Bradley is a ROCKSTAR!!!!!

Okay, you all know I am a reality tv junkie and LOVE American Idol. It's kinda Bradley and my bonding time, the little ones go to bed and bradley and I (sometimes Chris) park ourselves in front of the tv and tune in. We love tryouts...they always make us laugh and we guess who will be the top 10...and then we love getting to know the top 10 and watching them perform. this year i taught bradley how to vote via text message!So the tour rolled through St. Louis this past friday night, and I surprised Bradley with seats for he and I on the floor (for his 5th grade graduation)..Score #1-great seats! Chris, his mom-Kathy, Lainie, Nathaniel, and Ashley(chris' cousin) all had seats up a little higher....tristan wanted to go but we told him you had to be 7 to go....when i took he and lainie to hannah montana/jonas brothers concert, he was ready to go half way through AND he fell asleep for a while at Rascall Flatts!....so anyway...Natalie and Trudy were at the concert and they were sitting in the 3rd row by David Cook's family!

At intermission natalie sent me a message and asked where we were...i replied the 23rd row and i had already sent bradley up to find them when she replied they were coming to find us...bradley found them alright and got to meet and have his picture taken with Andrew Cook-David's brother!Score #2!..then they came back to our seats and showed the picture and visited for a while. As the show was getting ready to start again, the host came out and was making his way in our direction...oh yeah-right before that bradley met a poptart ! HAHAHAHA!

Anyway....the host of the show started making his way toward us and bradley was begging me to go meet him...i told him no way!.he was in the middle of getting the 2nd half of the show underway...the next thing i know, he is calling bradley up in the middle of the scottrade center to have an air guitar competition against a girl named megan...the host was asking bradley his name, how old he was, what the best thing he did all summer was (bradley's first response was baseball, and 3 questions later with a little prompting he realized the guy wanted him to say "American Idol"-the crowd was cracking up!).long story short bradley was the winner by a mile-he actually got down on the floor and was rockin' out his air guitar-the host couldn't believe it! the crowd went wild cheering for him and in the end he won a guitar hero III xbox 360 package!...so as soon as he came back to our seats he replied "mom, now all we need is an xbox 360!"-at that point we had not upgraded our game system-we are now in the present day with an xbox 360!

The Future Rockstar!

I could not believe that bradley was actually up there performing in front of like 10,000 people (and he had no idea that he was on the jumbo trons) i only got these 2 pictures...i almost forgot to take any at all!

So all in all, the show was great. I was a fan of Chikezie during the season, but on tour they did not give him great songs to sing. I was also kind of a fan of Ramiele, but was not impressed at all in concert. The crowd went wild for Michael Johns-who-as you'll see from the pic below-looked right at me! Krist Lee Cook was so cute! Carly-phenominal! Brooke was great-such a great entertainer-i am a big fan! I was really impressed with Jason Castro! Syesha was absolutley incredible-not only beautiful, but an incredible voice, and a fabulous stage presence!-love her! David Archuleta was never my favorite-but the crowd went wild for him. David Cook-INCREDIBLE!!!!!!he opened with Hello....he sang Time of my Life, There goes my Hero, and did and encore of Billie Jean. I know he sang one more song, but i can't remember what it is. So, if you are a fan I hope you will enjy the pictures to follow:here are your top 10 in order from 10 down to one the way they appeared in concert!

Chekezie

Ramiele Michael Johns..lookin' right at me!

Kristy Lee Cook

Carly

Brooke

Jason Castro
Syesha

David Archuleta

David Cook!

LOVE HIM!

update on our teachers

We have been pretty busy over this past week and so I'm just giving you an update....Thank you so much for your prayers, we have needed them. With a heavy heart I have to tell you that our dear P.E. teacher Cindy Thompson-Grassi passed away last saturday evening. We were blessed to be a part of an amazing prayer vigil held at our school for both Cindy and Sandy last Sunday evening and felt the unbelievable strength and courage and love of her family at her memorial service on this past thursday night. Our dear friend Sandy Wacker is still in the hospital and still desperately needs our prayers, although she has shown great signs of improvement, she has a very long road to recovery. She is now breathing on her own and her vitals are strong, but at the last update has not woken up yet. The family has created a website to keep up with her progress and I have added it to my list. Please continue praying!

Please Pray!

I don't know if this is national news, but it happened in Philidelphia and is on our local news...2 cardinals fans were in Philly for the Cardinals game and were jogging after the game and hit by a drunk driver yesterday evening. They are 2 wonderful teachers from my kids school. Their names are Sandi Wacker (who was Bradley's 4th grade teacher) and Cindy Thompson (who just retired last year but was the P.E. teacher). These teachers are near and dear to all of us and I know their families would covet your prayers at this time. They are both in critical condition and we are told that Cindy's injuries are a little more serious. This has made a big impact on our little community of Brentwood-Chris and I always say we live in our own "Mayberry" here in the big city of St. Louis. Our school only has 150 kids total (grades k-5th) and because of this we have the blessing forming close relationships with our teachers and staff. Mark Twain Elementary has won awards for being a school-of-character, our children are divided up into "families" and the head of these "families" are the teachers and staff-they meet in their families and discuss character and responsibilites in relationships. Because of these groups, and small class size, our children form such close bonds with the teachers, and these two ladies were both teachers for my children and have made an impact on thier lives. Sandi has even come to a few of bradley's baseball games. I ask that you remember these special ladies and their families in your prayers at this time. Thank You.

Santa Rosa Beach, Florida

AAHHHHH! Vacation!

We had such a wonderful time. We left st. louis on Friday morning, the 20th and stopped in Greenville, Alabama to stay the night in a hotel (we couldn't have the beach house until saturday afternoon-but didn't want to waste and entire saturday driving). we woke up early saturday morning and headed to the beach, we got in around noon and the cleaning ladies had just arrived so we went to lunch at this great restaurant recommended to us by friends called Stinky's Fish Camp. fabulous food and the best desserts around!-we were stuffed from lunch but ordered desserts to go-which later became our dinner. chris had the key lime pie, my mom had the organic strawberry pie, and i had the bread pudding (covered in caramel sauce)

this vacation was so relaxing, we planned nothing, just woke up in the morning and went with the flow....unlike when we went to disney 2 years ago and set our alarms so we could be the first in the parks! this was wonderful, we grocery-shopped on saturday evening and discovered all kinds of fun shops and stores along the way to visit later in the week. every morning i got up and went for a run on the beach and came back to find everyone else starting to stir....chris always made breakfast and after breakfast we headed out to the pool so the kids could swim and we could relax and read. we only had rain 1 morning, so we headed to the outlet mall in destin for a morning of shopping. Bradley checking out the pool below-we had our own pool which was wonderful!

Lainie in one of her many swimsuits!

I decided to give Tristan a haircut when we arrived, so before swimming I buzzed his hair!

Every evening after dinner we rode our bikes up to our beach access and went for a walk on the beach and looked for shells-there aren't many in that area. All week long the purple flags were flying-we soon came to find out that it meant there were a lot of jellyfish in the area-so many that chris scooped one right out of the ocean with a net to show the kids what to look for so they wouldn't get stung.

After i cut tristan's hair, lainie decided that she wanted her hair cut also, so, after our morning of building sandcastles, and swimming at the beach, my mom, lainie, and i rode our bikes in to the little town square of shops and found a fabulous salon called Kindall's and Kindall gave Lainie a fabulous hair cut. she did a really great job and lainie and i were very pleased!

Pre-haircut!.....Before....

........After........
SOOOOOO Cute!


To end out the week we fished from the beach and Bradley caught a few crabs, and took the usual pictures on the beach (my other camera has all of the pics, but i took black and white with this camera) and i decided since everyone usually wears white, i wanted to change it up and we wore navy blue. i think they turned out well!