pen and added a little bit of bling.

I embossed the bottom part of the card with my Unity Distressed Dots stamp and some clear embossing poweder and used a Heidi Grace heart chipboard piece that I stamped in Bashful Blue ink from SU! and then sprayed with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Pearl. This is my new favorite product. I recently took a card class at Archiver's and we used this product and it offers so many possiblities!!!

Pike's Peak

Before the girls left to spend the second half of the summer in KS, we took them up to Pike's Peak for a wonderful afternoon. It was an awe-inspiring experience. First of all, the drive up is magnificent. You can distinctly tell when you get above timberline and there was still snow up there, even in June. In fact, to this day there is still a small amount of snow up there. Not as much as when we arrived in CO and not as much as when we took our trip up there, but you can still see snow up on the top even from our house.

Anyway, we all loved being up there. The view is astounding. It's very difficult to breathe, due to the high elevation. They sell shirts and hats that say, "got oxygen?" Jay wants to climb to the top one day and I'd love to do it with him, but not until our bodies adjust to the altitude. I am confident I would not make it all the way up at this point. You can take a train up from Manitou Springs, which I would like to do one day, but for this trip we drove the Titan.

We had lunch at a "restaurant" on the way down and it was just about the worst food we'd ever eaten, so I suggest bringing a picnic lunch and eating outside at the picnic tables. The view made up for the bad food though. We sat outside among the trees and watched little critters running about, it was so serene. We learned that America the Beautiful was inspired by the view from the summit and it came as no surprise.

We are seeing so many amazing sights here! Once again, another great outing for company :)