The guys rock climbing- indoors! It's still January after all.

I think this might be David...or Jayson? upside down in the "cave".


Joel hanging upside down in the "cave" at the gym.

Joel on the ground, Joseph on wall, Nathan H. on wall

The guys went on their first non-parent trip-it was just them, "hanging' out!

David, Clayton, Joseph, Caleb H., Nathan H., Jason H., Raymond from Finland, T.J. McShane!, Jayson and Joel went to Boulders Climbing Gym today and from the looks and sounds of it, had a fabulous time!

Several of them passed their belay test so that they could belay a buddy up a wall, but I think many found "bouldering" even more fun.

They are a great group of guys!!

Marlie Rose at her swim meet in Milton

Here's Marlie right before she gets into the pool for her 50 yd backstroke. She has such good form! 

It was my first time ever being at a swim meet and I had no idea how loud, crazy, colorful and high energy they are. It wasn't boring even when my little niece wasn't in the water.

Seeing all the many, many kids there was cool too-you just want to cheer for all of them.

So-Way to Go Marlie Rose!

Sunrise Snowboarding and Snowshoeing

Joseph, Clayton and Cousin Joel

WOW!! Can you believe that getting up and out of doors before sunrise can actually be fun? I am surprised too!

While Rosemary, Kathy and I snowshoed around the beautiful landscape at the golf course Clayton and Joseph were joined by their cousin Joel on the big sledding hill where they met the sun coming up on their snow boards.

It was such a beautiful morning with gorgeous skies and that kind of snow that looks all sparkly-it was awesome-God is Good!!

My niece Marlie the Otter!

This is my niece, Marlie Rose. She is working hard during swim team practice! (She stopped just long enough to let her mom snap this pic.)  

Swim practice is over for the day so it's time to take the lanes down and swim for fun!

A Night at The Dry Bean

 Marlie and Joseph at the table!                                Joseph's debut at the Dry Bean.

Grandpa and Grandma Hodges took Joseph and cousin, Marlie to the Dry Bean near Madison.

Joseph has been learning the song "Wild Wood Flower" per the request of his Grandpa Flood and Grandpa Hodges. He intro'd his song, and even got to play a follow up of "Simple Man". 

Joseph was introduced by his Grandpa as "Rock River Red"--for those of you wondering, our little town is near the RockRiver and as for the red, I'm pretty sure  you can see why *smile* 

Marlie and Joseph had a good time visiting with each other and listening to their Grandpa and the rest of the musicians there at the open mike. It's a very encouraging atmosphere for musicians, and we look forward to Marlie's!! debut there in the future.

Flood Boys Christmas 2008

This is a picture of the boys that their Aunt Rosemary took

December 24th, which has become an annual tradition and

gift from her family.

There has been a TON! of snow this year as you can see.

They're not as cold as you might think they'd be 'cause they

were all warmed up from the shoveling that they did right before.

Thanks Rosemary!!!

My nephew Joel waits while Joseph gets his time with their teacher Jeff Hickey-who also was David's teacher. Jayson is on the other side of the pic-he just had his electric guitar lesson.

All three boys (Joseph, and his cousins, Jayson and Joel) are taking guitar lessons, but they are on three completely different tracks:

Joel is learning to play fingerstyle much in the same way David was taught, 

Joseph is learning the basics of strumming and flatpicking and 

Jayson is learning electric guitar.  

They all practice, but they play a LOT, and often, just because they truly enjoy it.

It is a lot of fun when the brothers and cousins get together and play music. If you'd like to get a taste of it, go to www.nontoxicteencenter.com/blog.html where you'll get to see them in action as part of Non-Toxic's house band.

Yet another table picture.

Joseph enjoying his reward for hauling all that wood in-a foot long at subway.

Now I can't help it...I'm being drawn to table shots! I just might have to get a whole new blog for them!

Anyway, I love what happens when someone's head or foot or in this case, hand is closer to the camera and looks huge. It's like Joseph has a lobster claw for a left hand!

But, I've been out with David and Clayton lately but not with Joseph, so that was fun...and he really did work very hard to earn his sandwich-he unloaded a truck bed full of wood and stacked it for me.

Thank You Joseph!

Aaaaasssss Yoooouuuuuuu Wwwwiiiiiissssshhhh

Okay, now some of you may not be aware of this but Rosemary and I go for walks 3 times a week with our friend, Kathy.

Kathy introduced us to a perfectly lovely place to walk...only it turned out that there was some hiking involved.

Now, I don't wanna give away our location BUT...the hill that we go up is very steep. And it's so steep that it makes me think bad thoughts on the way up...borderline bad thoughts.

So we do it twice!

It's really hard to take a picture ('specially with a cell phone) that gives proper depth so you can tell how steep the grade is, but trust me-it makes me think of Princess Bride everytime. You know the scene where Wesley is pushed down a steep hill and Buttercup comes tumbling down after hearing the phrase "As You Wish"? It's as steep as that.

But here it is...the tiny, tiny little people way up on top are Kathy (right) and myself (left).

Rosemary took the picture, staying behind to do it and then had the AUDACITY to run up --that's right--RUN up the hill to catch us.

So here's another view from quite a distance away at this particular hill-can you get a little feel for the 'drop off' thing it's got goin' on?

Just for Laura!

Just for Laura!

It must look as if there is a theme to this blog that I hadn't intended: lots of table pictures! Well, when you're traveling, you often have to stop for a bit to eat and that's when it occurs to me to update the blog. So on our recent trip to see Kevan on his birthday and hear him play at Cowboy Church with Dad, I couldn't resist taking a picture of niece Marlie who didn't get to have supper before we left and was such a trooper for waiting until 10:30pm to eat at a McDonalds.

Dad and Kevan

I was able to get Dad and Kevan in the same frame while they performing their last song (that tied in amazingly to the message about Living Water) which was "Cool Water", probably my favorite song that they do together on their CD.

It's a great place to be for a listener when you're priviledged to hear seasoned, experienced musicians that are so comfortable with their instruments and each other.

The Acoustic Cowboys at Cowboy Church in Mineral Point, WI

Dad, Tim, Jeff and Kevan

My sister Rosemary, her little girl Marlie Rose and I travelled about an hour and a half to see our brother, Kevan, on his birthday while he and Dad performed for Cowboy Church. They played 5 songs before the message and then were asked to do another at the end...and then! They had a request after the service was over to play Ghostriders in the Sky.

It was fantastic music and a great time.

Yay! We are past the traffic of Chicago

Okay- I think this was actually son David's favorite part of the day!
And Jayson and Clayton's.
Why????
Because...picture isn't clear enough....
It's TACO BELL!!!!!!
yes, it actually was the Fourth Meal of the day.
Their marketing dept. should be proud.
Because...
although the food was very good at the Chicago cafe from below...
the portions were meager and the boys hunger bigger, much bigger than the amount they were served so they still had some 'spaces' to be filled in their tummies.
And then...do you even have to be hungry, and tired of Chicago traffic to appreciate Taco Bell?

Campus visit

So here are the boys... Clayton, Cousin Jayson and David sitting at a cafe calle La Sera in Chicago after a very long day visiting Moody. Clayton and Jayson got to attend college classes, eat in a college cafeteria and see walk around a lot! They especially loved the book store at the end -NOT! But Rosemary (who also went) and I loved the bookstore. What's not to love?

Anyway, the classes were awesome! Rosemary got to take a Romans class was a junior/senior class and then we both took in an afternoon class with just Jayson and Clayton as David was off filling out his application to the music school there (supposedly~!). The second class: Race, Poverty and Social Justice was soooooooo interesting. We both took notes, the prof. had us each observe a different group of students discussing a book/paper, we took the quiz and passed with an 80%. Clayton's group was quite animated and he enjoyed the students that now seemed just like other kids to him -instead of big scarey college kids. My group had several fascinating students-amazing the the quality of student that Moody draws. And the professor, Craigen, was perfect for an after lunch class..instead of a snoozer, he was quite animated, thought provoking and said many quotable things.

Rosemary's Roman's professor was a surprisingly young Phd...28 years old, and she reported that he too was interesting. They had controversy in their class, which is the college experience, right? Jayson was a bit sleepy in that high level class as we had to leave at 5:20 and so he was up very early and the rooms were sooooooo warm!

David's visit in the music dept. was very informative. We got many of our questions answered, got a better feel for their quality and expectations (both very, very high!). They have a very rigorous program, which is what we want, I think.

Joseph and Marlie at the lodge

Joseph and Marlie in the Flood Boys' fort. The whole Williams family was able to join us and the cousins had a good time playing together.