Sunday, June 17, 2012

American Idol show!

Every thursday we get the day completely off. This week we went to a show in the afternoon & then borrowed a car (we don't have ours here) to go on a date! We decided to go to dinner and the American Idol show.

This deserved a blog post just for it self because it was so fun & I took lots of pictures.

If you know me well, you know I love American Idol. I have watched all seasons and dragged many friends through season after season...especially my roommates through college. :) So we arrived in Branson and I saw a commercial on TV about Branson show. At first I thought it was kind of embarrassing that their time on AI landed them with a gig in Branson, MO. But after I got passed that (took me 1.2 seconds) I got really excited and KNEW I was going to go. Total there will be 15 AI contestants here through out the summer season. They split them into 3 groups & the first group was the round I really wanted to see.

This is who we saw perform:
Elliot
-Elliot Yamin (Season 5--3rd place.)....this guy was one of my favorites on this season. He lost to Katherine Mcphee & Taylor Hicks. Those two went NO WHERE (except now Katherine is on Smash) & Elliot had 2 bigger hit songs. Clearly, he should've won. I had his first CD & walked away from the evening with his newest one that came out 2 months ago. I loved him on the show, love his CD's, and can officially say I loved him live too. He sang most of his own music! 

-Lee Dewyze (Season 9 Winner)...I enjoyed him on idol too. He was competing with Crystal Bowersox and that season I was fine with either winning. We both really enjoyed his music this particular evening. His new CD comes out in the fall & Teddy mentioned that he would buy it. He has a folk sound that is catchy. I will say that out of the 5 he seemed to have the least amount of energy on the stage in group numbers & when he sang by himself. (He was the last one to perform & my phone died before I could get a picture of him by himself)


Blake!
playing with the sound box
-Blake Lewis (Season 6--2nd place)...I also loved Blake on his season. I wanted him to win over Jordan Sparks. I bought his CD the second it came out. I was sucked in by his cool beat boxing skills and his ability to arrange music. He actually mentioned at this concert that he was the first person in idol history to arrange his own music. (Now, all of them arrange the piece they are doing) He did beat boxing & played with a sound box for part of the night. I'm still amazed that he is able to make so many different noises. He was great this evening! He did a few covers, but mostly his own music.

Kimberly
Kimberly Caldwell (Season 2--7th place)...She was one that got kicked off a little too early that 2nd season. I don't normally remember ppl who are kicked early, but she was one that made an impression early into the show. She had such a fun & spunky personality on AI and a wonderful voice. We learned that she actually did a show in Branson when she was 11, so it was normal for her to be back in Branson on stage. She was great during the stage. She is SUPER comfortable on stage. Her voice was GREAT too. She did mostly cover songs and some from her own CD that recently came out.










Thia
Thia Megia (Season 10---Top 11)...Let's be honest...I don't remember her. But she was the only one out of the 5 that I didn't know & the other rounds of 5 had a handful of people I couldn't remember. She was the first one to be kicked off the live shows. But it didn't matter because she was actually REALLY good this evening. She doesn't have a CD or anything so she did all covers. But man, she has some pipes. She is only 17 & has plenty of years ahead of her to work on her music career. She was 15 on the show--the youngest ever on AI.

They did some group numbers at the beginning and a few at the end too. They kept us entertained for 2 hours and 45 mins. Considering most shows here in Branson are 1-2 hours, I was pleased. We had such a fun time singing & being SO close to them. We were on the 2nd row. :) We had the opportunity to meet them after, but both our phones were dead. So I figured there would be no proof that we met them...I would rather have photos not autographs....so we bailed. I bought Elliot's CD and we headed back to the honey (Honeysuckle Inn--our hotel for the summer).


It was a WONDERFUL date. We even splurged some and had Hibachi/sushi appetizer for dinner before the show. It was a much needed date. It's hard to get time to talk here (quality time) on summer project because we are always going to some staff meeting, event, dinner, discipleship meeting, planning our week, etc. So we had wonderful conversations & entertainment! Success!

-Kells

Branson Week #3 & #4


Time is just getting away from me here. Our schedule is SUPER busy leaving me hardly any time to blog or keep up with all my blogs I follow. I can't keep up with twitter either. I literally get days behind and just skip over those days to get to present time. I'm barely keeping up with Facebook. I've definitely missed a few important things on FB. Oh well...

A few highlights of the past couple of days:
-Going to silver dollar city with staff people
-Trying to fish on "free fishing weekend"
-Tacky bowling & Frat/Hipster skating party
-Discipleship with my 3 girls
-Watching the Bachlorette every week with staff girls :) 
-Battle of the Sexes (girls ask guys questions & guys ask girls question. The answer are given to the entire group regarding dating standards, and the "whys" behind actions etc...)
-date night with Teddy (hibachi & american idol show)
-playing games (Mafia, farkle, the pit, signs, etc)
-We did go caving, though I wouldn't claim it as a highlight. For me it surfaces many fears due to being a tad claustrophobic. I went in just to the first "room", but spent the rest of the afternoon on the outside of the cave for the cool breeze that comes with it. It was fun hanging out with people as they came out of the cave for lunch and a break. Teddy went all the way in with a group of 12 people. He came out VERY muddy and wet. But he had the time of his life!!!
-Teddy goes fishing every week with the staff guys. He is enjoying that! 

Here are lots of pictures: 
15 in Brown Trout

Beautiful Branson!



Frat/Hipster skating party...yep, those are pink shorts on Teddy

Blue team on Project Olympics

All staff ladies!

Emma sent all the Tech people a fun gift...game on!

On the way to tacky bowling with Kimbo

We went to this show. It was very good!

Blurry...but here we are with our skates on!

Out sharing our faith in Branson!

Growth team for the hipster/frat skate social!

Can't believe we only have a few more weeks left here! We are having a blast!

-Kelli

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Branson SP Week #2

You would never guess that Branson, Missouri could be so much fun. It really is though! Yes, there are TONS of older people here but there are many families too with a sprinkle of college students from College of the Ozarks. This city is normally 10,000 ppl on a normal day, but during the summer is explodes with 8 million visitors. Pretty wild. I hear that during the off season it's pretty sad, quiet, and SLOW for business.

Update time:

Students arrived on Tuesday the 29th. The next day was my 26th birthday. Followed by multiple days of orientation for students & only a little down time as staff. It was a busy busy busy week. We have now arrived to our "normal" week schedule as of yesterday because students started work yesterday at various places (YMCA, Mcdonalds, Branson Belle Showboat, and Silverdollar City Amusement park). It feels great to land into a routine schedule because we really haven't had a week of routine since we started raising support in August. It's truly like a breath of fresh air to be able to know when I wake up in the morning I know what I will be doing.

Here's my week in pictures (all out of order of course):

Staff girls (missing 3 moms)

My man & our adopted child Laney

Free Imax films all summer! We have seen Tornado Alley so far!

Birthday presents from the Bollens & Kimbo

Staff Hunt: Dressed like crazies & an older woman/tourist
Staff hunt. What you don't see is that teddy's pants are actually jean shorts with fishing boats/long socks. Hilarious!

Birthday flowers from my groom!

Errands with Courtni! Getting ready for the students to come!

The guest book for Branson SP. Has the documentation of students/staffs since 1991

Birthday presents from Teddy and my parents!


Youngest members of our SP. Laney & Tory

Women's director giving our first women's time talk.

Week two is in the books. We are in the middle of week 3 currently. It has been wonderful!
-Kelli