Last Thursday evening, Mom, Shelby, & I saw Casting Crowns in concert at the Church at Pinnacle Hills in Rogers.  (You can see the 3 crosses in the top righthand corner of the windows.)  I think this was only the second time I’ve been in this church (and the first was for Lindsey’s wedding).  We had pretty close seats over to the side of the stage.  Except for the sun blinding us at first, they were great seats.

Prior to the concert, I really only knew of a couple of songs Casting Crowns sang.  (Although, I did realize I knew more once they started singing them.)  One of my most favorite they sing is Every Man.  The song illustrates that there are all sorts of people in the world and that Jesus is the hope that can get “every man” through their trials and tribulations.

Here is a YouTube video (that is actually just the audio) for the song Every Man.

Here are the pictures I took during the concert.

Last Friday & Saturday was The Poultry Federation’s Poultry Festival.  It was held here in northwest Arkansas with Saturday’s events being at the Embassy Suites & John Q Hammons Center in Rogers.  I was able to attend 3 of the events.  I went to the Ladies Luncheon on Friday, the barbeque dinner on Saturday night, and then the Chuck Wicks concert.

I actually got to technically see Chuck Wicks 3 times Saturday evening.

Chuck # 1: After the bbq dinner, we decided to walk across the street and get some ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery.  We walk in and there is Chuck Wicks with his mother.  He immediately said hi to us and introduced himself.  He was in buying his mom ice cream before he went next door to get himself a sandwich.  He ended up buying Bailey’s and Marguerite’s ice cream when he bought his mom’s.  (Shelby & I didn’t get any ice cream but I’m sure he would have bought ours too.)

Chuck # 2: We were lucky enough to be given meet & greet passes.  When Chuck walked into the meet & greet room, he immediately noticed us and said hi.  We waited toward the back of the line since we had just met him.  When we got up there, Shelby & I first got our stuff signed and pictures taken.  (Just a side note…See Chuck’s facial expression in this photo?  He is the master of making faces.  He took the cutest pictures with some of the kids – even making Taylor Swift’s heart sign with a young girl.)  Marguerite decided she was going to ask Chuck to twirl her for her photo with him.  Chuck decided he’d do even better and dip her.  It was cute.

Chuck # 3: The concert was great!  We had front row seats!  I must admit that I’m not very familiar with all of his music, probably mostly because he really only has 1 CD at this point.  I didn’t necessarily notice that I didn’t know the songs given the mixture of songs he sang.  He sang Pick-Up Man by Joe Diffie.  He also sang another song that he said was a #1 in 1980 (when he was 1 years old according to Chuck).  I have a bad memory, though, at times when it comes to remembering songs that I want/need to and this particular one has completely left me.  I’ve always loved Chuck’s debut single which was Stealing Cinderella.  His performance of that definitely didn’t disappoint.

Oh yeah…Julianne wasn’t with Chuck in northwest Arkansas.  (This was a popular speculation before the concert.)  She is the opening act for George Strait’s tour and had a performance the same night.

And…Chuck recently co-wrote a song with Brian McKnight for his (Chuck’s) new album.  Chuck sang it.  It’s a very good one!  I look forward to it on the radio.

I definitely recommend seeing Chuck Wicks in concert if given the opportunity.  You can find him online at ChuckWicks.com and on Twitter at @ChuckWicksMusic.

Here is the set of photos I took during the concert and the photos that were taken of us during the meet & greet.  Enjoy!

Zack Morris is back!  This was an awesome skit.  I hope the reunion happens.

I went to North Carolina Memorial Day weekend.  The weekend before that we all went up to Grayson & Lindsey’s place in Missouri.  Mom & Dad helped Lindsey plant some flowers.

Lindsey & Grayson have a female cat that has had more than one litter of kittens.  They still have a kitten left from the last litter.  It isn’t real friendly but it did let me get relatively close to it so I just shot several pictures in a row.

Shelby & I drove around the farm a little bit and I took some pictures.

We were sitting around the yard enjoying the nice day and I caught Dad whittling a stick.

I’m not really sure how this picture came to be.  I can pose Shelby but there’s no way we can pose Bo so it is cute that it worked out that we got them posing for the camera.

Speaking of Bo, isn’t he the cutest dog?  (He actually is full-grown and not just a puppy.  He’s a mix of something that makes him smaller than what you’d expect.)

New Moon -- November 20, 2009