Factory Tour

A couple of people in our Lifegroup (small group from church) own a grout company and a bunch of us went down this week for a tour! It was so much fun to do something totally out of the ordinary, learn about an entire industry I knew nothing about, and get to see a project and a place Karen and Chris are passionate about! We got to meet employees, learn about grout chemistry, and basically see how their product is revolutionizing the industry (I'm totally serious! It's awesome!). It was also cool to see how they run the company with God at the center. It was evident in the decor, the relationships, the employees, everything. It was also great to meet some of the guys who work there who were homeless and in need of help in the recent past. Chris and Karen have an awesome ministry to those men and it was evident. It was cool to put faces to the stories. So, the moral of the story is Go Buy Some Starquartz Grout!!

The group at lunch-eating seafood on the water, who can ask for more??

This machine makes all the grout!

Some of the grout in stock-my favorite color names were dark mocha, linen, and caramel :-)

Our friend Chris is the inventor of their product-showing us how they came up with it!

Rennaissance Festival 2008

The Ren Fest has become an annual event for us. The first time I went was with Chris' family before we were even dating! That was 10 years ago! This is Ella's 3rd time and she enjoys it more each year. This time our Life Group from church decided to go together and half of them had never been so it was fun to see them experience it for the first time. We had a great day :-)


Uncle Dave, Ella, and me checking out our favorite show-Jonny Fox the sword swallower. He's SO funny and he really swallows swords (among other things). We were laughing about how he has the exact same scripted jokes every year and I still laugh! And I still cringe when the swords drop into his throat...fascinating but gross!

We had a very upclose view of the tightrope walked (close enough that he had us move when he started juggling knives up there!)

Ella "read" the map and tried to tell us which way to go

Ella loves Lauren and Marcus, the kids of a couple in our life group (even though her face doesn't show it in this picture!)

Ella also loves Karen, the leader of our small group

Ella fell in love with the baby bear statue

Chris using his juggling skills

Dave giving Chris W. a lesson

Keith and Jen looking cute :-) They have an especially adorable little baby and I can't believe I didn't get a picture of him this time!

Our Life Group! We love these guys!

And now, the highlight of the day....




Ella got to ride an elephant!

A little closer look at Chris, Ella, and Aday up on the Elephant. Because of her name, Ella has an affinity for elephants so this was quite an exciting thing :-) We really had a great time and Ella was super well-behaved (including sitting through 3 30min shows!) The fair still runs for another month or so-go check it out!