Awards Night 2011

I know it's not the eagerly-awaited Chipotle post, but hopefully this is better than nothing.

Editor's Note: Why these pics aren't clickable, I have no idea. Sorry!

St. Paul's Awards Night 2011!

Deacon and Maren on the way in.

Deacon... and fruit punch. I think.

Emma, Micaela and Maren show their award-winning gaming skills, playing Angry Birds.

A winner! Deacon received this certificate for his participation in the Spelling Bee.

Maren and her Spell-tastic friends.

Deacon receives his Regional 3rd Grade Grand Champion Art Fair Award from Mr. Koeppel.

We had to pry it out of Mrs. B's hands, but here it is: an Ocean Scene, completely constructed using torn paper!

That's it for now, but we'll have more soon. Really!

Please direct complaints about the Chipotle post delay to the AFB IT Admin and Assistant Grand Dictator of AFB Editorial Content.

Maren's Baptism 5-1-11

Hello!

I must explain that yesterday I said there would be an imminent update, only for Google Blogger to go down for the next 24 hours, not only causing me to delay this post, but also preventing me from taking down my Imminent Update post. Sorry 'bout that.

Anyway, here it is, at last...

Maren's Baptism, May 1, 2011!

For your convenience, coverage of this event is available in three different formats:

1. Pictures

2. Video

3. Heartwarming Slide Show

You can take your pick. Or if you're Grammie, look at all three 800 times!

First up: video, courtesy of famed videographer

Deacon.

It's not quite as daring and avant-garde as his previous effort, but it serves well to document the event. About 3 minutes.

Next: the slideshow shown at church last Sunday.

DISCLAIMER: We did not know our pictures would serve as the sole content of the slideshow, hence the seeming overemphasis on Maren.

Finally, Pictures! Some of these will be repeats if you just watched the slideshow. But for the sake of completeness (and captioning), here they are again!

Maren waits!

I'll have to ask Pastor Tim if his official Baptism Bible is waterproof.

Maren is IN! Here she is with Pastor Brian and Daddy.

Done!

We celebrated at that famed Burbank institution, Dino's Pizza!

Maren waits, contemplating the Contacts on Mommy's phone.

(It is in fact an R2-D2 Droid Phone, for all you geeks out there.)

Happy!

Daddy and Maren, dried off.

It was a great day for our faithful little Valley Girl.

Thanks again for being patient with us. Soon we'll have an epic Good Eatin' post about Derek and Brent's special-ops invasion of the new Burbank Chipotle. Check back soon!

Update IMMINENT

Good Eatin' with the AFB: Hook Burger Bistro!

We have lots of important stuff to cover, like the Royal Wedding and Maren's Baptism, but first things first:

A visit to the brand-new Hook Burger Bistro in Burbank!

Derek had the Prime Burger and enjoyed every bite. Then it was on to dessert...

A delicious Hershey Chocolate Shake.

On a scale of 1-5 caramelized onions, the AFB gives Hook Burger Bistro a 4.5!

AFB coverage of the Royal Wedding and Maren's Baptism coming soon!

MORE from Taco and Talent Night 2011

OK!

We have some catching up to do, so here we go!

Taco and Talent Night 2011. This time with tacos and more talent.

Special thanks to Molly and Grandma for being our photographers for the evening. Oh, and thanks to Deacon for the artistic videography, but we'll get to that in a minute.

Tacos!! Susie and Molly enjoy tacos with Grammie, Grandpa and Grandma (who took this pic).

There's nothing like eating stuff with a plastic fork in a sweltering school gym. As always, Susie is a good sport.

Our hosts for the evening provided high-quality shtick. Including the classic Who's On First in its entirety.

A few never-before-seen pics of The Saga Begins!

Then, it was on to Karina's Karate Kids, which included our very own Maren!

Don't mess with Maren. Really.

Deacon with his flip cam...

For your viewing pleasure, we have edited together the best of Deacon's cinematography from Maren's Karate demo.

We would like to thank Deacon for sharing his uncompromising artistic vision with the world.

He plays drums, he sings, he makes high art films - and he plays recorder! Here's Deacon's class performing Lightly Row.

The grand finale... the St. Paul's Faculty with Saturday Night!

It was funny that in our blog post about Taco and Talent Night 2009, where we made our family band debut with Yoda, I joked that next time we'd have to hire someone to run our multimedia. Turns out it was no joke - special thanks to Pierce and dad Justin, who did a great job running our slides!

Who knows what Taco and Talent Night 2013 will bring?? (Besides a cooler evening in the gym, we hope?)

We have begun negotiations with a special guest, who will remain secret until then.

Update coming soon!

Really!

BREAKING NEWS: MAREN WINS SPELLING BEE

UPDATE 8:05 PM 4/9/11: Here's a poorly edited video!

More coverage, including still pics, coming soon.

ORIGINAL POST:

Maren won the WELS regional Spelling Bee in Wildomar this morning.

The family then participated in an unrelated event: Burbank on Parade.

More coverage as soon as I rest my feet.

Taco and Talent Night 2011!

UPDATE 4:15 PM 4/3/11: Here's the video!

UPDATE 1:35 PM 4/2/11: A new wide shot.

o

We made it through our performance of Weird Al's The Saga Begins last night, and pictures are still coming in from multiple sources but I thought I'd put up a few now. o

o

o

o

o

o

Special thanks to Molly for taking these pics! Check back soon for more pics, including Maren's Karate demo and Deacon's recorder ensemble!