My kids checking out the animals at the Animal Kingdom at Disney
Toby on the Lyra and Rinnah and Rachel learning the silks from my cousin Matt - your typical day in the Shaw family
Your unexpected photo - at the Florida Aquarium. Yikes.
Rinnah and I with Sheila Hofmeister at WAFT in Valdosta
Well, I’ve been off frolicking with the family, so I freely confess I have not kept up, and this blog may well be a hodge-podge. I will try to make up for it by including a picture not often thought of for a Christian singer/speaker’s blog. Just to keep things interesting.
After the crazy spring we’d had, Nathan and I took the kids to Florida for some time at Disney and then with my family in Tampa. We had a blast. I just loved having nothing on my plate other than hanging out with my kids and Nathan! Nathan had to work for part of it which was a bummer, but it was still nice to be together. And the kids and I got to see lots of things in Tampa we’d never gone to before like the aquarium and the zoo. We really had fun!
One of the coolest days we spent with my cousin, Matt. Just so you understand, our family is a little odd. None of us know how to have regular jobs, it seems. Matt is the technical director of Arabian Nights, a big dinner theater show in Orlando with lot of horses. He rooms with one of the trick riders on the show who also happens to run a circus school with his wife out of their house. So when you go visit Matt, you can also learn how to do aerial silks or the lyra bar, or attach yourself to bungee cords and practice flips on the trampoline they’ve built into the floor. Let’s be clear – this is their garage. The coolest garage EVER. My kids were in heaven. In the interest of preserving my marriage, I am not including the pictures of Nathan on the trampoline. In the interest of my own self-image, I am not including the pictures of me trying to figure out aerial silks.
On the way home, we stopped in Valdosta, GA at WAFT, a station that has been supporting my music and ministry for years. I so appreciate them! And I am so glad that it wasn’t my first stop since no GPS seems to think their address exists. I always associate them with my first visit which involved a lot of wandering at night in the dark, panicking, and eventually running across a giant sign in the middle of nowhere which saved our bacon. But of course, NOW I totally know where it is. No problem. So Nathan kept the younger two at the hotel to swim while Rinnah, my oldest daughter, came with me to record an interview and see the station. Weirdly enough, none of my kids have ever been in a radio station even though I visit them all the time. Sheila, who was doing the interview, even put Rinnah on the mic for part of it which made her nervous, but she did a great job. What a way to end your vacation as a middle-schooler – with your first radio interview. 🙂
This week we’re in the middle of Adventure Week at our church (VBS for the rest of you out there!) and it’s been a real switch for me. I’ve produced a play for it every year for as long as we’ve lived here, but since I left the church position, it wasn’t my job this year. Instead, I helped with a fourth grade class. They still did one of my plays and used my music, and I have to say, the new director did an outstanding job! It was nice to sit back a bit! If you can call watching a whole class of fourth graders sitting back. 😉
Tuesday I also did an interview on WPOS with Denise Wylie for her Light Line show on the book. What a sweet woman, and afterward we talked about possibly putting together a women’s retreat with the station, so I’ll let you all know if that comes about if you’re up in their listening area.