Harvest of Fun

Tonight at our church they hosted a "Harvest Of Fun" night as an alternative to a Halloween party. We had games, food and LOTS of neighborhood kids as well as our own families.

Here is Addison; I get to watch her on Sunday evenings while her mom helps with the ESL classes; she is a cutie!!


Here is Rebecca; which is one of the girls our pastor and wife adopted from Haiti.

This was a 'put-your-hand-in-the-bucket-if-you-dare' game. They put cold cooked spaghetti, warm grapes, and a rubber glove that had been filled with water and frozen in a bucket with some plastic spiders. The goal was to put your hand in and feel around until you found a spider. Just for some candy. Yuk.

Here is Joanna; this is the only ESL baby for now that I watch on Sunday evenings (other than Addison). But unfortunately she doesn't like to be away from her momma, so she cries pretty much the entire time she is with me. As you can see, she's not looking at me too kindly!! This past Sunday night she didn't cry for the 1st hour; but I wasn't so lucky the last 1/2 hour.

And then we have Sydney!! She was "Supergirl". This was right after they got there and she had a hot dog before they went and played games. And yep, you guessed it, my camera died right after I took this picture, so I hope that Ashley got some good ones to send to me.

I took this before everybody started coming in; this was their blow-up game; it was HUGE!! You went through a sort of 'obstacle course' then up a climbing wall to this:

...a slide on the other end.
Some of the other games.



This one was called 'frog-a-pult'. You put a 'frog' on the board them SMACK one end with a hammer. The goal is to catapult the frog into the plastic tub. This gal did just that!! It was a rather LOUD game, so I stayed away from it.

Here is Mr. Atwell. No, that's not his real hair. He is manning the bean bag game.


I think all in all we had a great turnout. We offered not only the games for the kids, but hot dogs, chili, popcorn, soda and nachos. There was also a sugar cookie decorating table. I am pooped!

Route 66 Marching Festival

On Saturday we made our way to Rolla, MO for the Route 66 Marching Festival. The weather turned out very nice, and although it had rained some during the week, the field wasn't too muddy. Here are some pics of our little journey:



HAY!!! (yes, I took a picture of a truck hauling hay....)


Sydney enjoying the ride.


The band coming onto the field.

Getting ready to play; don't you like our drum majors' head-dresses???

Here they are during their performance; I THINK Chris is one of those trombones, but I tend to lose track of him!!



My mom; as you can tell, she wasn't ready for me to take her picture!!


Danny and Ashley enjoying the show.


It wasn't a full moon, but was pretty rising over the trees.

Here are the drum majors lining up to receive awards. Hillcrest got 3rd in their class, and also "best solo" for our Native-American Flute solo. So all in all I think they did well. We got to see some new bands at this one, and it's amazing what some performances the bands come up with year after year. This Saturday we travel one more time to Warrensburg, for the UCM Festival of Champions. That will be the last marching band performance of the year, as well as for Chris. Kind of bitter-sweet. I will be glad it's all over with, but will probably miss it next year.

Our movie night at the BSU was fun; I think we had some new people, which is pretty good for just being our 2nd one! Next month's movie will be......I can't say!! It's supposed to be a surprise, so I can't post it yet!! But I'm pretty sure it will be "holiday-themed".

Tonight is another "Movie with Billy & Gina" night at the BSU; tonight we have decided to show our first 'date movie', which was...."The Empire Strikes Back". May the force be with us!!

Tomorrow our family travels to Rolla to watch the marching band once again try to 'wow' the judges; I kind of think we have a pretty good chance at this one due to the low number of schools we are up against, and the fact this competition goes by band size rather than school size. That helps the morale a little!!

Our church is going through another transition; our music minister resigned last week to take a job in Alaska, so we are back to searching out the man God wants for our church. Sometimes those WE think are right, are not right in His eyes!! But He has a plan, so it's just a matter of seeking that plan. Pray that we will move forward, instead of focusing on the past.

Our daughter Ashley's 23rd birthday was last Tuesday, so I made her a cake. It was devil's food with home-made chocolate icing. It looked nice; until I tried to decorate it:

I used that 'gel icing' that comes in a tube, and almost didn't have enough to finish!! I also started to spell 'happy', "haapy" so I had to change the 2nd "a" to a "p". We took her and Sydney out to a chinese restaurant down the street from them (Danny had to work), and it was very good and at a good price!! Then we headed back to her apartment for the cake. Here are some pics of her and Sydney:


I'm still trying to get pictures from my hubby's camera of Chris at his last marching contest; they actually have another one this Saturday in Rolla, MO. So I might just be posting pics of both contests! We also had 'senior night' at the football game on Friday, so I need to get those pictures!!! The weather this weekend was very nice, but the upcoming forecast is turning cold and rainy. I am hoping the rain will stop by mid-week though, so it will be good band weather on Saturday.

Well, the band didn't place, but in this competition, you almost HAVE to have a LARGE band (150 or more) to even get the judge's attention. They go by school size, which means you may only have 100 in your band, but another school the same size may have 200 in their band. But you're still placed in the same division together. We watched a band from the St Louis area with only 26 members compete against bands with over 150. They were definitely the 'underdog', and although they didn't make enough points to place, I bet they got the biggest applause just by being brave enough to get out there and do their show!! (And the ironic thing is, they played most of the same songs our band played last year!!)

I will post pics as soon as I can get my hubby to download them for me. =)

The marching band Chris plays in will have another competition tomorrow at MSU; this one is a little harder than the last, but I think they will do okay. They know their whole show now, and it's looking good.

This week at work, (well, I was actually AWAY from work at computer training) has been interesting. It just doesn't seem like us 'lower management' are all communicating with the 'upper management' and things are starting to get a little crazy. I am busier now with just 10 people to supervise, than I was with 20. I think being away hasn't helped, but next week I will be there every day. It's no fun to come back to a deskful of 'stuff'!!

Our daughter will be 23 on Tuesday; which is hard to believe. And after a 2nd ultrasound the due date for little AnnaBella is still set for November 21st. But it looks like she will be a big baby like Sydney was, which means she will probably weigh at least 8lbs if not more!!

Well, that's about it in the Grady household for now; October is always so busy with band that it's hard to fit in all the other normal stuff!! I hope to have pictures of the band THIS time!!

Well, the band was able to place 3rd in their 'class', but unfortunately did not have enough points to make it to finals. As their band teacher told them, the "got what they deserved", which sounds kind of cruel, but was true. This year's music has been the hardest ever, and it's taken them longer to learn everything this year. They have competition at our local MSU campus this Saturday, then they'll have a week off before heading to Rolla on the 27th for the "Route 66 Music Festival". I hope the weather is better than last year; it rained everyday the week before the competition, and the field was VERY muddy!! It wasn't a pretty sight to watch!

I was hoping to have pictures, but failed to check my camera before realizing my batteries were dead. So I will be sure and have fresh batteries for this next one.

Tomorrow is Columbus Day, which means I have an extra day off this week. I plan on picking up Sydney and taking her over to my Dad's for a little bit before she has to head back home for a nap. Then back to work on Tuesday, more computer training on Wednesday, Thursday and half a day on Friday. Friday night is "senior night" at the football game where they recognize all the senior football players, band members and cheerleaders. So Chris gets his turn this year!

October is a VERY busy month for all of us!!!

I've discovered that I do well with change as long as everybody ELSE does well with that change! If there's conflict of any kind, I start to get headaches, have stomach problems, etc.

So I have to say in the past week I've had those headaches start up again, and stomach problems start to bubble. I know it's going to be okay, but just gotta convince my body of that!!

Billy and the others made it to Atlanta okay for their conference; they will begin to drive back late Friday night. From what I've heard it's been a good conference so far.

Guess I better get back to the things on my desk; after being gone 3 days to training I've got quite a bit to catch up on before the NEXT training!!

Movie night went well; we had 6 students join us to watch Buster Keaton's "The General". We both had seen it on TV, but I missed the first 30 minutes so it was nice to see all of it! Billy tried to find it in town, but after going to a few video places, decided to try the library. Then one of the interns told him that he not only had that one, but 2 others as well!! So if we want to have another 'silent movie' night, we have a resource!!

Early tomorrow morning Billy and some other campus missionaries leave for a conference in Atlanta, GA. They are driving so please pray for their safety. They will return on Saturday.

This Saturday is the first marching band competition of the season, so I will be posting results and pictures! They pretty much have a competition every Saturday in October. There is a chance of rain, but hopefully it will hold off or just rain during lunch break.

I've finished the first day of training for our new court computer system that we will begin to use in April. After having the same system for the past 17yrs, it will take some getting used to. One good thing is that the hotel where the training is being held is not very far from the BSU, so I plan on taking advantage of their "lunch for a buck" and heading there tomorrow for lunch. Unfortunately Billy won't be there, but there's always next week!!