Tap dancin' . . .

I had a funny story to share with those of you who would probably find it most funny . . . Yeah, those are smoking tap shoes you see in the picture . . . smoking from the nearly hour and half Rachel Newell and I spent tap dancing in my kitchen today. We were awesome. What was really so funny about it is that like 12 years ago when I first met Rachel, I told her I owned two pairs of tap shoes and around 12 years of tapping experience and she had asked me if I could teach her sometime. Twelve years later on my wood laminate kitchen floor, we did some serious tapping. She is taking part in a little "dance competition" with some of her coworkers, which somehow involves her doing a tap dance to Brittany Spears, "Toxic." So that's what precipitated today's tapping. Me, I just tap for fun. So that's funny right? Thought so.

Summer highlights . . .

I keep meaning to write a real post, but something always happens to prevent me. So I'm just gonna jot down some highlights from our summer so far and see what happens. . .

Josh and I were able to attend an Arts conference at Willow Creek Church in Barrington a few weeks ago. We had a great time. We did some learning, some listening, lots of singing, and plenty of laughing. I, not really being of the singing persuasion, took mostly writing workshops and got really excited about writing some stuff . . . not sure what yet, but some stuff. Maybe some drama to use at church or even trying my hand at some curriculum stuff for the kids . .. don't know yet. We heard some cool speakers, such as the guy who wrote the story lines for "Toy Story", "Cars," and other Pixar movies. He had great things to say about storytelling. And we heard from Ralph Winters, a producer who worked on the X Men movies, The Fantastic Four, and others. These guys are Christians and just had lots of great things to say about using creative gifts for God.

In important July news . . . Aidan will be turning SIX in just a few weeks. How can I possibly have a six year old? It's crazy. We're going to go to St. Louis Zoo as a birthday treat. Josh's birthday is the day before Aidan's, and his treat will be the closest seats I could get at the James Taylor concert in Peoria in August. Who's more excited, the 6 year-old about the zoo or the grown man about the James Taylor concert? It's a toss up.

In Henry family fitness news . . . Josh is officially registered to run the Chicago Marathon in October. And his training is coming along good for that. That's a lot of stinkin' running for those of you not training for a marathon. (26 miles) He's doing great, though. I'm still running in much smaller doses than that, and I'm up to 64 pounds of weight loss . . . so it's looking like this whole get in shape thing for Josh and I might stick after all.

We've been traveling a lot this summer mostly between Peoria, Bloomington, and here. Just had my Carroll family reunion in Peoria which can mostly be summed up as a banquet center full o' red heads, as Josh discovered years ago. He was astounded at the first one he attended, at just how many red heads could be assembled in one place at a given time. It's great.

So it's been a good summer, pretty busy, but we've had time to enjoy our family and relax. Hope you all are also having a great and relaxing summer.