Lights!

The CTK Cabaret Night has come and gone, and seeing as though I have been involved in every single one so far, I feel qualified to say that this really was the best one. We had more truly talented acts than ever before. This was the first time that there wasn't a weak person or number in the whole thing (those of you who were there know that I am choosing to ignore one performance). Everyone did such a great job! I was so proud of all of my very talented friends. Of course without talented people it couldn't happen, but what really made the show was the lights! Big kudos to Bob for sticking to his guns and getting us lighting. It made all the difference in the world. If you don't believe me, check out the pics:

Charlie Brown (Don), Linus (Mark) and Lucy (Debbie) singing to Fr. Bill about Little Known Facts.

I love the beams of light in this one. Luckily I caught a few like this.

Mark's haunting Sunset Boulevard.

Gina striking her All That Jazz pose.

I like the framing of this pic too. I'm a goof.

Debbie, Mark and me singing The I Love You Song from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. I was so proud of us on this one. It felt so magical.

Mark and me doing our Jesus Christ Superstar duet.

That was very flattering lighting. :)

Crystal during I Still Believe from Miss Saigon.

Crystal and Laura. They did a great job on a beautiful and haunting song. (Haunting is my new favorite adjective. Must be Halloween!)

Great job on this one, Janell! Don and me doing our Spamalot schtick with The Song That Goes Like This. Don did so well. :)

Mary cracked everyone up with I'm Not That Smart also from Spelling Bee. What a ham!

Speaking of hams... Josh, Mark, Cole and Don (obviously not pictured) offering what Mama Says. That was also quite funny and another great performance.

Cathy and Gina doing Ease on Down the Road from The Wiz.

Divas

and more divas!

Don's and my fan club.

I have soooooo many more pictures than this, but these are a few of my favorites. I think I had as much fun playing around with my camera as I did on stage! It was a great and fun evening that I was proud to have been a part.

Great Kitchen Appliances!

I really enjoy baking, although I don't have many reasons to do it and we definitely don't need scads of baked goods hanging around the house all the time. But when I do bake, like say 36 dozen cookies, I rely on my trusty KitchenAid mixer. Yes, they are a little expensive. I did catch a little flack when we bought ours with the money we had from wedding gift exchanges, but it has been worth every wise-ass crack from my husband. It mixes faster than humanly possible and really gives you an even consistency. For small jobs, I use what God gave me, but for the big ones it's all about the KitchenAid!

The other thing in my kitchen that I couldn't live without is our toaster oven. For two people, the toaster oven is a great option that keeps you from having to heat up the oven all the time. Also, you can toast and melt at the same time, which a normal toaster absolutely cannot do without a huge mess. We still have a normal toaster, but we never use it. There's no need when one appliance can do just about everything!

The KitchenAid mixer and toaster ovens are great things!

Great Cause!

I'm not going to get in the habit of plugging my own stuff, but I can't resist this time because I am so proud of the kids! (This wasn't even my idea... it was Debbie's.) What you are looking at is our Jr. High Youth Ministry Youth Can. The kids decorated it themselves this week during class. The bags are just a few of what the kids decorated to donate to the women at ShadeTree. They are stuffed with items that women would need to go out job hunting and interviewing. The flour and sugar represent the breast cancer awareness cookies we will be baking and decorating next week for all the women in the parish.

Back to the can: it does have a "real" purpose. We will be conducting many drives throughout the year to benefit different causes in our parish, local and national communities. Whenever we need something from the parish we will publish the list in the bulletin and the next week those items can be placed in our Youth Can before or after Mass in the Gathering Space. Pretty cool, hu? I really hope that the response from the parish is good. It will be really nice for the kids to feel that much support for what they are doing. There will be some kind of promo about this at all the Masses in a few weeks. It may be a video. It may be Debbie and me talking. It depends on how good the video the kids made turned out. I have yet to watch the footage. I hope it's good, because I don't want to let the kids down by not using it. So, we'll see... If you attend CTK please help us out when we need it and if you don't attend CTK you can still help because you know me and I'm in the middle of it all!

The Youth Can is a great thing!

Great Happy Hour!

I like to go out and have a drink as much as the next person. However, I am not a Happy Hour aficionado. It's usually a very pleasant surprise if I happen to stumble across Happy Hour wherever I am. With that said, I think I know a good one when it bites me. Kona Grill in Boca Park has an awesome Happy Hour that I have been to many times. It's from 3:00pm- 7:00pm Monday through Friday. They even offer Reverse Happy Hour from 10:00pm - 1:00am Monday through Thursday and 11:00pm-12:00am Friday and Saturday. I have yet to go to that, but I absolutely love the concept. So what's so great about the Kona Grill Happy Hour? Well, ladies get to drink margaritas for $2.50 and they are good, yummy and strong! Guys shouldn't feel too bad: their margaritas are just a buck more. There are other drink specials, too, but I always get the margarita. They also offer 1/2 price appetizers, pizzas and sushi. Since Kona Grill isn't your typical blue collar restaurant, you aren't going to find the normal bar fare. No mozzarella sticks or wings. You can't get a "normal" pizza either, but the margarita pizza is yummy and 1/2 price. Some people may be turned off by the trendy atmosphere and clientele, but I enjoy and appreciate it although you usually have to fight for an open seat. But once you get one, it's a great place to throw a few back, chat up the day with your girlfriends and head home without killing the entire evening.

The Kona Grill Happy Hour is a great thing!

Don's Birthday Photoblog

I guess Don's birthday is officially in the record books for 2006, so here's the photo report.

This was the first of a total of SIX birthday desserts.
That's a lot of sugar, but they sure were yummy!

He's gotten really good at the "blowing out candles" pose.

I just think that this is a really cute picture of my parents.

This was at family dinner at Macayo.

Look kids, IBM people!
The lady on the right had a house warming/movie party on Don's actual b-day,
so we made an appearance and got another dessert!

Another cake! This one is a homemade special from my mom.

She used to make cakes for Anthony and me when we were little,
so she made one for Don so he wouldn't feel left out.

This is my very favorite picture from the festivities.
My very own Schroeder.

We used to always take pictures next to the cakes, so I had to get in on the action.
I probably shouldn't have bent over like that. Oh, well.

Who knew that Gary doesn't like having his picture taken?

This is one of my favorite pics, too. That's Josh, Susana and Don (of course).

For the most part, it was a pretty laid back weekend. We didn't get to have a big night out on the town with friends, so there might be a raincheck on that soon. As well as many cakes, Don received a lot of DVDs and other multi-media stuff. I hope that he enjoyed the celebrations. I sure did, but that's a given since I'm a big birthday girl! There all good to me!