Happy Easter

It was a beautiful Easter day with clear skies and temperatures that reached about 68 degrees.

Evan, Simon, Abby and Celeste pose in front of the flower covered cross in front of Hope Lutheran Church. We went to the 9:30am service and it was so crowded that we were sitting in the Narthex. It is good that we will be starting construction on the new building this fall.






Kim could not resist taking a few pictures of the kids dressed up. Especially on such a beautiful day. Once the kids changed it was time for the Easter egg hunt.

Technorati Tags: Easter, North Carolina, family

American Idol Top 12

Well, we now have 12 left. I was 3 for 4 in my picks, with the only miss being that I picked Remiele and it was Asia'h that was going home. I am a little disappointed because I think that Asia'h is the better performer. Now the fun really begins as the pressure will increase. I think that the people that will need to step it up next week are Chikizie, Remiele, David Hernandez, and Kristy. If not, it will be one of these that will go home. David Archuleta is still on top for the men but the gap is closing quickly as others are stepping up to the challenge. On the women's side I think that Brooke is the front runner but Carly, Amanda and Syesha are very strong.

Technorati Tags: American Idol, entertainment, Singing

Idol Women March 5th

The women in general did step it up with better performances this week. I felt that there was only 1 poor performance which was by Kady Malloy and a song that I did not recognize at all. Amanda, Carly and Brooke held the top spots this week for me. They selected songs that suited their styles and were different enough from the originals to make them enjoyable. Carly really showed off her strong voice this time with wonderful control. Kristy and Remiele did not impress me with their songs so I think that they are on the edge and either one could be gone tomorrow. Asia'h sang very well but I did not think the song was very original. I did not think that Syesha was very good but I think that she did well enough to survive another week.

So my picks this week to go are Kady and Remiele.

Technorati Tags: American Idol, entertainment, Singing

Idol Men March 4th

Overall it was a good night for the men. The strongest performances go to Michael Johns and David Cook. Michael did a nice job on the song "Don't You Forget About Me" which you will remember from the movie The Breakfast Club. David had the top performance of the night with all of the judges saying he could cut a single right now for his version of "Hello" by Lionel Richie. Jason Castro had a good performance and David Archuleta did a suprizing rendition of "Paradise" by Phil Collins. David Hernandez showed his vocal strength by singing the Celine Dion song "All Coming Back To Me". The weak performances of the night go to Luke Menard and Danny Noriega which are the 2 that I pick to be gone this week. Luke should go just because he picked a WHAM song and Danny did a terrible version of "Tainted Love".

Technorati Tags: American Idol, entertainment, Singing

Are the Primary elections fair?

The way we conduct the primary elections today is not fair. When the idea behind these primary elections is to find the best candidate for your particular political party based on the popular vote, how can you achieve this when all the possible candidates are not going to be voted on by everyone in your political party?

It is upsetting to me that I will not have a true chance to choose who I would like for a presidential candidate because by the time the primaries come to North Carolina, the Republican nominee will be decided. Also, many of those that started in the primaries are no longer in the race. How do I truly get to voice my opinion when the choices have now been reduced and the person that I might have chosen is no longer running? It is true that you could write in the name of the person you would like, but we all know that most people will not do so and not get to vote for the person they believe to be the best candidate.
One could conclude that it also ends up lowering the turn out of voters when the election is run in your particular state this late in the primaries. At least on the Democratic side, it is still such a close race that every state counts and should keep the turnout higher. The only time the current system is "fair" is when it is a close race and even then it is not because there are only 2 or 3 people left in the running.

Technorati Tags: Politics, primaries, republican, democrat

World's Largest Snowwoman

My wife's cousin lives in New Hampshire and took a drive over to Bethel, Maine to see the snowwoman. She took a few pictures which show just how huge this thing is.


As you can see, when you add some people into the picture, you see just how tall it is. When we went up to visit my wife's cousin, we stayed in Bethel. It is a beautiful little town. It is a wonderful place to visit.

Technorati Tags: Bethel, Maine, snowwoman

Celeste's 2nd Birthday

It took me a while to get to this but I have a few PICs from Celeste's 2nd birthday. She had a joint birthday party with her friend Clara who turned 3.

Here you see Clara on the right and Celeste on the left. They had on matching Little Einstein shirts.




It was a Kindermusic party which was great for all of her friends and siblings. The theme was Little Einsteins which is her favorite show in the world. They had so much fun doing all of the activities and just running around.





Click here to see a few more PICs from her birthday party.