I can’t believe it is has been almost 15 years since Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bombed the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, OK.  The bombing killed 168 people, including 19 children.

The Oklahoma City National Memorial opened in April 2000.  While we were in Oklahoma City a while back, we decided to visit the memorial.

From the Gates of Time to the Survivor Tree to the Field of Empty Chairs, the Memorial is full of symbols of the horrible act of terrorism that occurred on April 19, 1995.  The smaller chairs (representing each of the 19 children killed) are especially sad to see.

If you are ever visiting Oklahoma City, I recommend visiting the Memorial.

We were one of the few people at the memorial the day we visited so I was able to get several unobstructed photos.  Here is a slideshow of several of them.

Last weekend, I went to Oklahoma City with Lindsey, Shelby, Hayley, & Kelly.  The reason we went to OKC was to attend Winter Jam 2010 at the Ford Center.  Winter Jam featured mini-concerts by Revive, Sidewalk Prophets, Robert Pierre, Tenth Avenue North, Fireflight, Newsong, Newsboys, and a grand finale by Third Day.  It also featured a message by Tony Nolan.  Admission to the event was $10 and was paid at the door.  I read comments on Twitter & Facebook from the performers and organizers after the show.  From what I can tell, the OKC crowd was the largest crowd to date on the Winter Jam 2010 tour!

Of the musical performers, I have only heard Newsboys in concert before.  I first saw them probably 10-15 years ago when they were here in Springdale at First Baptist.  I saw them in Tulsa my freshman year in college when they were on their Love Liberty Disco tent tour (which featured the rotating drum set).  Tony Nolan spoke back in the fall at FBC Springdale.  Lindsey, Shelby, & I were pretty excited about hearing him again.  Other than the Newsboys & Tony Nolan, getting to finally see Third Day in concert was exciting.

I really enjoyed the event as a whole.  There were a few performances that really stuck out.  I think the song that spoke to me most during the evening was Sidewalk Prophets’ The Words I Would Say.  The following is an acoustic version of the song.

So, as I mentioned, I’d seen Newsboys a couple of times in concert prior to OKC.  It had been a while.  Last year, Michael Tait (formerly of the band DC Talk) replaced Peter Furler as the lead singer of the band.  I hadn’t heard a Tait led song on the radio yet so I was curious (but, yet, skeptical) of how he would sound singing traditional Newsboys hits like Shine and Breakfast.  I was pleasantly surprised.  The Newsboys closed their set with DC Talk’s hit Jesus Freak.  I loved it!  It wasn’t DC Talk but it was a DC Talk song live which I hadn’t heard since I saw them in concert in 7th grade.  I also kind of found it amusing that Kelly & I were the only ones around us it seemed that knew every single word (including the rap-like portion in the middle) of the song.  Here’s a video from the Winter Jam 2010 tour of Newsboys performing Jesus Freak.

Finally…Third Day…Amazing!  Mac Powell is an awesome songwriter and has such a distinctive voice.  Here is an official video of Third Day singing their recent hit Revelation.

All of the performances were almost teasers of full sets by some of the performers like Newsboys & Third Day.  I left the event wanting to look up their tour schedule so I could see a full show by each of them in the near future.  I definitely recommend seeing any of these artists in concert!

I did take a few pictures at Winter Jam.  Check out my slide show.

A winter storm moved into Northwest Arkansas Thursday afternoon/evening.  Until Friday morning, it was mostly freezing rain/sleet.  Once it started snowing yesterday, it didn’t let up until some point last night.  I woke up to a very pretty snow blanketing the ground this morning.  I’ve heard estimates of 5-6 inches of snow.

Like during the Ice Storm last January, there were a lot of folks tweeting the past couple of days about the weather.  The Fayetteville Flyer website has a great page set-up to display the tweets & also photos on Flickr.

The Flyer Wire

I’ve been in the house since Thursday evening when I got home from work.  I opted to work from home yesterday.  I can get quite a bit of work done at home.  I don’t think I could do it everyday because I’d probably get sidetracked but working at home a couple of days a week would be great.  Think my boss would agree?  Haha.  I’m doubting it but I guess I can do a bit of wishful thinking.

Here is a progression of the snowfall outside my front door – 1/29/10 11:54am, 1/29/10 4:15pm, and 1/30/10 8:50am.

Here is a Flickr photo album of my pictures.

I posted a blog entry in August just before I officially became a homeowner called My New House – Before.  In that entry, I showed several photos of what the house looked like at that time.  This entry shows what the house looks like now (or at least what it looked like at Christmastime).  (I apologize for the quality of a couple of the photos.  They were taken with my iPhone and I don’t have a picture like it taken with my camera yet.)

Here is a link to the Flickr photo album with these photos and more.

This was the view out the front door of my house on Christmas morning.  While I remember a couple of Christmases where it snowed a little bit, I don’t remember actually waking up to a blanket of snow.  It was a gorgeous sight!  I was glad that everyone was coming to my house Christmas, though, because there would be no way I would drive myself anywhere in this!

As mentioned, my immediate family and my dad’s mom came over for Christmas dinner and gift exchanging.  Having a house to host dinners in is something new for this holiday season so I was excited to have everyone over.  I got some great gifts for Christmas.  My dad built me a dining room table that seats 8 with a bench that seats 3.

How were each of your Christmases?