Thanksgiving +

So, Thanksgiving was a fun time, and the break started out entertaining from the beginning. I woke up really early to be able to make it to Birmingham on my flight to San Antonio on Thanksgiving day. While trying to leave the base I went to the wrong gate and had to make a quick u-turn, and somehow while doing so something I had on the passenger seat (GPS, Ipod, or cellphone, not sure which) distracted me and I ended smashing into the curb at a 45degree angle. With the little blue-light special tires I have on there, the tire took it full force and I had a flat almost immediately. Yeah, so that trip was going well...not even a mile from home! So I pulled over where there was a street lamp and tried to find the best spot to put the jack. Oh, and the jack was only rated for 150lbs max, I way more than that, how's it supposed to pick up the car??? So I put it towards the middle which was the only place with a solid car beam that I could find and proceeded to try to crank it off the ground. Well, after a good 10 minutes of intense work, it wouldn't go any farther. So then I pulled out the owner's manual, and sure enough it was supposed to go at a spot near the tire which I'd thought of at first but it looked like it was only plastic trim there. When I finally got that jacked up, the car then rolled forward a good half foot and wedged the jack at a bad angle. So I had to bring it back down AGAIN and finally jack it back up for a third time. By the time I finally got the tire changed I was a good 50 minutes late. I then proceeded to drive on a donut rated for a max of 50mph at speeds a LOT faster than that.

And my story doesn't end there, the airport was great too. So, after driving like it was Nascar on the interstate I finally make it to the airport only to find that there are NO parking spots left. I ended up parking on the 5th floor of the parking garage but out in the open. There were more floors, but somehow that place for the rejects was not covered. So my car would just have to get rained on then. After that I ran the 10 miles back to the terminal area and tried to get my boarding pass out of the automated computer which told me it wouldn't give me my pass because it was too close to boarding time. How do you not give someone a BOARDING pass because it's too close to BOARDING time? Isn't that the point?? I didn't even have any luggage to check or anything! Then I went over to the counter and stood behind another couple waiting on the lady behind the desk who held a phone up to her ear for a good 5 or 6 minutes and then hung up, after having said absolutely nothing the entire time. She appologized and the couple said it was ok because they had couple of hours to spare. So I barged in with 'hey, I'm trying to catch the 815!' Of course, then she wouldn't give me my boarding pass and I started arguing because I could see that there was literally not a single person in the security line, and the gate was right beyond that. Of course, while I was arguing with her that I still had time and could make the flight if she would only hand me my boarding pass they then came on the intercom and announced that they were starting to board my flight. I could have made it! But she was not going to work with me at all; and to top it off, she wouldn't even get me onto the next flight either! I had to stand in front of her and on my own cell phone CALL Continental and rearange for the new ticket on the phone! How useless was this woman! Then I turned around and got my new boarding pass from the automated machine...I hate airlines. At least I still made it, but they charge me an extra $50 for the change of course; though thankfully I still got into San Antonio at the same time I was going to originally as I could still catch the same connection flight after the Birmingham leg.

Chuck and Skibby met me at the airport and we went back and hung out at the Air Force Inn at Lackland there until we met everyone else that evening at the Marriot. Then all the guys went down to the river walk with Jon for the evening which was pretty cool. I'd heard about the river walk but never seen it before. Saturday evening was the wedding, which was absolutely beautiful. It was held out in a courtyard area which was really well kept with beautiful scenery for a wedding ceremony out at a little pagoda. And I even got to have a part in the wedding as they'd asked me to read a coupld of passages of scripture!

Then the wedding dinner and everything was held afterwards just about a block away. It was a lot of fun and I thought it was a really nice wedding. It was close family and friends which is nice because it seems like everyone knows every one else. Here's a picture of some of us chatting after the dinner. Can you tell we were having fun?

Saturday I had to leave but we had time in the morning to walk and get brunch (Me, Skibby, Chuck, Allan, and Becky) and then we even walked down so I could see the Alamo! It definitely doesn't look like I thought it would, but still a pretty cool place right in the middle of downtown San Antonio. I'd have a picture but evidently Allan and Becky's hard drive had an accident and it was one of many casualties of war, although probably the least. (Sorry guys, I know how that feels!!)

So then Saturday afternoon Scott dropped me off at the airport and I got home around midnight after driving the whole way back from Birmingham in a thick fog. I really enjoyed the weekend, though, it was a great time! I hadn't seen most of them in a year and a half, but it's so neat with friends that close because we always pick up like it's only been a week and a half. Since my last post I've also had an 86 ride for the big break in flying I had. They are used to just bring you back up to speed after a while out of the jet. And, as of today I am now finally done with the first block of transition. So, only 6 rides to my first check ride! Hoping to have that done before Christmas, but we'll see. This week is to be pretty busy with a flight today, sim tomorrow, flight Wednesday, sim Thursday, and who knows what on Friday! Saturday morning we have a cantata practice at church too.

This past Sunday Jonny was back at Lighthouse. They've moved to NC but his reserve unit is still the unit here at Columbus so he'll be in and out of here for a while yet. After morning service we went out to Subway and had a good time chatting and catching up a bit. I really appreciate him and always enjoy talking to him. He and his wife did so much for the youth group even since I've been here, it was really neat to see it just grow exponentially. And now I need to be getting off. I think my wireless just died on this computer of mine, so who knows when I'll actually get this posted, but I need to be heading towards bed.
Oh, but here's a picture of me first in front of the T-1 because I've been told by some they don't actually read anything I write, just look at the pictures.

Saturday

Had a good Saturday today. Got a lot of misc errands done around the house including purchasing my Christmas tickets. This afternoon Phil and I went out with a mission to find a shooting range somewhere around here. Since it is Mississippi we figured it should be pretty easy to find a spot since there is so much empty land around here and so many gun-carrying locals and hunters. Well...we ended up driving around for a long time! Eventually we started taking roads that looked like they'd get us farther and farther from civilization. Finally we ended up just parking under a bridge and hiking out into some woods next to a river and setting up some trash left there by some campers to shoot at against a burm. We didn't shoot any of his rifles as it was just too close of an area but we did get to shoot through a few clips of my .45 and his .22. It was nice because I just HAD to try out my new pistol, but we've definitely got to find a better and easier place to shoot in the future!

Yesterday we really had almost nothing at all to do. It was a report to fly day so Phil and I just went in at 8 for holiday safety briefings and then came back and chilled until a little after 12. Then we went in to be ready for a USEM event and some flightline academics. Well, we ended up sitting around until after 5 o'clock just waiting on the USEM to finally do something with us! It was the rudest thing because they changed the schedule by taking the event and classes off the board, but didn't bother to inform a single one of us. Then we had to ask them about the USEM event and he finally told we'd still have one but 'not right now', which evidently is supposed to mean 'about three hours from now'. So again we sat around doing nothing (most of us had studied so much up to this point that there was no more to be gained from it) in the squadron heritage room, and then decided we'd move into the flight room just to give him the hint that we were ready to do this thing and get out of there! So we all moved into the flight room and set up the chairs and all for the USEM event while he continued to sit at his computer and read emails and completely ignore all of us. Then, he sat around just chatting and joking for over an hour with a few other IPs and then finally just got up and left the room with them without saying a thing to us!! So again we sat and waited. Finally the flight commander came in very surprised to still see us there and asked what we were doing. We said we were wondering that ourselves! Finally he found this guy and brought him back in and he eventually told us that we'd just go ahead and take one of our no-notice tests. This was after 5!! Our first event was supposed to have started at 2! So needless to say we were pretty ripped about all of this. That's just completely out of line and shows a complete lack of mutual respect on their part, and certainly does nothing to bolster our respect for them. To make things worse this guy was just a 1Lt, still an Lt like the rest of us! Anyways, anywhere else and this kind of thing just would not fly; only in this silly training environment could he get away with wasting 13 other peoples' time without even keeping us informed as to what was going on for over 3 hours. I couldn't believe it, just try doing something like that with some airmen working for you and see if you EVER get respect or 100% devotion out of them again! I think not!

That kind of thing just makes me mad, I understand 'training environment' type things but when you disrespect me and waste my time without even communicatng with me as a fellow human-being and servicemember, I find that very hard to swallow! Enough said!

After work last night we then went and watched the new Bond movie Quantum Solace. It was decent but again pretty different from the traditional 007 movies: still no gadgets or anything like that at all!

Looking forward to being back in Lighthouse again tomorrow, it's been 2 weeks! Going now to shower then bed...

Back after a month

So, just to update from my last post (a month ago almost to the day), I did finally get the bike sold to John Howell at church. I'm hoping it's a blessing for him especially in saving gas back and forth to college.

I'm not even going to try to remember everything that's gone on in the last month, but I will update a bit on any 'spotlight' occasions I can remember and a few things from really recent history.

First and foremost on my heart and mind is the passing of my Grandpa Lee. Last Wednesday he was in a fatal motorcycle accident. From what's been put together so far he was safely following the vehicle in front of him through a green light when a lady coming from 90 degrees off ran her redlight, smashed into the car in front of him, and then spun and ran into him headlong causing Grandpa Lee to highside over his motorcycle. He was airlifted to the trauma unit but never regained consciousness. My grandma was called almost 2 hours later and told he was in the trauma unit getting brain scans, and I was called soon after and heard the message right after a morning class. I called around and let Kenny and Cindy know to be praying, and then continued inside to work on planning for the mission I had scheduled that morning. A little later I got another message, this one from Dad that I needed to call no matter the time of night for them as soon as possible and that he had something to tell me, and immediately I feared the worst. After talking to them outside I pulled myself together enough to let Ben know so he could continue planning and then to talk to the flight commander who immediately told me to take the rest of the day.

I spent the rest of the day on the phone or next to the phone talking and grieving with my family. It was a really hard day and just came as such a shock. Thankfully I was able to take emergency leave and I left really early Saturday morning to fly out of Birmingham. It worked out well because 5 of us coming in on 4 different flights were all arriving within 1 hour of each other, and then we even were picked up by a limo from Kelby's driving service. It was great to see Cindy and Mom again, but I wish it was under different circumstances. I'm really glad mom could make it from Indonesia, but sadly Dad couldn't come. Kenny came in early Sunday morning and had the privilege of 'waking me up' that morning. It's funny how some things never change...

The time was pretty rough for the whole family, Grandpa Lee, while not blood, could not have been closer if he were my 'blood' grandfather. He really took all of us as his own family and played a big role in my life, especially in going into the air force. He was even the one to commission me into the Air Force the night before graduation. I'll always hold on to that special memory, it was just so neat to have him be the one to swear me in.

The viewing and service were then on Monday, and Josh actually drove all the way up from Richmond to be there for that as well, which was a real blessing to me to have such a close friend at my side during that time. It was really awesome too because a lot of folk from our church family in Richmond even came out. The Bennetts (spelling?), Sears, and Heather came out on Sunday, and then the Hoffmans, Mr Long and Steven, and Pastor all came out on Monday for the service and viewing as well.

On Monday the family had some time alone upstairs with Grandpa Lee, and then the viewing lasted for a few hours followed by the service and then last moments upstairs and the closing of the casket, which really just broke my heart to see them lowering my grandpa and then closing the lid. I'm so glad the Lord allowed me to be there even if all I could do was put my arm around Grandma's shoulders and cry with her. I then returned Tuesday afternoon and got in here around 2 AM on Wednesday in time to get a couple of hours of sleep before reporting. Grandpa Lee's funeral will be tomorrow at Quantico. They looked into Arlington first, but the waiting list was just far too long. i wish I could be there for that as well to pay my final respects, but there's no way I could have taken that much time off.

So far, though, I've still yet to fly since coming back, and won't be tomorrow either. So by the time I do, it will have been over a two week break in training! Oh well...The good news is I aced the last academic test ever today. That means in all of the T-1 academic tests I missed 1 question total. Not bad, if I do say so myself!

In most recent news, I finally broke down and bought the pistol I've been wanting to get for a while. After comparing a bunch again today I finally went with the Springfield .45 1911 Champion which is there model with the shorter barrel. I have a couple of close friends with 1911s and they both love them, and I really like the way they fired too. So, our mission this weekend is to find a good place to go shooting. That and get some laundry done...ahh...the adventurous life of AF pilots...

Both bikes running; potential buyer

Well, I literally spent most of this past weekend trying to get my motorcycles up and running. The Intruder's battery was dead after sitting for 2 weeks before I could talk to the safety rep and get his blessing to ride again so I had to fix that first. However, the bike was not made for easy access to anything. The battery sits under the frame in a little box and you have to get it to drop out of there through a little hinged door on the bottom. But of course there were connections at the top that had to be taken off first, including 2 more random wires attached to the + and - terminals and then nothing else. (I figured later that these must be for emergency jumping or charging the battery since they are in an easier place to get to than trying to take the whole battery out) So I finally got the battery out Saturday and then spent the day shopping for the oil, oil filter, and coolant I want to flush and replace and looking for a replacement maintenance free battery. However, I kept the battery I have as i soon found that batteries are NOT cheap! So I bought a charger instead and let the battery charge overnight. So my plan was to do the oil change and coolant flush on Sunday between services. However, we had an even earlier choir practice than usual as we need to get ready for the Cantata, so I wasn't left with much time. Then I spent a while trouble shooting the battery.

When I first got it in there, I turned the key and got no indicator lights. That's bad...So I messed with the connections a bit, and this time the lights came on! So I got on the bike and went to start it: *click*, lights go back out... That's not right! So I fiddled with everything again, got the lights back on, and tried it again: *click* rumrumrum *click* lights out. Agh! This happened about 3 times and I finally disconnected everything and tried cleaning the leads which looked pretty clean to me anyways. But actually, the negative terminal lead had a bunch of grime on the side I couldn't see. So I put it all together again, got the lights, and no more just *click-nothing*. After a couple of turn-overs on the starter, I had a running bike again! Woohoo! I had about an hour and a half to go so I hopped on the bike and drove it over to the auto hobby shop: only to find they're closed on Sundays and Mondays. Agh again! So anyways, I decided this would be a good time to check up on my 500 which has been sitting in the lot for about a month or two now, and sure enough it's battery was dead too. So I dug that one out and got it charging that afternoon.

Sunday morning at church I had been approached by a gentleman and college freshman son whose a friend of mine and they asked about trying out the bike. They may be interested in purchasing it if it's what he needs, but of course of the price is a little high. And I said, yeah, I know! That's so I have room to barter down, honestly! So I got the 500 running again today after work and then dropped it off at their house this evening. So, we'll see if they want to buy it or not, and I'm hoping they do! I'd really like to sell that thing at this point!

Tomorrow morning is a 445 report for Ben and I for our sim, so it's going to be an early night tonight! So far we've both worked really well together and all our study sessions have really paid off. All the instructors we've had sims with so far have commented that they can tell we've been putting some good study in. So I'm praying that continues with tomorrow's sim.

And speaking of prayer, please be in prayer for my Dad who's been really sick for a few days now. In other news, Kimberly has made it home, but please keep her in prayer as well as her muscle tone is really down after having been in ICU strapped up to IVs and all for so long.

Back from hiatus

Wow, it's almost been 2 weeks since my last update! Part of the reason for that is that not much has really been going on with training besides class, tests, and a couple of sims now. Everything is going really well so far, I've only missed 1 question so far on the 3 tests we've taken, and we'll be taking number 4 tomorrow morning. Both of the sims I've had so far have gone really well, and Ben and I were told at the last one that we're definitely above average for this stage of the game. For this whole transition portion of T-1 training we're assigned to a pilot partner and we'll be flying everything with that other person. However, since we have an odd number in our class, Ben and Rob are both on my team, but so far Rob's been the only one to be traded out to sim with other people from our class. We've all put in a lot of extra time together going over stuff and trying to get checklists, call-outs, and the other basics down. Tonight I have another sim with Ben which will be like the last one but we'll each be getting 3 landings in. At this point the focus is still mostly on checklists and crew coordination, but we're expected to at least be able to put it on the ground and all safely too. I'm really enjoying the sims so far, it's totally different flying a crew jet like this now where I don't do anything but actually fly if I'm in the pilot's seat, and the copilot is the one flipping switches and dropping the gear and flaps, making the radio calls, etc. It's the complete opposite of the T-6 where you just pretended you were in there all by yourself and had to do EVERYTHING! I like this better, it suits my personality just fine.

This past weekend I made it out to see all my family in Montgomery. Michelle just had Kimberly early last Monday so I was excited to be able to make it out there. However, please be in prayer for her as she's had some complications and is still in the hospital. Hopefully she'll be getting out any day now as she's made a lot of really good progress in being able to eat by herself and everything, but they're being careful not to let her go home too early if some complications could arise. It's understandable, but I know it's hard on Luke and Michelle to have not even taken their baby home yet! But I must say, she is the cutest little thing! When I saw her she even a pretty red bow in her hair (and she's got a lot of hair already!) and was looking really good. They said they'd seen a big change in her skin color and everything by that point too. Luke and I also took Kaitlyn out the park on Saturday to feed bread to the ducks, and there had been a big dog convention type event so she got to see a lot of 'puppies' which Kaitlyn just loved!

However, on the way out there on Friday I had an interesting trip. I pulled over a rest stop on the way towards Birmingham about an hour and a half from here, and I went in and did my business. On the way back to the car I thought I could really go for a green tea. However, I only had a dollar bill and they were $1.35. So I went back and unlocked my car and got in to get change and then went back to the machine and got my green tea. However, when I turned around to go back to the car I patted my pocket to then reach in to get my keys (I don't know what's up with that, but it's a habit I have. Before I take anything out of my pockets I usually pat that pocket to feel that it's in there and then grab the item). However, I didn't feel anything, so I patted it again. Then I actually reached in my pocket for it (of course there's nothing there!); and then I checked all my other pockets at least 3 or 4 times as my heart slowly drops. Sure enough, I went back to the car and there were my keys locked inside just sitting on the front seat laughing at me. So I went in and found a coat hanger and tried for 30 minutes without success to get it unlocked. Finally I decided to call my insurance company, but I didn't have their number since the information was also locked in my car in the glove box. So I started calling around to everone I could think of who would have access to the number and finally got the info. So it wasn't until over an hour later that they finally got a truck out there for me and the guy opened it up in 2 minutes flat. He didn't use the flat bar, though. He actually wedged the door open from the top of the frame and inserted a bag which he inflated with a hand pump that pushed the door out. Then he just reached in with a long hook and manually unlocked the door from the inside. So, anyways, the 3.4 hour trip turned into about a 6+ hour trip that night... But at least I got to talk to Chuck and Kenny for a while as I sat around waiting forever.

Then, last night, I stepped out my house door locking it behind me and then checked my pocket for my car keys. And it was Friday all over again. Sure enough, I'd locked myself out of my house. So I tried to break in with a credit car, and that didn't work with the doors here, so Rob was able to find the emergency maintenance number for the houses here. After calling them once and not hearing anything over an hour later I called back. They promised to contact the guy again (who should have left already an hour ago), and then he finally called me. First thing he asked me (in a voice that said "why are you bothering me with this?") was if I had a spare key or if someone there had another key I could use! I wanted to say: "oh, yeah, of course, I have another key right here but I just thought I'd wait around outside my house in the dark getting eaten alive by mosquitoes waiting for you to get here!"). So he tells me he'll be here in 45 minutes. So over 2 hours later I finally got in my house. I would have been to church and back earlier than locking myself out!! So much for 'emergency' maintenance! My house could have burned down, flooded, or blown up 5 times by the time he got here! Luckily I just hung out with Rob next door most fo the time after I figured out he wasn't showing up immediately so it's not like I was stuck right outside. But I never ever do that kind of stuff and it's happened to me now twice in less than a week! Good times...

Anniversary Sunday

We did have a great service this morning. The group Mercy's Well sang for the whole sunday school hour and then most of the morning service as well and then Pastor spoke. Then, this was great, he dismissed everyone who wasn't going to stay for the afternoon service and THEN we all (those staying for the service) went into the fellowship hall and had a big lunch together. Two of our teens preached for that following service and both did a great job. I spent most of the rest of the afternoon lazing around and playing WoW. I've really got to start getting ahead on academics this coming week. I think I've been lazy enough the past few days to get it out of my system and it's time to start hitting the proverbial grind-stone.

Chaos seems to be doing pretty well now. His paws seem to be closing up nicely enough that after 2 accidents right next to the litter box (hello, dude, I disprove of this shredded-paper business, where's my normal litter?!?) I've put back on his clumping litter. They seem to be just bothering him now as he sleeps most of the time and is real careful when walking around. He has a habit of just briskly shaking one paw and then the other but I think he's coming along pretty well. He should be getting back to almost 100% within the next week or so as long as nothing unforseen happens. For now I'm sure the little brat will just continue storing at me and whining whenever the opportunity presents itself.

T-1 Test #1 Complete; Chaos Declawed

Today was our first test in T-1 academics: Systems 01. It was a pretty easy test and like most of the rest of the class I got 100% on it. However, we were supposed to take the test at 8 this morning, and we showed up only to find that the network was down and we couldn't log in to take the test. So we ended up sitting around until 1030 while they tried to figure out what to do with us. They didn't even want to move on to the next lesson because it's on powerpoint, but that's what they ended up doing anyways. The lesson was on the T-1 electrical system and our instructor handed out a diagram at the beginning that, to me, looked like someone had spilled spaghetti and boxes onto the page. It was really cool, because our instructor just did an awesome job at explaining it. He drew the entire thing from memory onto the board one piece at a time (which we will have to be able to do as well on one of three systems for our checkride), and then explained how everything worked together and essentially the 'why' behind each part, which really made a lot of sense! I think all of us were amazed that he was actually able to make us understand it! Then, when that class was over, the network was still down so they finally went into their vault and dusted off the old paper copys of the test so we could finally take it after sitting around for 3 hours. But, at least we got it done today, none of us really wanted to sit around all weekend with the test hanging over our heads.

Then I went over to the flight room. I haven't been able to ride my motorcycle for over a week since I hadn't been able to find time with the 'safety' guy in our flight to sprinkle his holy water and pronounce me a safely 'prepared' rider. So I ended up waiting in the flight room for almost an hour while he debriefed a flight. Thankfully though I did finally got him and I'm cleared to ride again. I've missed my bike after a whole week!

Also, in the past week, I've confirmed that I'm going to room with Phil, so I've had to break down and as part of the deal get Chaos declawed. So early Wednesday morning I got up and crammed the poor cat in his box to take him to the vet. But, he wasn't allowed to eat anything for 12 hours prior to that, so the dumb thing kept waking me up all night long. Every time I'd move he'd jump up on the bed and prowl around my head and meow: 'hey, idiot, feed me! And what'd you do to my water bowl??' So anyays I dropped him off and then picked him up on Thursday afternoon after classes and all. The poor was just so upset when I got him that he couldn't stand to stay in the box for the 30 minute ride back home. He kept complaining and fidgeting so I kept trying to pet him through the holes in the box to keep him calm. Finally when we were already coming up to the gate I guess he just couldn't stand it any more and just started pawing wildly at the box and of course busted the wounds open so that he was bleeding all over the place when we finally got home and I got him out of the box. So I closed him up in my bathroom with his food, water, and litter box (now with shredded paper so the clumping litter doesn't get in his feet) and a pile of old towels. I left him in there most of the evening so he wouldn't be moving around and he did stop bleeding. When I finally let him out he went straight to his favorite happy place: diggin under the covers on my bed. He was still there when I went to bed and has spent a lot of time there the last 2 days. Poor guy, I can tell he's still hurting...But today he seems to be doing really well, and looking at his paws they look like they should heal up just fine, he just needs to take it easy for about a week or so.

We also had an Unmanned Aerial Systems brief for almost 2 hours yesterday to fill us in on what's going on with the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles like the predator, globalhawk, etc) selections. It's been 'decreed' that starting with the first class graduating in 2009 that 10% of UPT grads will go straight into UAVs. This has caused a lot of controversy because most guys would rather not go into UAVs. Also, we signed up to fly 'real' aircraft by going to UPT, not UAVs. However, on the other hand, we ARE in a war right now, and our first job is to do what the Air Force and our country need us to do! The brief was really informative, I'm glad they brought them in to fill us in on everything. At this point, I really don't think I'd PREFER UAVs or anything (the one and only base they're currently controlled from is not a great place to be. It's in the middle of nowhere Nevada about 2 hours from Vegas). But, at the same time, they are promising us that we won't be locked into UAVs forever, but that we'll do it for 3 years and then move on to a primary aircraft from there. Also, this is the wave of the future, UAVs is where the air force is really heading and it wouldn't be bad for my career to be in on the ground floor of it all. So, anyways, I'm not volunteering for them right now or anything, but at least I know a little better what to expect from the field. I think I'd still rather start out in C-17s...But I'm leaving it all in the Lord's hands and I'm going to sit back and see how the next 6 months of T-1s goes.

This Sunday is going to be pretty cool. It's the 17th anniversary of Lighthouse Baptist and they're having the trio Mercy's Well come and sing for us for the morning service. Then we'll have a big lunch in the fellowship hall followed by an afternoon service where two of the kids from the youth group will preach. Everyone in the church has been inviting people and we've even had announcements on a couple of local radio stations inviting people to come. So we should have a good number there for the service, and it should be a great Lord's day. I'm looking forward to it!