And now for something crafty, by Rachel

Being Crafty

And my big achievement was the remodeling of my old pair of jeans. Patching the holes in my jeans is a major form of entertainment on tour. I have two pairs of 'tour jeans;' one I patch with souvenir patches from where we've been (beginning with the Grand Canyon located just far enough south on the back of my leg to not generate a lot of puns), the other I patch with butterflies. Yesterday I wore two more holes into my butterfly jeans, and needed to fix them. Then I got inspired. The back pockets were literally fraying off the back of my jeans, so I tore them off completely, built new pockets from the same butterfly print material I'd purchased to bind the cuffs, then cut down the existing jeans pockets to make smaller denim pockets over the butterflies. And for my post-midnight burst of creativity, I embroidered "2 Corinthians 5:17" onto the back right pocket, and sewed my last two butterfly patches on it. (Now anyone who checks out my butt with get a dose of scripture, too.)

And since I had to hand sew the entire project, I'm surprised it turned out so well. But everything is double seamed, so it should hold up for a while. And it looks cute! So, yay!

OHHHHHH the sun came out, the very next day...

OHHHH the sun came out, the very next day...

And a good thing, too. We were beginning to feel like we hadn't left Portland after all.

Yesterday was the last in a set of three days off, but we performed twice for a Christian elementary school. Then Tasha and I shopped a bit while trying to figure out when our food order was going to arrive. We got a frantic call from our Sacramento Rep afraid that the food had already come, but the view halloo was rescinded a minute later, and we had time to grab coffee before meeting the truck.

The hobbits were at it again. They came to 'help' with the food order, but spent the main portion of their time seeing who could throw a box cutter and make it stick in the cardboard. And wrestling. And duct taping the bags of chicken they'd punctured in their impatience to 'get this over with.'

Actual hobbit conversation:
Pippin: "Dude, look how much I can lift."
(Picks up Merry, upside down)
Merry: "Put me down. You suck."
Me: "Can you guys possible hold this off until after the food order is done?"

God protect us from two 18-year-old guys who might very well decide that it would be "cool" to jump off a roof and try to hit the trash bags two stories down to break the fall... And think it's a good idea.