Monday, July 11, 2011

Lifest

Every year I say I'm going to go.
"This is the year I'm going to make it happen!" I say to myself...
And every year, there's always something that prevents me from going.
Usually, the conflict is with our kids schedules. It seems that Lifest always falls on a weekend that is not "our weekend" if you know what I mean.
It's a total crime, it really is.
It's so close!
Lifest is a Christian Music Festival in Oshkosh (which is about an hour away from Green Bay) and it is held over a 5 day period. It has 150 musicians on 7 different stages and draws over 20,000 people.
It's amazingly fun!
My kids are crazy Christian music fans.
Lifest kicked off this year on my birthday, and it just so happened that all of us were going to be together the following day before splitting up for the weekend (yes, splitting us again this year).
So for my birthday present, I asked for tickets for all of us to go!
The beauty of it was MercyMe played on the main stage Thursday night!

But during the day, the kids got to see a lot of other musicians they love...
Here is Hannah and Nate rockin out to Matthew West.



Inside the Market Place, which was this huge pavilion where every cool t-shirt, wrist band, CD, hoodie etc has ever been displayed and sold....they also had these huge boards lined up with white paper stretched across them. There was a bucket of markers next to each one. The title on each board was different, but in the same vein....one read, "What I wish my dad knew" and "What I wish I could tell my daughter"
I decided to write a message on the board, "What I wish I could tell my son"

Natieboy, your mom adores you.



Later in the afternoon, Hannah decided to write on the board labeled, "What I wish my mom knew"
She wrote the most amazing thing.
But I have to tell you, I was heart broken and completely choked up when I read some of the messages on these boards. People are hurting, people are scared, and have lots of regrets. I closed my eyes and thanked God that Hannah had the courage to write about me, and that it was beautiful and not sad.



After dinner Hannah and Maddie wanted to get henna tattoos. 

Then we had to race to the main stage to see MercyMe!
Totally our favorite!

Ginny Owens performed on the cafe stage on Saturday and drew a huge crowd.
She hadn't played at Lifest for a few years.
She got a standing ovation...twice!
She emailed me a few days prior to coming to let me know her flight info (she stayed at my house!)
in that email she asked if I would sing back up to several of her new songs!
HUH?
"Are you kidding me??" I replied..."How awesome would that be!!"
So Ginny emailed the songs to me and I called Becky and asked her to sing alto with me (we sing together most ever Sunday anyway).
We hammered out the parts Friday night...


....and sang them Saturday night
Her lastest single "Before You Fly" is available on itunes....you should really download it.
It's incredible.

James got to play for Ginny and about 700 of her closest fans.
G.O rules! Look for her new CD due to be released in August :)

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like a wonderful time. I LOVE what you wrote to Nate and what your daughter wrote about you. So sweet!

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  2. how amazing...love mercy me also....your daughter sounds so sweet and what you wrote is so true...just wish everyone knew that

    happy belated birthday, i know it was great:)

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