Isaac is really into Noah’s communication device.

Here are some pictures of the boys working on it together.  It was more wrestling match than work session, but they had fun…

So when our “design types” at church conceived the floor plan for our new building, they included a pastor’s office and adjoining work room in the floorplan.

Who knew that we would need it so soon?

We didn’t plan for any furniture in the pastor’s office…it’s just been functioning as a “catch-all” storage room.

Until this week.

One of our families donated some office furniture, stuff was cleared out and voila!  We have an office.

Marissa snapped some pictures this week…she has become our resident photo journalist…you can see some pictures of our newly completed kitchenette over on her blog.

She stopped in and took this one of Doug the other day…

In other news…

Doug has been holding on to the contract that Disney offered him to sing in the Voices of Liberty Christmas Cast over the holidays.  He wasn’t willing to sign it until they could give him assurance that he would not have to sing on Thursday nights…that’s the night of our mid-week service.

Yesterday, he got a call from the Voices stage manager and she asked him to sing on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights.  Wow…perfect.  Those were our “dream nights”… the best possible schedule for us.

He’ll sign the contract now.

God is so Good to us.

…to Cypress Gardens?

hmmmm….I hope not…

Kris, Anna Grace, Isaac and I “played hooky” today and spent the day at Cypress Gardens.

They are having “5 dollar Fridays” in September…and are also allowing Annual Passholders (me) to get two people in free.

The last time that I visited a theme park that was holding a crazy cheap admission deal was back in 1990.  Said theme park was Boardwalk and Baseball.

On that particular day, B&B let all Polk County Public School employees and their families in the park free of charge.  All of the gift shops were discounted 75%.  How sweet, I thought at the time.  They must really appreciate teachers.  ummm…nope.  Can you say fire sale?

The next day, Boardwalk and Baseball went belly up and the park closed its’ gates forever.

Fast forward to today.  $5 admissions?  Two people in free per passholder?

The park was crowded…but sad signs were everywhere.  Empty gift shops.  The shops that were still open?  25% off “Guest appreciation” sales.

It doesn’t look very good for Cypress Gardens.

I’m hoping, hoping, hoping that the park can hang on until Christmas.  They decorate everything beautifully and it’s a wonderful place to visit during the holidays.  I was looking forward to taking the boys again this year.

Here’s a few pictures from our fun little day trip…

Here’s video from Saturday…the last set…of the guys performing “Love Potion #9″.  I’ve got a special place in my heart for this one, and the final show of Four for a Dollar would not have been complete without it.  (My sister Lori calls Love Potion their “Free Bird”.)

Here’s the history behind the song…

One day in 1994, Doug was sitting in a break room at Disney, waiting for his next show with the Screen Extras Band…he played bass saxophone in that group.

Someone walked in the break room and casually mentioned to Doug that Disney was about to hire an  a-capella group to sing in the Farmer’s Market area of the Studios for the summer.  Doug quickly jumped on the telephone to call Talent/Booking to inquire about the news, and asked if there was still time to audition a group for the gig.  Since the contract had yet to be signed, the manager with Disney Talent graciously gave Doug a few days to gather a group and come in and audition.

Doug called three guys that he had been singing with at Universal (Marshall and Andrew were two of the three) and quickly set about arranging one song for their one shot.  “Love Potion #9″ was the chosen piece.

“Love Potion” won them the gig, and was a crowd favorite for 14 years…and is of my faves as well.

Here’s the link…

Love Potion #9

…that linked up to a video on YouTube and by the time I got to my last sentence and tried to link to said video…poof…the video disappeared.

oh well.

If it ever reappears, I’ll try again.

So…here’s a brief rundown of our lives right now.

Doug spent his first day “on the job” at the church office yesterday.  He had a great day…he started putting his office together and studied for Thursday night.

My parents and I started working on our landscaping project.  It’s about 1/3 of the way complete.  Hopefully by next week I’ll be able to post pictures of all the purty colors…that is, if I haven’t managed to kill everything off already.

Noah is doing incredibly well with his communication device.  He’s catching on very quickly and is enjoying it.  Two more weeks until his evaluation…

Time has been going at warp speed lately.  I realized the other day that we are already halfway through the first quarter of curriculum in our Sunday School classes.  Wow.  It’s already time to plan and prep the next quarter, so I ordered all of the second quarter material from Discipleland the other day.  It should arrive tomorrow, and we’ll start getting all of that prepared over the next few weeks.

Well…that’s about it for now.  How is your Wednesday going?