What a great weekend!

Sue and I did our regular visit to the lake house for the Memorial Day weekend. I closed the store on Monday for a long needed rest. The rest of our crew were vacationing (see Jonas and Melissa's blog) and working (Jennifer & Robert had work and concerts this weekend). We went to Foothills (Rock 'n Roll Church) for worship Sunday morning. Greg is teaching on David's blog - Psalms. That really got me thinking about doing a blog! We'll see how it goes.

The weather was perfect so on Sunday afternoon we decided on a whim to go to Simpsonville, South Carolina for the Freedom Aloft Weekend 2008. What?? It's a festival of hot air balloons. I lost count of how many were there and they all heated up at the same time took off on some kind of chase. We were too busy snapping pictures to worry about the reasons why. I bet this was more fun than a Nascar race!!! Look at the slideshow on the right at all the balloons. It was spectacular.

Later that evening we went to a concert by Natasha Beddingfield (yuck) and Huey Lewis and the News (yeah). Remember them? "Heart of Rock and Roll" & "Back in Time" (from the movie Back to the Future) were two of their biggest hits. We had front row seats that were actually spots on the concrete slab in front of the stage. We paid extra to sit on concrete. This is were the going on a whim bit us in the...well.....you know! We sat as best we could through Natasha but when Huey came out we were all standing for the entire concert. So it really didn't matter.

Monday morning we got the news from Heath about Alexis arriving early. He actually woke me up around 9am. We had been out till 1am the night before and that was tough on these old people.

Monday evening topped of the weekend with a patriotic concert by the Northwinds Symphony of Gainesville. Jennifer and Robert were playing and we were not about to miss it. After a visit with Heath and Leanne we went on to First Baptist for the concert. The evening was dedicated to the attending veterans and they were a proud group. After the concert I got to meet and speak with Mack Abbot. Mack claims to be the first American to fire a shot in World War II. He was credited (along with other Marines) for downing 3 Japanese aircraft on the initial attack at Pearl Harbor. He was all decked out in his uniform and medals and he stood proud. We are losing many of his generation and I was honored to meet him.

-Randy