(Happy Birthday )Well today is my brother Caleb's seventeenth birthday. He and I are the closest in age of all our siblings so we have been pretty close. Its been good to have had him as an older brother for the past seventeen years.

Took the CLEP History of the US 1 this morning. I passed so thats more money saved and more credits earned. I already have over half of my credits earned for my Business administration degree. That has all been CLEP or DSST tests. The base has a testing center which is very helpful.

Well we are working at the house all day today. The Ice Cream Shop is closed on Tuesdays so thats our main day for work on the house. It is an old farmhouse that we totally gutted. Right now we are at the rough in phase. I am the plumber and the electritian which means I am doing all the work associated with both of those jobs. It is a three story house which also has a basement. We are required to follow code and get inspections. It has gone pretty well so far.

Yesteray we attended Hillary Hipps' graduation party. We had quite the drive (2.5 hours one way) but it was worth it. We were the first ones there, which is unusual for our family.:) After talking for a little while we soon set up the volleyball net and began playing. At first we were just hitting the ball back and forth with no real game structure. But we soon had enough players to start a game. We played Speed with three teams of six players. I got the front center position on my team. Matthew Miller was on my right with Esther Beasley behind him as server. Ellie Stangl was behind me and Josiah Nelson was on my left with Christopher Wattermann behind him. We played two games and our team won the second. Thanks for having us Hipps family.

It was an excellent sermon at church this morning. Pastor Nelson preached on the lives of three of the travel companions of Paul. The first was Aristarcus who stayed with Paul even in persecutions. The second was John Mark who deserted Paul but was later restored and became a close friend. The last was Justus who was only mentioned once as Pauls companion. All three were blessings to Paul. After the sermon was a fellowship meal which was very good (especially the pie). Later on in the afternoon I had a nice talk with one of the young Wattermann boys. He is an excellent conversationalist considering his age. I found him to be very knowledgable. Well I guess he is homeschooled.

I heard this quote yesterday and thought I would share it. It was used in regard to the current economic crises, but I thought it was very applicable to life in general. It's a reminder to not get bogged down focusing on past trials like the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, losing a close friend, or even our past failures. The quote is: "If you are constantly looking in the rearview mirror of your life you will end up in a wreck with you as the victim". Of course this does not include remembering past blessings. We should definately remember God's goodness to us. I am reminded of Paul's words "Forgeting those things which are behind... Looking unto Jesus... I press torward the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus, who endured the cross.

Considering a post

Well the editing work on the musical has gone pretty smoothly. I've finished editing the first scene so I'm considering posting a little preview. That would mean of course compressing it for the web. I doubt anyone could view it in it's current AVI format. But I need to know if there's any interest. Please leave a comment and let me know.

P.S. I'd like at least a half dozen people to be interested.

Well here are some pics of the musical.

SCENE 1

It's time for me to make my fortune. We agreed to share the gold together.We're living in the promised land.

SCENE 2

"We are the Minutemen ready for action"

"Be brave men."

"Lay down your arms rebels or you're all dead men. "
"If they want war let it begin here"
"We must leave our loved ones in God's hands" My dear captain are you okay?Your Father died with honor
"No Elias you can't be gone."

What is this Freedom you died for
"We hold these truths to be self evident..."
This was a fun pic done afterward.

The performances this past weekend went very well. We had two in Seward and one at the Gretna Community Church. The one at Gretna was the best as far as sound goes. I was able to get a direct feed from the sound system which was really nice. I fed it into my GL2 and then used that as the main camera. I've got all the footage dumped to my computer so now I am starting the editing. I was up until 4:30 this morning trying to get the white balance matched between the two cameras. I think I got it to pretty much where I want it although its not perfect. Pictures of the event will come soon.

Well tomorrow we will need to leave for Seward between 6:00 and 6:30am. I'm filming the dress rehersal which starts at 9:00am. Then between that and the performance at 7:00pm I'll play back the rehersal for the cast. For the filming in the evening I will be using three camcorders. I'm taking two of them and a friend of the Wissmanns is bringing the third. I will enjoy having three angles for the editing. Those of you who have done any film editing know what I'm talking about.

Today I'm replenishing the stock for the business. I just finished at Sams and now I'm at WalMart. We plan to be open on the 4th so I made sure we have plenty of stock. Griswold has a vetrans reunion next week that includes a parade down main street that goes in front of our shop. So we should be pretty busy next week. But the busier the better.

We had a blessed Lord's Day this past Sunday. We are currently attending Millard Aliance Church in Omaha, Nebraska. It is a very nice fellowship. We have been attending for the past couple of months. This past Sunday, after the service, we had a practice for the Foundations of Freedom musical. It is a July 4th performance that the Wissmann family is putting together. Quite a few of the familes at church are helping in the musical, either by acting or assisting. The Stangl family joined us this week for the practice since three of them are acting. Two of the guys are in a young mens Bible study that I attend so I had already met them but it was nice to meet some of thier family. I'm going to be filming the event and then editing the footage.