Welcome: Abigail Rose Barker

We are proud to announce the birth of our third neice:

Abigail Rose Barker
born: 8-24-08 at 8:00am

weighing: 7 lbs, 10 oz.

18 1/2 inches long

This is #6 for the Barker family and Abbey makes 3 girls and 3 boys. All the children are so excited for Abbey's arrival! Hannah is excited to have her own little sister and Micah is no longer the baby. He and Abbey are only about a year and two months apart.

Beth chose to have a home-birth this time and from the report, seemed to be a good experience for mother and baby. We hope to get to meet this little one very soon!

Christian Music Awards 2008

The Christian Music Awards were this last weekend and Steven was asked to play with a group of from our Clovis Hills Worship Team, lead by Music Director: Paul Haugen. They auditioned as a group and secured their spot in the "Best of the Blessed - Worship Band" category for the overall competition. They needed a name, so they became The Paul Haugen Band!


So, I was their honorary Band Manager / videographer / photographer for the weekend. We got "all access" passes to paroose the Warnor's Theater as we pleased and were fed and taken care of like true celebrities. My brother, Daniel also got in on the fun. He came as my guest and helper for the day!

Among the real celebrities performing were: Jacki Velazquez and Matthew West (co-hosts for the show) and Bethany Dillon, who all performed. Their was another band, Pres Play, that were guest artists from the LA area and were just wonderful people. Here's the thing, this was a pretty big deal (seeing as how it will be aired on the Gospel Music Chanel on September 20th) and there were real celebrities there and EVERYONE was so great. Everyone was encouraging and friendly, everyone was there for the same reason: to honor and worship Christ with their God-given talents and to give glory to HIM. That alone made the weekend what it was. Yes, there was a competition involved, but the ultimate purpose of this event was to come together as the Body of Christ and worship him. It was a great experience to be a part of.

The Paul Haugen Band placed 3rd in the Best of the Blessed competition, and they should be VERY proud of themselves. It was the opportunity of a lifetime and I hope they plan to compete again next year.

Band members: Paul Haugen (lead vocal and acoustic guitar,) Doug Frost (lead guitar,) Tim Douty (keys,) Dana Pellerin (drums,) Steven Estes (bass,) Jill Barnett (background vocalist,) and Frank Matthews (guitar.)

A lot to catch up on...

So, it's been a while since my last post and I realized that a lot has happened over the last month-or-so.

Steven celebrated his 25th birthday this month! My hubby is now a 1/4 of a century old. We were blessed to celebrate with both sides of our family and had a great time. We also got a special experience flying a plane! Yep, Steven's dad is a part owner of a small plane at the Reedley Airport and he took us up for about an hour. We had a great time. I got to fly the plane on the way back from going over my parent's house in Sanger. Awesome experience!









The next weekend, we got to spend some quality time with our great friends, Ray and Alicia. We drove up to Yosemite for the day. It was a long drive, but beautiful. Neither Steven or I had been up there in many years. The park admission was $20. per car and I'm not sure we had $20 worth of fun, but it was great to spend the time together. We packed a picnic lunch and stopped at Bridal Veil Falls to eat and then we found a beautiful meadow to stop and take some pictures. Alicia set up her fancy camera and we took some fun shots of all four of us. We are being ninjas in that last one...can you tell? It was a lovely day.

Reading

I'm not a "reading" person. The only time I ever enjoyed reading was in my high school literature classes. That mostly had to do with the fact that my teachers were awesome and didn't treat me like a kid. They respected me and my opinions of my readings (because if you know me at all, you'll know that I DO have opinions.) I so enjoyed reading The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet Letter, Beowolf, Great Expectations and other British lit materials.

However, now in my adult life, I just DON'T want to read. I would much rather watch the movie version of a book, even though most say that the book is better. Not sure why, but I just don't want to read normally.

Lately though, I have had the urge to read certain books. I want to learn more about the history of Christianity, about some of the key players in the Word; their background, their stories, their personalities, their ministry. I have purchased several books from recommended authors over the years and had every intention to read their books, and I have started some of them, and left a book mark wherever I left off, but never finished.

I have wanted to read The Power of a Praying Wife, The Life You've Always Wanted, His Needs/Her Needs, and recently Captivating. I actually think our new Growth Group will be doing Captivating as a study in the Fall.

I just have the desire to WANT to read now. Not necessarily that I want to READ, I just want the DESIRE to read. Does that make sense? So, if anyone has any good suggestions on where I should start with this I would gladly welcome them. I need to know how to get motivated and committed to reading and learn how to love and enjoy it. I guess I'm just afraid that the books that are suggested to me are going to turn out to be a disappointment. When in fact, I am the one who turns out to be the disappointment to myself.

Anyway, suggestions welcome.

Leslie's Suprise Party!

My best friend Leslie turned the big 3-5 in July! I wanted to do something special for her so, we had a little surprise party at Bobby Salazar's. Most all of her very best friends were there and we had a great time. And the best part was that she was honestly surprised! That just made MY day. She always reads me like a book and this was quite an accomplishment for me. We got her a cake with her picture screen-printed on the icing (yummy too!) and a fuzzy tiara and scepter. She had a great time and so did all of us. Here are some pictures.