project 365, week 26...and the big reveal

its really not as exciting as i had hoped.

i went to dallas to audition for american idol this week. i was hoping to be able to post that i got through the first 2 rounds to the 3rd round where you meet the 4 judges that you see on t.v.

no, what you see on t.v. is not the only round of auditions. all those people have made it through at least 2 other rounds. so yes they take people that are horrible singers just so they can put them on t.v.

it was a fun experience, and i figured i'd give it one more shot (i auditioned for season 2, which was several years ago) since i'm at the age limit. i really thought i had made it through the first round, but it was a no. they dont critique or really say anything at all to you at that point, so i don't know why. i nailed the song. i think it was a personality thing honestly. when i get nervous (and i was...very) my expression and body language go to pot, so even though i tried to be perky and expressive, i think i just kind of stood there politely so as not to embarrass myself.

the auditions were at the new dallas cowboys stadium. uh-mae-zing.

i'm not a big sports fan , but i know enough to know that place is top of the line nice. my friend jamie went with me (she didnt make it either) and she was just in awe the whole time, but she wants to work there someday. she was more excited about the possibility of jerry jones being somewhere in the building than singing for a.i.

to her disappointment i did not share her enthusiasm, but like i said, it is pretty.

a little about the whole process for those of you that care (if you dont, you can skip to my pictures for the week)...

we got there wednesday afternoon and registered for the audition. we walked right up and were done in 5 mintues. short and sweet. used to, you camped out for a couple of days and went right in to sing, all sweaty and greasy from sleeping outside and using port-a-potties for 48 hours. not a fan of that, so this was waaaay better.

the audition was on friday. we got to the stadium at 6am, and had to wait in line for about half an hour to get in and find our seats. then we sat and waited for 12 hours. it was a looooong day. i think that was another thing against us. by the time we got down to sing, we were in the last group of about 100 people (out of roughly 10,000) and the judges were obviously very tired of sitting and listening to people sing for them all day long. i would be too. however, i think at that point they were just trying to get the last handful of people through, because we hadnt seen them give any gold tickets out in quite a long time. i'm just sayin'.

anyway, so you're filtered down onto the floor by sections, and you're lined up 4 across and sent to one of 12 tables spread out across the length of the field. the first person steps up, sings for 30 seconds, steps back to their spot. then the second person, and so forth till all four of you have sung. the judge (one of the many producers for the show, remember 12 tables) calls you forward together and sends the 'non-winners' to the left out of the stadium and the winner/s (if there are any from your group) gets a 'golden ticket' and proceeds on to the winners' room.

if you're a 'non-winner' your admission bracelet is cut off and you leave. done.

its a very long time to wait for it to be over so quickly. its funny to think that everyone has to go through that process though. the winners have all done it. here are some pictures hopefully to give you an idea of what it looks like.

when we first got there, we spent an hour doing all the crowd shots and cheering and saying things like 'i'm the next american idol!', and 'welcome to dallas!' and whatnot. its pretty funny to see how much goes into making a 'reality' show. it was all very staged.

we saw them bringing the winners out one at a time and planting them in a crowd of people to film them 'waiting their turn to audition', even though they weren't actually waiting, because they had already auditioned and made it to the exclusive winners room. all quite interesting.

and, just for kicks, heres my song i sang for my audition. i wanted jamie to tape it so i could hear what i sounded like.

here's the week...

SUNDAY, june 21st

happy fathers day!! me and my daddy.

MONDAY, june 22nd

first day of vbs. allen gets the 6th graders every year, so they can have kind of a preview of what they'll get in the youth ministry. jeanie, one of the youth workers, hosts them at her house where they swim, eat dinner, and then have a lesson. i took the kids over monday night to meet the 6th graders and swim. colby had his first experience with the diving board and loved it!

TUESDAY, june 23rd

our neighbor is getting a new fence, so our yard is a bit of a mess too.

WEDNESDAY, june 24th

american idol registration day!

THURSDAY, june 25th

theres a street in plano called roundrock (where i live). its not 2 words, but still cool.

FRIDAY, june 26th

waiting to audition....

we went out to the concourse to get some lunch and stretch out a bit. you can only sit for so long.

after 5 hours, our butts needed a break.

SATURDAY, june 27th

my 10 year reunion!!! i went to the picnic and the dinner saturday night.

it was so great to see everyone and catch up. i had a great time!

have a great week!!!!

go to a movie, get free gum

we took the kids to a movie a few days ago. colby does mostly perfect. molly does.....well, shes two. she does as good as she can i guess, and its definitely not quite the waste of money it used to be. anyway, so we're in the movie and i look down and see molly chewing, like really chewing on something. i hadnt given her anything to eat, so of course i'm curious.
me: "molly, what are you eating?"
molly: "gum."
me: "i didnt give you any gum. where did you get the gum?"
molly: "on the seat."

wow. so...many...thoughts.

1)thats disgusting.

2)that cant possibly taste good.

3)how long has it been there?

4)how old must a piece of used gum be for the germs to no longer be germy?

5)i bet its gritty.

6)thats disgusting.

7)shes had it in her mouth for an undetermined amount of time. the damage has been done. do i even make her spit it out?

8)germs build immunities, right?

9)thats disgusting.

10)Jesus, protect my baby girl.

me: (offering my hand) "spit it out."
she did. no questions asked.

i never had that talk with my kids. i guess i just thought that was a given; you dont eat gum off the bottom of the movie theatre seats.
she probably thought, 'wow! a movie and gum? this is awesome!'

alright, people, give me your best gross thing your kids have done.
i might reward the best one! :)

project 365, week 25

this week was pretty mellow. the kids were still trying to get over whatever they came down with while we were at camp last week. both of them were kind of in a funk until wednesday and then i kept them in the rest of the week 'just to be safe'. saturday was really our first day out of the house as a family since we got back from camp last friday! sheesh, talk about stir crazy!!

SUNDAY, june 14th

no church for us today. allen went of course; its his job. the kids and i stayed home and spent most of the morning doing puzzles.

MONDAY, june 15th

colby didnt get the croup molly had, but he came down with a summer cold or something that wiped him out. our a/c (house, not car) broke late sunday night, so we couldnt really stay in the house. 98 degrees outside? no a/c? no thanks. i took them over to my moms and we hung out there until allen was able to get someone over to the house to fix it.

on the way home about 4 o'clock that afternoon, colby fell asleep in the car. i unloaded him and brought him in the house somewhat awake, but he laid down on the dining room floor, crazy kid, and took a nice long nap; and he went to bed just fine, so i know he wasnt feeling well.

TUESDAY, june 16th

they were both feeling pretty good today, so i let colby go to his t-ball practice under the condition that he take it easy and observe more than participate. i think he was excited to get out of the house for a little bit. he and allen wore their matching round rock express baseball hats to practice.



WEDNESDAY, june 17th

another homebound day, but we did get out and take a walk. molly has been on a rainboot kick. she wears them with everything. if only we could get a little rain to go along with the boots....

THURSDAY, june 18th

allen got me tickets to Wicked for my birthday!!! my friend casey and i drove to san antonio, had dinner on the riverwalk, and then walked a block to the theatre for the best show i've ever seen!! seriously, if you like theatre at all you have got to see this show if you have the chance. wow!!!!



FRIDAY, june 19th

this is hush puppy. molly found him in my bottom drawer and between the two of them, he's been carried around all over the house the past couple days. he was mine (technically he still is) when i was a little girl. i think its cool that i still have some of my old toys that my kids can play with now.


SATURDAY, june 20th

colbys first t-ball game!! he did a great job and wasnt 'that kid' picking flowers or bird watching way out in the outfield. he did play in the dirt a little bit when there wasnt much going on, but he still got a pretty good hit and even caught a ground ball. good job, buddy!





there is quite of a bit of excitement for me in the coming week, but i'm not going to let on to anything just yet. i'm leaving wednesday morning and will be back sometime saturday or sunday i think. i'll be away from my computer, so you'll have to check back here for the scoop (and pictures) next weekend!! :)

what do you sweat?

have you ever heard the expression 'i'm sweating bullets'?
i don't say it, but i hear it often. i think part of living in the south is saying weird things that dont seem to make any sense, but if you research them (because, really who doesnt?) theres some obscure story that explains why we say things like 'i'm fatter than a tick on a coondog!'
yeah, we really do say those things.

the other day our ac in our house went out. in the summer. in texas.
i guess the good news is that its june, so its only hitting about 98 degrees in the afternoons.
if it were july or august we'd be well over 100.
it went out sunday evening but we werent positive that thats what had happened. allen and i just kept saying how hot the house was. when i cranked it down to under 70 that night and we were laying in bed sweating, i realized the ac was probably broken.
the next morning i was trying to get the kids and myself ready to get out of the house until someone could come fix it, and colby said
colby: "i'm sweating balls!"
me: (after i stopped laughing) "i think you mean bullets."
colby: "no, i mean balls. i'm not big enough to use bullets."
makes perfect sense.
it also begs the question, how old do you have to be to use bullets?
we dont hunt or shoot things recreationaly (or non-recreationaly for that matter), so who knows what he thinks about 'using' bullets. i didnt go there with him.
i was just trying to keep everyone from slipping in the puddles of sweat on the floor on our way out of the house. thats a little exagerrated, but it was hot.

are there any 'weird' things you or your family says that you dont quite know what it means?

back from youth camp; project 365, week 24

well, another fantastic week at youth camp has come and gone.
i came home exhausted as always.

for the first time in several years we were not the biggest group at the camp, which was very different for us. usually we have no problem getting seats all together in worship and dominating the tournaments during free rec, as well as morning rec games, but this year there was another group almost twice as big as ours, so our students (and sponsors, too for that matter) had some adjusting to do. it was a great week, though. in our group we had 2 salvations, 1 'wake up call' (i dont like the term recommitment), and 1 decision for baptism. there were many many other decisions made in other groups as well.

i got a call from my dad wednesday morning at 3am that mom was on her way to the e.r. with molly, who had been hacking pretty bad, was having trouble breathing, and had spiked a pretty high fever. after sitting wide awake for a few hours, i got the call that she had been discharged around 6am with acute croup.

we went back and forth over me going home or not. i wanted to be with my sick girl, but i also wanted to stay at camp. i knew i couldnt do anything that mom wasnt already doing, but i was struggling with thoughts of 'am i a bad mom if i dont go home?'

i had my bags packed and was ready to go, but mom told me i was fine to stay, that she had it under control.

her issue, which i totally understood was having to give molly breathing treatments. that is, if she would have had to give her treatments every few hours (i guess that would have been the case had the croup been in her lungs), i would have had to go home and take over. they gave her two while she was in the e.r. and she fought them pretty hard on it apparently. fortunately she made it out with a prescription for an oral steriod only, and directions to not get overheated.

we got home friday around 130 and i was sooo ready to see my kids! i went straight to moms house to pick them up. colby was running some fever when i got there, and had been since the day before. it's still been popping up in the evenings, but so far thats the only symptom.

molly is much better. shes still having about 1 coughing spell a day, usually in the evening as well, but her fever is gone and her appetite is coming back.

we'll hopefully get back to normal (well, normal for us) pretty soon. the kids and i are done for the summer. allen still has vbs (in a week) and mission trip (mid-july), but i'm not involved in those at all.

here are the project 365 pictures:

sunday, june 7th

in all the laundry and unpacking and repacking i neglected to take a picture on sunday.

i dont even have one i can pretend i took on sunday.

moving on....

monday, june 8th

a hot attraction at camp every year is the blob. unfortunately sponsors are not allowed on the blob for insurance and liability purposes, so i have to enjoy it from afar.

tuesday, june 9th

killin time in the dinner line.

this is tori. she teaches 9th grade girls' sunday school with me. shes awesome!

wednesday, june 10th

last year at camp i discovered tetherball and couldnt get enough of it.

monday on the way to camp i realized i would get to play again this week!!

i didnt play as much as i would have liked to, but i still played a lot.

i must admit, i got schooled. i need to practice a little bit before camp week next year.

allens cousin and our youth intern justin is going to make me a shirt that says 'tetherballa'.

i will wear it with pride. and often.

thursday, june 11th

something we do every year, and its become a favorite of mine, is on the last night of camp allen invites the camp pastor and band to come to our church time. we have them sit in the middle of the circle and the kids surround them and cover them with prayer. its our chance to 'fill their buckets', so to speak after emptying themselves out for us all week long. the students all pray at the same time, so a chorus of prayer fills the room. very very cool.

friday, june 12th

this was shortly before allen unloaded the car. thats my luggage, his luggage, and the kids' luggage. the kids of course we at my parents', and at camp allen and i are in different places so we take seperate everything.

saturday, june 13th

allen is the camp director every year. this year, in addition to the director responsibilites, he spoke twice every morning. the campers are split up into two groups to make rec easier, so 1 group does rec while the other does morning worship, then they switch.

i caught this picture of him this afternoon. i cant imagine why he would be tired.....

oh, and last week i mentioned my 10 year reunion was this weekend.

its actually in 2 weeks.

i have no idea how i got so confused as to think it was 2 weeks earlier than it actually is, but that is the case. so thats why i mentioned it last week, but have no pictures or mention of it this week.

thankfully i talked to my friend haley friday afternoon and she was able to inform me that i'm an idiot. otherwise i would have shown up at the non-existent party friday night and wondered where the heck everyone was. wouldnt that have been the perfect end to my week???

back from the beach and 365, week 23

we got home late last night from a week at the coast.

monday thru thursday was 'senior trip' to port aransas. we go every year and spend a few days relaxing, playing games, etc.

this was mollys first time to the beach and she loved it! thats an understatement really. she just could not get enough of the ocean. she liked jumping over the waves more than anything, but also did her fair share of hunting for seashells and building sandcastles.

thursday morning we packed up and while the rest of the group headed home, our family headed to south padre island. back at easter, allens mom gave the kids a gift of a pirate ship adventure cruise as well as money for our hotel stay and souveniers. since we were already down that way for senior trip, we extended our time away to include the pirate adventure. we thought we were only an hour away from south padre, but it was actually 3 hours. we found a great hotel on the beach and got a pool/beach view room. the beach and water were absolutely amazing!

we used to go to south padre every year when i was a kid, but its literally been about 20 years since i'd been and i'd forgotten how beautiful it is there.

after a couple of hours on the beach and some pool time at our hotel, we cleaned up and headed to dinner.

on our way to the pirate cruise, we got a phone call telling us it had been cancelled due to low attendance. that kind of put a damper in our evening, namely because we had two sets of big precious eye balls looking up at us, wanting to know why we werent getting on the boat. another issue was that our next option was the first cruise out the next day from noon to 2pm, but our plan was to leave the next morning around 11am. we didnt really have much choice. it was either do the noon cruise or come back another time (a 16 hour round trip) on our dime, which we cant particularly afford to do. we considered doing the friday evening cruise (they offered it to us for free as a replacement for the one that got cancelled) and staying another night, putting us home saturday evening, but allen leaves sunday for youth camp, and still had some things to take care of back home. saturday would have just been cutting it too close.

so we went back to our hotel and did the pirate cruise on friday at noon, left at 230 and got home a little after 9pm friday night. it was a loooong trip and we've all been pretty cranky (us) and whiny (the kids) since we got home.

now i'm doing laundry and getting us all re-packed for youth camp. allen leaves tomorrow after church to head down there and get everything ready. i'll take the kids to my parents house tomorrow evening where they'll stay till friday when we get back.

the rest of the group leaves monday morning.

to top it all off, when we get back from camp friday, i'm heading to my 10 year high school reunion. i'll be tired, but at least i'll be tan.

you get a few extra pictures this week since i took about 100!! :)

SUNDAY, may 31st

colby wanted to get out a hit golf balls sunday afternoon (a first for him, i think), so allen took him out in the backyard for a very short lived golf lesson.

MONDAY, june 1st

we were on the road during mollys naptime. it took her a while to fall asleep, but when she crashed, she crashed hard. attractive, yes?

TUESDAY, june 2nd

our first full day at the beach, and boy was it full!!

we rounded it out with a sunset dolphin watching cruise, which was a change from our usual horseback riding on the beach (and half the price!).

some friends of ours have a vacation house down in port aransas that my parents happened to be staying at this week as well, so they met us tuesday evening. the kids loved getting to see grammie and papaw.

WEDNESDAY, june 3rd

miss jeanie (the 12th grade sunday school teacher) is a master french braid artist. molly saw her braiding some of the other girls' hair and wanted hers done too. she looked so cute with her hair braided, so i'm under 'orders' from allen to get french braid lessons from jeanie at youth camp.

THURSDAY, june 4th

our hotel had a very long boardwalk from the pool down to the beach. it was so pretty!

molly crashed after we went swimming thursday afternoon. she missed her nap, so it ended up being a good thing. no way would she have made it till bedtime without a power snooze.

FRIDAY, june 5th

we checked out of our hotel and went to a small rescue center for sea animals. the kids got to hold a starfish and feed hermit crabs. it was a lot of fun and right up colbys alley.

then on to the big pirate adventure!! before we got on the boat we had to wait out on a covered patio, so they had a fire master do a show for us. he really freaked molly out, so i had to take her back inside. if you look closely in the picture, you can see molly and i watching from the window.

SATURDAY, june 6th

home again, home again jiggity jig.

time for laundry.

one week down, one to go, then we slow down a bit. well, at least for a week.