Waterdeep

I keep meaning to blog this, just in case it makes anyone want to go buy these cd's. These are the latest from Waterdeep (and lots of others) and they were produced by Don Chaffer. I would buy anything that Waterdeep does, defiantly, but I have these CD's and they are wonderful! I listened to them for about 2 weeks straight after I got them, and I am still listening!


You can order them from Waterdeep.com

Songs from the Voice, Volume 1: Please Don’t Make Us Sing This Song
Waterdeep

Friends from all over the country flew to Kansas City, and in four days, we recorded an album of worship songs. There were no overdubs; we did it all live together in the studio, playing everything from acoustic guitars to organs to auto harps to synthesizers and DJ rigs. The songs are written pretty much verbatim from the texts of Psalms in a new translation of the Bible that’s being put out by Thomas Nelson. It should be available in stores any day now. If you don’t buy it here, go to your local Christian bookstore, and ask them about it. You may need to tell them that Thomas Nelson is selling it (they’re typically a bookseller, not a music seller).

Songs from the Voice, Volume 2: Son of the Most High
Waterdeep

Once again, talented friends and musicians flew from all over the country to Kansas City to record another album, live in the studio, in just 4 days. This time we used the same scripture references from Handel’s “Messiah” but again, used the new translation of the Bible that’s being put out by Thomas Nelson.

They are running a special for Christmas, which is both CD's for $23 ( instead of $14 apiece).

The Voice Volumes- Includes the 2 newest cds from the Waterdeep camp, Songs from the Voice Volumes 1 & 2. They are both collaborative efforts from many talented artists including: Tyler Burkum (of Audio Adrenaline), Tara Leigh Cobble, Steven Delopoulos (of Burlap to Cashmere), Sara Groves, Maeve, Sandra McCracken, Andrew Osenga (of Caedmon's Call), Jill Paquette, Kendall Payne, Andrew Peterson, Jill Phillips, Robbie Seay Band, Jami Smith, Derek Webb, Matt Wertz, Seth Woods, & Waterdeep. Waterdeep appears on both albums. $23

Our Vacation

Well, we had a nice little vacation over the Thanksgiving weekend. Faron has been working so much and life has been so busy lately that we decided to throw tradition to the wind this year and take off on our own. We drove about 4 hours away to Springfield, for no reason really, it was just a place to get away to. We had no plans and didn't really want a whole bunch of activities. We just wanted to relax, which we did. We hung out in our hotel, swam and even watched some TV (gasp). We spent a little time writing down some of our goals and plans, talking through some desires and such, but mostly we just rested.

We did go on a couple of fun little activities, so I am posting pictures of those for your viewing pleasure.

These pictures are of the girls on their pony ride. We went to one restaurant twice because it was fun and the kids really liked it. It was Lambert's (the girls liked it right away because the have recently seen that old cartoon called Lambert the Sheepish Lion) and it is famous for being the "home of the throwed rolls". Every couple minutes a guy comes out yelling "hot rolls, hot rolls" and if you want one you just raise your hand and he throws one at you. They all thought it was great.

Anyway, everybody thinks it is great because we had to wait over an hour both times we went (once it was 3 in the afternoon, and it was still an hour and twenty minute wait!). In the parking lot next door to Lambert's these wise people had set up pony rides, so we rode.

No vacation is complete without a trip to the zoo. Well, this seems to be the case for us anyway. We went to the zoo in Springfield and had a grand time. We walked forever, but the kids had lots of fun looking at animals and Alexander even learned a new type of animal. Until now every animal has been a dog. For a brief couple of days he did say cat, but that is over now and everything is a dog again. However, at the zoo he also learned "bird". So now there are two categories of animals, dogs, and birds.




These otters put on a good show for us. I'm pretty sure they were actually putting on a show, the looked over and saw us at the window and moved their game over so that it would be right in front of us. They were fun to watch!

Alexander liked the snakes, apparently boys are born liking gross things, who knew!
He also liked to hitch a ride on the girls wagon. Faron was pulling them and he would grab a hold of the back of the wagon and I could let go of his stroller while he rode along with them. Pretty soon he also figured out that if he wiggled his waist it would make the stroller move back and forth and take him on a fun ride!

Giraffe's are pretty cool when you see them this close up. This must be the thing at zoos these days, because this was our second time to experience it. We bought the little crackers and the kids got to feed the giraffe, look at that tongue!

If there's a trail to hike on, Faron and Isabella want to take it. Sophia and I just go along! This trail was on the grounds of the cave, so after our tour we walked it. It was under a mile, so not too terrible, but Sophia and I had our doubts at times. 

Fantastic Caverns

We took a tour of this large underground cave, called Fantastic Caverns. Everybody was on a little tram type thing and we just drove under the parking lot into this cave. It was pretty neat, this was my first time in a cave, and obviously it was for the kids too. Isabella and Sophia were not to sure about it in the beginning, they thought it was a little scary, but pretty soon they were ok with the whole thing and started looking around and enjoying the tour. The were not to fond of the part when the tour guide shut off all the lights to show us what the "natural lighting" of the cave was, but they thought it was ok when the lights were on. 

Swimming

The girl's favorite part of our vacation was the swimming pool. We knew this would be the case, in fact that was our main planned activity. When we were beginning to think of this vacation we knew we would want a hotel with an indoor pool so the kids could swim! We swam every day that we were there.
Isabella can walk if it is 3 feet, so she walks all over the place in the shallow end, and this pool also had a ledge that went all the way around the pool, so she could walk around the deep end too. Only once did she slip off that ledge and go underwater on accident, but I was nearby to pull her up and it didn't detour her from heading right back to it.
Sophia likes to be in the water, but she has no desire to be under the water, nor does she want any freedom in the water. She loves it, as long as some one is holding her, or she is on someone's back.
Alexander loves being in the water, but I'm not really sure what he wants while he is there, he is always trying to get down, which really isn't wise. However, he is not scared one little bit when his head goes under water. He doesn't swallow water so he isn't coughing or anything, he just comes up blinking and laughing. He loves to sit on the side of the pool and jump in, he learned the sign for "more" very quickly to accomplish this.

my oath

I, Vera Hopper, do solemnly swear that I will never again let my pictures and scrapbook layouts get into such a chaotic order. I just spent the last hour, at least, trying to sort my layouts and get them into books. I had a huge stack of layouts, and they were pictures that spanned 3 years, one layout here and one there. It was nuts! Plus, about a quarter of the way into this sorting, when I was just figuring out where everything was supposed to be going, I run out of page protectors, so I couldn't actually put the pages into the scrapbooks anyway! Ugh!
I will be more organized, I will be more organized...

Scrapbooking

I have been scrapbooking like crazy for the last month! I have been in this contest on the scrappinwithgrace.com website, every couple days we got a new "challenge" with requirements for what kind of a layout to do. I got SOOOOOOO much done, I have a stack of completed layouts on my desk about 10 inches high ( I need to get them put away huh!).
Anyway, the contest ended last week and I am coming up for breath! I am posting some of my favorites from the duration, just a sampling, hope you enjoy!
Oh, and by the way, I did come in 3rd in the contest (based on how much I got done) and will be receiving quite a prize package, Yippee!!

If you want to see any of the pictures bigger, just click on them.