Gaither Report

What a concert! It was great. We went to Spaghetti Works for supper before the concert with my mom and dad and Stephanie's sister, Jamie and husband, Adam. We hadn't been there in long time. Very good. We had 7th row seats on the floor for the concert. Compared with the Row 1 seats I got one year, these were way back. :) No, they were good seats. Kevin Williams opened up the show with his usual guitar playing. Believe it or not, there was a group there I had never heard, The Collingsworth Family. They sang a couple songs and sounded really good. They have really good harmony. Then Ben Speer, Janet Paschal, and Russ Taff all sang solos. I was excited to hear the old Imperials song, "Trumpet Of Jesus" sung by Russ Taff. Ernie Haase and Signature Sound came out and tore it up. Then Lynda Randle sang a couple of songs. After Lynda was done, the lights went down and the intro for "Alpha and Omega" started. There they stood in a row, Bill Gaither, Michael English, Wes Hampton, Mark Lowry and David Phelps. What can I say? Bill has put together another stellar group. They sounded awesome! It was nice to hear the Vocal Band sing some of their classic songs, "Alpha and Omega", "At The Cross", "The Love Of God", "Satisfied", "He Touched Me", "Not Gonna Worry", "I Believe In A Hill Called Mt. Calvary". Plus they sang a couple newer ones, like "My Journey To The Sky", and "There's Always A Place At The Table". Bill featured each member of the Vocal Band. David Phelps sang "Nessun Dorma" from his new solo cd. That was amazing. That guy can sang! Wes sang "Always A Place At The Table". Mark Lowry was his old self. Funny as always. He told the audience he was going to sing a medley of his hit, "Mary, Did You Know?" Then the Vocal Band closed out their set with Michael English singing probably his most popular, and maybe the Vocal Band's most popular song, "I Bowed On My Knees And Cried, Holy!". The whole concert was very good. I didn't want it to end. 4 hours wasn't long enough! :) Afterwards, we went to Perkins and ate. I had breakfast there at midnight. We spent the day at Jamie and Adams on Saturday and had a good time. On Sunday we went to church at Slater, then ate lunch in Ames and headed back. It was a good weekend. The only thing that could top the weekend is if we had kids! Soon!

TJ

Last One....Maybe

This Friday will be my 15th Gaither Homecoming Concert. It's really a milestone. This has been my goal. 15 Gaither Concerts. :) I can recall them all. My first one in 2000 in Minneapolis. The one in St. Louis I went to with my dad. The one in Kansas City I went to with my sister where I won a Gaither Certificate. And then the following night in Des Moines. The one in Peoria that we got free tickets for, for signing up on Gaither.com. And then there's the one in the Quad Cities I went to with Stephanie. Our car wasn't running well so we borrowed my sister's car and on the way found out it was leaking transmission fluid. We had to keep filing it up. We had nose bleed seats at the concert and Stephanie had a super bad migraine and we ended up leaving early. So on the way home Stephanie just threw her contacts out the window cause she had such a bad headache. But I was getting too tired and I told her she had to drive cause I couldn't drive any more. So she had to wear my glasses so she could see. In the meantime we were still having to put transmission fluid in. And we ended up getting home at 3 in the morning. Fun times. But there's a good possibility that this Friday could be our last Gaither Concert. I'm not complaining though. Who knows, it may or may not be. We'll see. I'm excited though. Looking forward to seeing and hearing the new Gaither Vocal Band (Bill Gaither, Mark Lowry, David Phelps, Michael English and Wes Hampton).

If you want to go and don't have tickets, now is actually the time to check into that. This is the time they release the seats up close that were reserved for whatever reason and aren't going to be used.

Friday, May 29th 7:00pm
Wells Fargo Arena
Des Moines, IA
Tickets

Saturday, May 30th 6:00pm
Target Center
Minneapolis, MN
Tickets


TJ

Memorial Weekend

We had he boys down for the long weekend. It went really well. We had a lot of fun. We didn't do anything super exciting, but it was good getting to know them better. We went to the park a couple times, went to Cabela's a saw the animals, played outside, watched a movie. Stuff like that. I will say we were very nervous at church. Just because the boys don't know anything yet and we were afraid someone was going to say something to them about it. We had a couple close calls, but it was all good. We had a lot of fun and we miss them. But hopefully soon they'll be coming.

We got a card while we were at church. Stephanie opened it and it was an anniversary card. We both completely forgot it was our anniversary on Monday. We had other things on our mind.

TJ

Update

Here's the latest adoption update! The social worker of the kids emailed us and said the state approved the separation. So everything is done! We're ready, and they're ready. So, we are going to have the boys come to our house this weekend! Stephanie is going up in the morning to pick them up. It's both exciting for us and yet kinda bittersweet. It's hard cause they will be leaving the foster home that they've known for the last 16 months. I know this is hard on the foster family so be in prayer for them.

That's the latest!
TJ

Heat

What a beautiful day! At work there are windows all around the building, so I can look outside all day long. It's great. I had noticed how nice it was outside. I figured it was probably 80 degrees or so. When I stepped out of work at 3:30 I couldn't believe how warm it was. It wasn't just warm, it was hot. When I got in the vehicle it said it was 99 degrees. Even though it was hot, I didn't think it was near that warm. Normally, when its hot out and I get in the vehicle it always reads high at first. I noticed it only went down a couple of degrees though. I still couldn't believe it. So I watched the news when I got home. Sure enough, they said it was 99 degrees in Owatonna. 99 degrees...in May. It was 100 degrees in Granite Falls, MN, which is in SW MN. Crazy! And it's supposed to be like this on Wednesday too.

Here's a link to the actual high in Owatonna on Tuesday for those of you who don't believe me.

TJ

Previous Post

I hope you weren't too overly "offended" by my post. I would like to take this time to apologize for the post. I will now be going in to rehab for 6 weeks to help me deal with what I post. I will be in the Betty Ford Clinic. Sorry, no visitors.

Thanks,
TJ

No News

Excuse me for not blogging. I just really want to blog about some adoption news. We just don't have any yet. We're still waiting on the state to finish their assessment. The state really isn't very fast. I know it's hard to believe.

I just got done mowing the yard. The dandelions are trying to take over. So now we're going to get some spray to kill em.

I'll keep you updated.

TJ