This picture doesn’t do justice for the folks that showed up.

The worship team did a superb job.

And so did the choir (my mom’s on the front row )

Since the property is in the state it was left in after the last concert of 2008, we made due with the facilities available.  We thought this was a funny picture.  Why do preschoolers deserve the VIP Club?

The creative arts team had an impromptu art creation. The artist created the image in the duration of a song. Pastor Jason recited a reading about the traits of Christ, and the artist wrote them on the board. Then as the song played she did her thing. Breathtaking is an appropriate term for this.

We spent the rest of the day at my mom’s house grilling, chilling, and egg hunting.

30 pounds of meat. We don’t mess around.

Uncle Henry supervising the cooking.

Cooking up the sides.

Ace is getting the hang of the egg hunting thing. She did a great job this year…

Mostly with the help of Uncle Matt!

Poppy was able to leave his rehab hospital to spend the day with us and got to meet his great-grandson.

So, In case you didn’t know: my brother-in-law Matt is a major St. Louis Cardinals fan. On a recent trip to St. Louis, my mom got their family shirts, and of course there needed to be a photo session!

Isn’t this a great mom-daughter picture?

Annabelle is thinking of the words to describe her very first chocolate bunny.

At the end of the day both kids were pooped.

This morning my Uncle Manuel Espinoza passed away.  He was my dad’s younger brother, the second of the six siblings.  This was totally unexpected and the family is pretty stunned.

On the way to the hospital I told my sister that I wish I could turn my phone ringers off when I go to bed so that I never receive this type of call again.

I’m sitting here reflecting on my memories of my Uncle and only the most random thoughts come to mind:

- He had great taste in music, and enjoyed talking about stuff he liked to listen to.  I had never heard of any of the bands, but the music always sounded great.

- He had a really cool drafting table that I always wanted to play with when I was a kid (he designed store interiors)

- I liked going to visit he and my Aunt when I was a kid because we would pass the brown wood house  and we had to go in a circle to get there. (totally random, but aren’t half the things you remember from childhood?)

- When he laughed it was this full-body-snicker that was pretty funny in it’s own right, so it was fun to get him going

I still can’t believe today was real.  Please pray for my Aunt Diane and cousins Jason and Monica.

“I am taking a hiatus from live performances for who knows how long. Being a traveling musician with four kids may not make an extremely compelling reality TV show but it is kicking my butt.”

I’ve enjoyed listening to Kelly’s music since a former boss introduced me to it when I was living/working in Austin in the early 90′s. I’m such a big fan that in ’99 I named my Mustang “Kelly”. I’ve seen Kelly live in concert several times, but this last time had to have been the best spot for viewing that I’ve ever had. We were front-row-center. Nothing between us but a monitor. *sigh*.

Gruene Hall is a great venue; mostly because you’re so close to the talent.  You’re just as likely to sit next to the band/singer you’re going to see that night while you dine pre-concert at the Gristmill as to run into them in the men’s or women’s restroom.   The latter happened to Amanda this time around.  I’m not sure exactly how it went down, but the end result was Amanda saying in a star-struck voice “um, that one doesn’t flush, so I kicked it.”   I’m sure Kelly was impressed.   All credit to Amanda though for turning in a semi-helpful statement.   At a show in Gruene Hall in ’95, I ran into Kelly as I was exiting the men’s restroom and all I could come up with was “So, I hear you like cats?”  We then proceeded to have the most uncomfortable one minute conversation about cats that the world has ever seen.

Here’s two videos I took with my borrowed-from-my-mom-4-mega-pixel camera. The audio’s not all that – you’ve been warned

Heaven’s Just a Sin Away

Sweet Little One

We plan t’ celebrate by pillagin’, burnin’, and eatin’ the meat!

So, raise yer glass, to all d’ pirates out der, to me auld mum, and to PETAAAARRR SAAAAAARRRRRSSSGAAARRRRDDD!!!!!!

Pete sounded a bit like Mr. Miyagi while trying to explain to me how to succeed in piloting the kayak. “You must focus Daniel-san. Have balance. No fall over.” It’s the balance thing that I forgot when, about 5 seconds off the shore, I took my first spill. I believe I am now the owner of the “fastest flip in a kayak after launch” distinction. Eventually I did get the hang of it and successfully traversed a set of Category 2 rapids without getting a mouthful of water.
Overall it was a great workout, beautiful scenery, and a fun time.

The less challenging part of the river.

Pete showing how it’s done.

“Fat guy in a little boat” If it looks like I’m taking on water, I am. It’s because Pete forgot to replace the plug in the tail after we emptied the kayak following my record-setting spill.

Today Anupama, Rommel, James, Kim and I continued our annual tradition of heading over to Market Square for lunch.

This year we learned: that James needs to bring an extra shirt, you should bring your own ice (horchata doesn’t taste good at outside temp.), don’t buy the corn when the guy isn’t wearing gloves, and funnel cakes don’t settle very well .

I was the ‘logistics person’ and bag sherpa. This was our first time to B2B and it was a great time.