Third Day on Jay Leno

So as some of you know, Third Day is my all-time favorite band. I love their music, their lyrics, and the fact that Mac Powell's voice is so unique. When I heard this weekend that they would be performing on Jay Leno, I was pretty excited- not just about hearing my favorite band, but that a Christian band was playing to a pretty secular crowd.
Since I usually don't watch Leno (I'm more of a Letterman girl) I had to remind myself to change the channel after the 10 o'clock news (I'm more of a CBS girl than NBC). Jay Leno is just starting, so I grab a blanket and settle in to watch his show. Wow. Was I in for a shock! Leno's opening jokes were actually ok, and he did a Jay Walking segment where he knocked on people's doors and threw a stay-cation for them. That was pretty funny. Then came the guests.
First of all, I didn't know either of the guests (but I usually don't stay caught up in knowing the latest Hollywood stars). The first guest had just played a part in a movie about weed. Yes, that's right. Before talking about this, he talked about a one hour comic routine he had written about doing something I will not even write on here. And his parents were in the audience. Great. I can only imagine what the band is thinking backstage.
Then comes this girl who plays a role in a movie called "Death Race" (I think). They're talking about how this role is not a normal role for her (blah, blah, blah) and then Leno asks what the hardest part was about playing that role. She tell him that there were several lines that she was supposed to say that were filled with cursing and vulgar language and that it was really hard to get through those. I'm thinking, wow, that's kind of cool that she had a problem with that. What would have been cooler is if she had taken a stand about it. What does Leno do? He wants her to say one of the lines on air. The entire line was bleeped- that's how many curse words there were. However, it of course was not bleeped for the live audience where I have to believe there were some Third Day fans who had come just to listen to the band.
By this time, there's only about 5 minutes left so Third Day just performs and they don't talk to the band or anything. That's pretty common, but after all the trash in the show, I really wanted Mac Powell to stand up and say something.
Point of this post: Way cool to see Third Day perform. Totally disappointed by the filth that is the Jay Leno show.

City Roots

So D and I tried out something new last night. There's this organization called Above Grounds that arranges different venues around our city for local Christian artists to play at one night a month. Last night, it was at a cafe in the same area as our church and we had nothing else to do so we thought we'd try it out. Three bands played (but we got there late so only heard two of them). The first one was Progeny... they were really good. You should check them out. The group is made up of a husband and wife that are around our age and they did a really good job of connecting with the audience. I really enjoyed listening to them. I bought their cd. The last artist was a girl who was probably around our age. She played the guitar and had a huge voice. She was very talented, but just not my style of music. The whole event was really just a neat experience- that Christians who enjoy music get to hang together and listen to great local artists perform without worrying about offensive lyrics. Anyway, City Roots is something we're going to put on our calendar to check out each month. And it's free!

You can check out their website: www.abovegroundsaustin.com
Progeny: www.progenyband.com

Alexander Lane

My older sister gave birth to a healthy baby boy at 2:30am today. He weighed 8lbs 60z and measured 20 3/4 inches long. Both baby and mom are doing fine. I'm going to see them tomorrow.

Independence Day

Our day started off with a pretty lazy morning, but picked up in the afternoon. We met up with some friends and played volleyball (where the girls dominated the guys) and then went swimming. Our friends' little girl was so excited to go swimming and we all had a lot of fun playing with her in the pool. Pizza was the food of choice for dinner- not very patriotic, but it was quick and we were hungry. Then the decision was made to try to catch a fireworks show... so we made our way to the suburb of our city and caught a pretty neat patriotic display in the sky. Our little friend, I'll call her K, had never seen fireworks before, so this was pretty exciting to her. For the first time, I realized the unwritten rules of firework watching... have you ever realized how quiet everyone gets when the show starts? It's like we're watching a performance and staying quiet is showing our respect to the celestial actors and actresses. However, a three year old does not understand these rules and each display would result in a cheer, or George of the Jungle-type yell. She quickly became bored of the entire event and began to play/pull our hair. Even the fantastic ending didn't hold her attention and when it was all over, her first question was, "Can I finish watching Snow White?" Maybe next year...