Pretty in Any Color

Adrienne's Girl Scout troop had some kind of a pink celebration. Adrienne went and had a blast. She said afterwords that pink was not one of her favorite colors before the event but it sure was after. They played games, designed their own t-shirts, and drank pink lemonade. She brought home a big bag of goodies!

Who's Got Talent!

I was at the first Paxton Keeley Adventure Club Talent Show and I took a couple of pictures and a video or two. Adrienne had two performances and Abbie was the MC and also took part in a performance. I will get the video up later, but we had a few special guest. Grandma and Kaycee came down from Trenton to see the talent show. Of course they brought Chunk with them! He was a well behaved little man despite all the horror stories his mother tells. Somebody better give his momma a big hug I think she needs it.

If that was Not Enough!

Despite the already busy day. I kept my promise to Abbriel and took her to see the new Space Mountain movie. She loved it and found it particularly entertaining that some of the movie takes place at an alien convention at Planet Hollywood in Vegas. I liked the movie too and it is a good thing because it was the second time I've seen it.

Photography Class

Abbriel had her photography class demonstration. She and the rest of her classmates were finally able to show off the projects they made during the class. There was a scrap book and a collage. I could not help but to test my skills with the picture below. Adrienne is always a willing subject.

Dare Graduation

Abbriel had her Dare graduation. It was a long ceremony. I was surprised by big turn out at the event. There was singing and a wonderful slide show with photos of the kids during the Dare program. I think it is a great program.

Spending the Day with Adrienne

With Abbie away at a girl scout function I got to spend the day with Adrienne. We went to McDonalds to eat, window shopped, and went to see a movie. We had a pretty good day, but it may have been too much for Adrienne. She is down taking a nap as I type this. Hopefully she is not coming down with something. Abbie should be back early this evening and we'll see how things go for the rest of the day.

Mizzou is the Big 12 Men's Basketball Champion

Mizzou won its first ever men's Big 12 Championship tonight in Oklahoma City. It is a great night to be a Tiger's fan. You can read the story on the Athletic department's website. This was totally unexpected even for the most die hard Tiger's fans. I picked the Tigers to finish 5th in the conference and they out performed my expectations. The Big 12 coaches picked them 7th. The Tigers basketball program has regained it luster after several years of hardship.

Missouri State High School Championships

Yet another first for me this year. I went to the high school state championships today. It was held in Mizzou Arena and it is an interesting specticle. Unfortunately, none of the games were close. Rock Bridge High School won its third place game which had to be a bit of a disappointment for them but 3rd place isn't too bad.

Band Tryouts

Abbie went to the band/orchestra tryouts at Smithton Middle School tonight. She has been waiting for this day for more than a week. She spent almost two hours trying out instruments and getting feedback from instructors. She settled on three instruments; the saxophone, the flute, and the clarinet.

Perhaps you have noticed but Abbie has a stalker in each of these pictures. Adrienne was hot on Abbie's heels the whole night. She was right in Abbie's face during many of these tryouts. She really loves her sister and will miss her next year when Abbie moves on to middle school.

Meet the Bobs

These are the Bobs'. The one on the left is Bob and to his right is his brother Bob. Seriously...I cannot make the stuff up. Well...Adrienne can. She and Abbie went to dinner with their Great Aunt Theresa tonight. They dined at Chevy's and Chevy's gives kids dough balls. Adrienne has named her dough balls and has been playing with them all night. You never know what silliness my girls will come up with.

Prophetic and Profound

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html

I have told some of my closest friends that the bond between religion and government (particularly the Republican party) could be dangerous for religion. I could not agree more with this article. Christians that have thrust their religion upon our nation's politics may begin to see the backlash against religion. It will undoubtedly cost the Christian faiths much of its membership, and most of its political power.

The Almighty Obama has already begun to repeal some of the religious movement's influence. Altering stem cell policy is just the beginning and as Evangelicals rail against the changes they will continue to marginalize themselves.

I cannot help but to agree with the author. The answer to preserving our faith is to teach it to our children. Not just the political contexts of it, but the meaning and demonstrating to them how to live as a Christian. Religious mothers and fathers have an obligation to model appropriate Christian behavior to their children. That means forgiving (I have much room for improvement), prayer (again, much room for improvement), and worship. Okay, so I just pointed out areas that I need to improve upon, but you can surely find other ways to demonstrate Christian behavior to the youth in your life.

The Obama Administration's Theme

"Never waste a good crisis."

What an amazing line and now it has come from a senior cabinet official, Hillary Clinton!

Is it just me or is this insulting? They cannot pass their agenda in good times so they have to shroud it in crisis.

Fantastic Column by Krauthammer

For those of you not familiar with his work he is an award winning columnist and one of our world's brightest minds. His column published March 6th 2009 is no exception. I would like to put particular emphasis on these two paragraphs:

"What's going on? "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. "This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."

Things. Now we know what they are. The markets' recent precipitous decline is a reaction not just to the absence of any plausible bank rescue plan, but also to the suspicion that Obama sees the continuing financial crisis as usefully creating the psychological conditions -- the sense of crisis bordering on fear-itself panic -- for enacting his "Big Bang" agenda to federalize and/or socialize health care, education and energy, the commanding heights of post-industrial society."

See Food

I know I'm not a Chef by any means but this was the dinner I made tonight and I must tell you it looked amazing and I had to snap a picture of it and share it with you. Maybe I was starving and it just looked better to me, but I'm telling you that it looked great. Oh, and it tasted amazing too! Seasoned tilapia with fresh cut peppers and sprinkled with diced onion all grilled to perfection and served with a side of rice.

Final Home Game

Tonight was the final Mizzou men's home basketball game of the year, but it was the first game for my two friends Kristen and Ryan. The match up was huge. Mizzou versus Oklahoma for second place in the conference. Mizzou was able to hold OU's outstanding player Blake Griffin to a modest night and win the game by nine.

It was a very exciting game with big defensive plays and big shots. It is always better when Mizzou wins. I think we all had a fun time. I know Ryan liked being in the picture with Kristen that's for sure.

Okay not my best picture. I look like I'm strung out. I don't know what to say other than, I"ll do better next time. Dinner was fabulous, but I must admit that it was the least amount I had ever eaten at Olive Garden. I normally make a pig of myself but this time I guess I was too busy talking.

Share Your Thoughts

I would like my loyal blog readers to comment on the following articles:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5822265.ece

UK PM Gordon Brown

Share with the other blog readers your thoughts on America's role in solving the world's economic problems. Do you think Obama should be spending time and energy, structuring a world wide "new deal"?