What a Great Weekend!

Well, after my bout with strep throat and my family's various illnesses, everyone finally seems to be healthy. We had a very good weekend! Saturday morning, after the DirectTV guy finished installing the right face plates, surge protector, running a new phone line through the wall to the bedroom, and breaking our entertainment center (whole other story), we decided to spend the day at the Fort Worth Zoo. I normally only enjoy the zoo for about 30 minutes, but I actually had a good time the entire time we were there. Karissa's favorite is the Komodo dragon, Cara's is the lion, and Kylie's is anything but the big gorilla. My favorite has always been the Bengal tiger, and I think Jenn's is the Lemon Chill - just kidding! I looked, but I never saw a liger (Napolean Dynamite). We had a good time, and we thought about buying a season pass. Four trips and it's paid for!

Saturday night was a night I had been anticipating for over a week. Do you know what the Ultimate Fighting Championship is? My brother and I used to watch it in the early-mid nineties when it was brand new. Basically, two fighters are put in an octagon cage, and they fight whatever style they want until someone either gets knocked out, gets their arm/leg broke, or "taps out" from a submission hold that will break a limb if they don't tap out. Saturday night was a live event, a very first for the UFC. The main event of the evening was a new and rising UFC star taking on one of the greatest legends in the UFC, Ken Shamrock, who has been fighting since the very first UFC in 1993...he was beat by Royce Gracie. The other two bouts were championships from the realith TV show, "The Ultimate Fighter" on Spike TV. It was sooo awesome!! Much to my surprise, Ken Shamrock actually lost by TKO in the first round to this new guy. I could not believe it!! Anyway, I love the UFC and it was great to get to see a live UFC event. Next Saturday night, my man Chuck Liddell gets a rematch against the current light heavyweight fighter, Randy Couture for the title. It's only on Pay-Per-View, but I may be spending the money on this one!!

This morning we went to Christ Chapel Bible Church in Ft. Worth, which was highly recommended by our two pastors at Grace Church in Wichita Falls. They went to Dallas Theological Seminary with the pastor of this church in Ft. Worth. The morning went perfectly well! We actually left the house on time, made it to church, found where to drop off the girls - who all three went in to their classes without a fuss - and then we made it to the sanctuary for the "acoustic" service. They have other services that are more traditional. The music was incredible!! Very powerful, strong power chords being played on a wide open 12-string guitar (so it sounded anyway), bass guitar, piano, talented drummer, a violin player (interesting), and a man and woman who could sing very, very well! Ya know, I played the strings patch on the synthesizer at Grace Church, but the sound guys never mixed it right, so the strings were always too soft. Well, this morning, that single violin player added so much depth and richness to the sound, it was awesome!! I'm going to recommend it to Grace's worship team! You just can't beat a well balanced acoustical mix! The songs were fresh and very worshipful too. Jenn and I both loved it! Dr. Ted Kitchens is the pastor, and though he may be more of a storyteller than I like, his teaching was interesting. After the service, we went across the street to where our Sunday School class was. I was amazed at how welcoming and inviting the people were. There were about 30 people there, and probably at least half of them introduced themselves to us and talked for a few minutes. They made us instantly feel welcome. The class is for young marrieds, and my guess is that most people were late 20s and early 30s, and only 2 couples did not have children! How perfect for us is that?! Then the guy who was teaching is about to graduate from seminary, so he dug pretty deep in the bible, which is exactly what I love! Jenn really liked it a lot too! So we're going to signup for a small group, and Jenn already signed up for the MOM's group. I think we found a church home! It was funny in Sunday School...meeting all these new people...several of the people reminded me of people from Grace Church. We found people who looked like Heather Zauner, Pete Vitt, John Lane, and Jennifer thought this one chick was a mixed-breed of Kelly Trimble and Alyssa Turner! HA! Can you imagine that?!

The rest of Sunday afternoon was spent resting (the girls) and working around the house. I cleaned the van inside, outside, and everywhere. Then I turned the sprinkler system on for a few minutes to wet the grass, and got out my spreader and put some weed killer/grass fertilizer on the yard. Ahhh...I've never had that feeling before...taking care of a house that actually belongs to me! How cool is that! It rained a little bit this evening, and the girls ran out to play in the rain. I took some cool pics of a rainbow behind our house, as you can see below. Have a great week!