Cardboard Testimonies at Glenwood

Thank you to everyone who put this together for Glenwood. It was so powerful!

Restaurant Night a Success for Clearly Vocal

We've started what I call "Restaurant Night." This is where Clearly Vocal goes around to different restaurants and pops in a sings a couple of songs at a couple of tables. Wherever we end up last is where we eat.

Last night was our first Restaurant Night, and I think it went great! Danny has so many connections around town that he knew someone influential at each place we went. We hit Old Bullard last night and hit Breakers, Sonoma Grill, Bernard and On The Border, in that order. We handed out all of our business cards and got so much good response!

I've been working on posters. This has been our standard one:

We've used it mainly as an 8x10 photo for the inside of our press kit. I noticed that most band posters were vertical, though, so I wanted something different. Here's what I came up with:


John thinks the girls should be in the front, but I didn't have beg enough full length pictures of anybody to work with. John's was the best, so I put him out front. Maybe we just need some more pictures made. Especially since the last still photos we took, I was like 40 pounds heavier! That was nearly a year ago! I like the idea of action shots, though, rather than a standing pose. We need new ones of both. Chelsea? :)

I'll keep working on it ...

A Much-Needed Vacation

If you have a close relationship with your mom, you need to go on vacation with her.

Backing up a bit, this week-long trip to Galveston started out in my mind as just a weekend in a secluded cabin or B&B by myself. That's what I wanted for my 30th birthday. A responsibility-free weekend where I could take my Bible and scrap stuff and not worry about anything else. Sound like a good weekend to anybody else?

I started planning back in May and then pondered the idea of going to the beach instead of a cabin.

John had the brilliant idea of using our timeshare to go to the beach. That would be much less expensive. Of course, our timeshare is for a whole week and I didn't want to leave the kids with John by himself all week, plus I wouldn't want that much alone time anyway. Then another thought popped into my head. Why not take Mom with me? She loves the beach almost as much as I do and I would love that one-on-one time with her!

We went about the business of finding an available place and time. Too bad all the resorts for our timeshare in Galveston (best beach within driving distance) were completely booked until the second week in September. My birthday is in July! But then we thought, what a perfect time for the beach! No crowd, still plenty warm. Perfect. I chose to put off my birthday until September. 30 could wait.

The plan was set. Mom would drive down on Friday, pick me up and we'd check in that night. Then John would bring the kids down on Monday night and we'd all go back Thursday night. I still got my responsibility-free weekend plus the bonus of having my mom there, and John and the kids would get a vacation at the beach, too!

So that's what we did. We stayed at the Silverleaf's Seaside Resort on the southwest end of the island. Fewer crowds down there than in the main part of Galveston. So nice! My only complaint was that there were tons of mosquitoes around the condo. Once we crossed the street to the beach, they were gone, but we literally ran from our door to the car to avoid getting bitten. Then once we were safely inside the car, we'd kill the 5-7 that sneaked in while the doors were open!

Saturday, Sunday and Monday mornings were all the same. Sleep-in (you know, like 7:30!), fix ourselves breakfast, take our coffee to the beach, lay around the beach until around noon. I couldn't think of any better way to spend my vacation! I brought my Ladies Bible Class study (Beth Moore's Esther) to the beach each morning and got two weeks done without any interruptions!

We had everything we needed: camera, towels, pillows, sunscreen, coffee, water, snacks, Bible study, other books to read, and each other! Thankfully, there were beach chairs out there that we claimed each morning!


Saturday around noon is when we saw our only rain. Other than that it was either sunny or overcast. Both were perfect.


We almost always went into town for lunch. We'd clean up after being at the beach all morning, put on something cute and head into town. We tried to find the very best seafood around, and I think we decided that Gaido's won that contest.

We also ate at Avery's Cafe, The Spot, Rainforest Cafe' (when the kids got there--more on that later), Nate's and a Mexican restaurant whose name eludes me at the moment. I'd recommend them all except Nate's.

Afternoons were nap and scrap time. Between the two of us, we did a lot of both! When the kids got there, we kept nap time, but alas, I had to keep my scrap stuff picked up for obvious reasons.

We also got plenty of shopping and sightseeing in, hitting the Strand and the Moody Gardens Aquarium.

Most suppers we cooked in our condo or ate leftover from our huge lunches! Or just snacked because of our huge lunches!

So we saved going to the Rainforest Cafe' until the kids got there, knowing they would just love it. All the sights and sounds ... we knew it'd be perfect. See?


Enjoy the few other pictures here. The rest are on Facebook, in case you haven't seen them already!
Again, I highly recommend taking a vacation with your mom. I wouldn't trade the time we had together for anything!

Filler

There's just not a lot going on that seems blog-worthy these days. Maybe it seems that way because Mom and I leave for Galveston on Friday, so that has sort of overshadowed everything else. I am SO excited!

And now, a paragraph for those who want to kill time clicking on all the links:

Group Therapy, the band, has been singing at Breakers every other weekend, which has been a blast. Best dinner crowd we've had in a while! In fact, Clearly Vocal is singing there tomorrow night to help promote the United We Dine campaign.

Johnathan must be feeling more and more comfortable with school, for his behavior has worsened. One week ago today, his teacher called just to tell us that he was doing so well in school, making good choices and being so polite. But it seems that since that phone call he's forgotten how to behave. Please say this is a phase. I have spanked for disrespectful and hurtful behavior. That doesn't seem to communicate. I have rewards promised for good behavior, but they don't seem to be doing the trick either. I'm wide open to suggestions.

Kalleigh is doing so much better with potty training. As long as I stay in tune with her poop schedule, we're usually just fine.

That may have bordered on TMI. Sorry.

She's been sort of croupy the past couple of days with a fever, so I've kept her away from most people. With Ibuprofen she seems fine, except for the seal bark. Her fever stayed down this afternoon, though, so that's good. Here we are staying home from school:


Jonas is spouting out more and more words these days, which is so nice. That whole communication thing is a lot easier that way!

When I come back from Galveston I should have a bunch of good pictures and stories.

Until then ...

Bragging

It's my turn to live sort of close to family! I haven't lived this close to anyone on the Curtis side of the family since college! And now Deborah and Pat and their kids live just 2 hours away.

So Tuesday, while our big boys were in school, Deborah and I met in Terrell for some yummy Tex-Mex and a little Tanger Outlet time. So fun!