Our family has been involved with a local theater group for many years now. In fact the only two members of our family that has not performed with the STARS Community Group are Brandon, and Lacy the wonder dog, but you never know what the future may bring.

Let see if I can remember some of the performances that we have been part of; Jamie and I were Ken & Barbie one year, Kathryn was in a murder mystery play about a cruse ship, then we joined her in Anne of Green Gables, she was also in the Wizard of Oz . (It’s great that I have a wife that loves to blog, I can find all the plays we have been in by searching her blog. Hey, that might be another blog post for me one day)

Jamie was Truvy in Steel Magnolias, Lindsey played Aunt Fern and I made an appearance as Spud.

This week is no different. Lindsey and I both have parts in the Snow White and the Two Princes performance tomorrow and Saturday.

I also started providing the head shots and poster for each of the plays. Above is the poster for this weekends performance. I’m thankful to be part of the group and be able to provide the photograph for them.

Our life can feel very busy at times. There are many distractions around every corner. Text and email don’t have a closing time, and with cell phones having the ability to receive both, the world expects us to be accessible at anytime of day. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying the technology is bad.  I’m a geeky kind-a guy and love gadgets, and if someone tries to steal my iPhone they will be flogged, but if I’m not careful technology will take over my life.

I don’t want to be available twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, but if I’m not careful it could very easily happen. It’s just to easy get drawn into those smart shinny little handheld devices that connect me to the world. After all, that text or email that just came in give me a little look into what the person on the other is doing. And even though I really don’t care that the person sending the text slipped on the slimy top from the Spam can that fell off the counter while making their Spam and cheese sandwich for dinner, and then as they were crashing to the floor they flung their sandwich across the room smacking their cat in the face with it. It would be rude not to respond with at least a “LOL :)”. (If you don’t what what LOL is, then you probably don’t have the problem of technology-interruptish.)

To help control technology-interruptish in our house we have a couple of hours of technology free family time when everyone is home. We log off the computer and place our cell phones in a basket. Then we play games or, as seen in the photograph below, do word finds and crossword puzzles. The only exception using technology is when we watch a movie. I even got a little reprimanded last night from my daughters for making this photo.

I’m very thankful for family time.

Welcome to post number two of Thankful Thursday.

There are many thing for which we should be thankful and I hope that by doing these post it will allow you to start seeing some of them in your life. Remember to be thankful not matter where we are or what the situation. This week I’m thankful for the country I live in, the United States of America.

I know there are many places in the world that are awesome and I love to travel and see some of them. There are also places that are very strict and lack the freedom we have here in the USA.

And with tomorrow being Veterans Day, I would also like to thank all those who have serviced to keep America free.