Brotherly Love

Chris catches Emily by surprise with the spray of the sprinkler - heehee.

But then he makes up for it by snuggling in the recliner. : )

Star Spangled Sweat

This past weekend was the annual Star Spangled Salute on base. Usually it's held as close to July 4th as possible, but this year was a full month early.

They had all of the usual vendors and kids activities - bounce houses, petting zoo, mini airplane rides. The big draw though was the Blue Angels . They are awesome so it was packed. The airshow officially started at noon, but the previous two days the Blue Angels had been practicing around 3-ish, so we (correctly!) figured that they'd perform around that time.

Sidenote: this spring in OK has been unseasonably cool and rainy. Almost strangely so, in fact. And I, being the cynic that I am, have been saying to anyone (Bobby) who complained about the rainy, cool weather, that as soon as it ended that it would be a blazing furnace here.

We got to the base a little before 2 pm and sure enough, the Blue Angels flew at a little after 3 pm. In just that time, we were beet red, dripping with sweat and downing water like it was going out of style. As soon as they were finished, we and several hundred others left. Walking back to the van, we saw on a huge digital marquis that it was 97 degrees. Ugh.

Anyway, after a couple of hours (while Emily napped) we met up with the in-laws and returned to see Tops in Blue and some country singer named Mark Chesnutt sing and then the fireworks show.

They were running way late and a storm blew in that went just east of us. We actually felt a couple of sprinkles and then it cooled down quickly. I snapped pictures of the kids and one of those artists who draw in time to music and a couple of the clouds too while we waited. It ended up being a lovely evening. We didn't leave until 11:15 and I think we got home just before midnight. A long full day in OKC.

LifeStock!!

This past Sunday we participated in an event that our church calls LifeStock.

Our church is called LifeChurch and it's a bit progressive. We have several different "campuses" located all over the metro and our senior pastor, Craig Groeschel, preaches via satellite to all of us for our worship services. Anyway, LifeStock is an outdoor concert and baptism bash held at our local amusement park, Frontier City. It's a chance for all of the members of LifeChurch at all the campuses to get together and worship and enjoy the day riding rides.

Originally all four of us were going to go around 4 or 5 pm but Emily didn't get a nap beforehand and was SUPER cranky. Bobby's dad, on the spur of the moment, suggested that we leave her with them for the evening. I had just happened to snap a pic of her in her t-shirt before we left.

Chris rode a couple of "kiddy" rides before we hit the log ride.

Here are all of the Kettlers (minus Grandma and Grandpa and Emily, of course) waiting in line for the log ride.

Who's the d-o-r-k who forgot to take off her sunglasses for the picture????

Afterward we hit the concert for awhile and then went on to the Renegade Rapids. We got soaked down to our undies! Here are my cutie-pie goofball nieces while we waited in line again!!

Katie tackled Chris in a bear hug!

Dripping wet, we finished off with a ride on the roller coaster. I wish I had the pictures of me and Chris screaming our heads off. Those were priceless. Well, actually, they were $20 (which we didn't spend!). But the memories are priceless!
We had a wonderful evening and it was so neat to see all of the LifeChurch t-shirts all over the park. It seemed like every other person was a fellow "Lifer".

Whoever finds God, finds LIFE!