Okay, here is the mini-trip report from my past weekend in Tulsa: Thursday night....3 teen girls spend the night at my house....I take them to mexican resturaunt for dinner....we tell them its one of the girls birthdays...they bring out the sombrero and we all sing....then as we leave, some people came in on motorcycles and we took pictures of the girls on their bikes...unknown to the actual owners. :lol: (these pictures are not on my camera...so I can't share right now) We stay up to 3:30 am watching movies, goofing around, prank calls...typical teen stuff. Friday 7:30 am, I wake the girls to be picked up at 8:00am for the early van.....at 3pm I leave.....we depart Woodward Oklahoma enroute to Tulsa Oklahoma via 15 passenger van...I'm the driver...full of teenagers and 3 other adult leaders. Between the two vans and a couple personal vehicles we had quite a few going on this trip. Rain rain go away....it POURED 4-5 inches of rain across Oklahoma on Friday...and since we drove through it for 3.5 hours straight...I say we probably encounted about 10 inches of rain. It was not fun driving that kind of vehicle in the rain. We finally arrive at the Crowne Plaza in downtown Tulsa. 7 minutes before our star guy (who arrived on early van) who placed 2nd in State last year was about to peform his vocal solo. I pull up to the front doors of hotel...to let everyone out to 'catch his performance' when one of the kids yell out, hey its Moses...hahaha...I look up and lo and behold...I see a white SUV parked in front of me...a guy gets out and opens up the back door, and out of the hotel walks a couple guys with long white beards...yep...ZZ Top is also in the hotel...guess they were headed to dinner...it was about 6:40pm when we arrived. :shock: That was really cool. I let everyone out...I pull the van into the parking garage and hop out and hurry to try and catch our guy's performance....as soon as I walk into the lobby, the kids from my old youth group are right there going up and down the escalators in the main lobby, 77 times consecutively :roll: , I get tackled...literally...by them (haven't seen them in 6 months since we moved)....and after some really quick reuniting...I run to the room where our guy from my current youth group is about to perform...I barely make it into the doors before they shut them, luckily they were running a few minutes behind at that point. Jeremiah performs his vocal solo...and its awesome....such a talented singer. Here is a picture of some of the crazy kids from my old youth group: We hang out in the hotel all evening...goofing off...ordered pizza....had a food fight with grapes in the rooms....all white bedding in rooms too...for your future reference...grapes, even after exploding, do not stain...purple ones or green....I can fully vouch for that. :lol: At about 1am...we head downstairs to see if they have posted any new scores....and my daughter (9yrs old) and another youth member are going up and down escalator round and round....well, guess who is walking BACK into hotel...yep, ZZ Top...they start to step onto the escalator (dual level lobby)...and pause just before stepping onto escalator...I am at the top looking down.....and my daughter is at the bottom, right by them....she nudges her way under their arm, and cuts in front of him on the escalator...guess he was taking too long for her to wait :lol: :roll: :lol: My daughter had no idea who he was...just some old man to her I guess... :lol: At approximately 2:15am...we head down to the van to get the bag of silly string and water guns to start attacking some rooms....we fill up water guns with 'pond water' from the hotel lobby water fountain. :lol: We proceed upstairs and start knocking on doors....the boys room opened up, we had everything hidden...and said 'hurry, let us in, security is coming'....and when the door shut....we unloaded on them in their room.....8 cans of silly string and 5 huge water guns later....we leave their room in quite a state. :lol: Security shows up....we get 'in trouble' and end up back in our assigned rooms....we have WWF wrestling going on for about another hour...then finally calm down, because 6:30am was just around the corner. I think I closed my eyes at 3:44am. SATURDAY: cell phone alarm goes off at 6:30 sharp....ugh. Not good...4 hours sleep since Thursday morning for me....was going to be a GREAT day. :lol: Everyone gets ready...we head down to more competitions...different people were performing at different times in many different categories. There were of course vocal solos, ensembles, choirs....worship bands...christian rock bands...puppetry....mini-sermons...children's lesson...small and large human videos...drama (skits)....visual art.....digital photography....traditional photography....essay....tshirt design...video production....tons of categories....we had 22 entries in many different categories. I go into the guitar solo room to watch a few kiddos peform. This one girl is on stage when I walk in...they are having amp troubles....seems her youth leader is helping her get set up...could tell she was 'special' in some way....was too far back to really figure it out at first....she had a red/white electric guitar...cute clothes and hairstyle....finally get all squared away....she is ready to peform....the room explodes in applause and yells and hollers when they announce her. Proably 60 people from her church supporting her. She starts rocking out to this Christian rock song....awesome player....realize now what is wrong...this girl is 16...and BLIND...she is rocking out on her guitar, it was totally awesome. At the end of her song, she raises her right fist (like a rock star) and the room goes wild. It was so awesome. Totally an inspiration....I had tears....was very emotional for me....she was awesome in every way. I wish I had a video or pictures to share...she was totally awesome. All of our kiddos perform...and we have about 4 hours to kill before the awards at the convention center in downtown Tulsa...so I load the kids up and we go to Incredible Pizza (huge game place with mini golf, go karts, games, etc) We return to hotel, pick up who didn't go, and head to convention center for awards. We are dead tired at this point...its 6pm. Awards start at 7pm...one of our kids in my youth group gets a State Merit Award for her category and that is totally awesome...comes with scholarship money. Out of 22 entries we get 5 invitations to National's that will be held in Indianapolis in August. These were 5 different categories....our kids did awesome. My old youth group had only 5 entries, and 2 of those entries (femal vocal solo and Tshirt design) also got invitations to National's. This was the state-level competition, National's obviously is the top level...which where you compete from across the nation....will be exciting. We leave Tulsa and head home...no more rain, thankfully...and get home about 1am. I crash and sleep until the alarm rang for Sunday school...I turned it off...slept another hour...then got up for regular church. lol...I was too tired. All in all...a fun weekend...here is a picture of my oldest daughter on the back of one of the girls from our old youth group. Wish I had more pictures to share...but nobody has sent me their yet...and like a dummy, I forgot my camera at home
good times... I hope ZZ Top peeked in to take in a performance. Now where's the pics of you wrestling and covered in silly string?
I do the same thing. when people email me pictures, I post them on here. Of course, that's blackmail.
