Winter Jam

Winter Jam is a concert tour that features several Christian singers & bands.  They all perform  in the same night & have breaks in between that feature some preaching.  The concert can last anywhere from 3 - 4 hours.  Jim was suppose to take the kids.  I had opted to stay home with the younger ones.  Jim ended up being sick and I had the "duty" of taking the kids.  I really, really was looking forward to a quiet night at home with a chance to get somethings done & get to bed early.  Instead I had to drive 40 minutes, rock it out for several hours & drive another 40 minutes home.  Sometimes "duty" can be really fun.  In the big picture getting home at midnight and only having a few hours of sleep was worth the whole concert experience.

Here is Mandy & Nina waiting for the concert to start:

John & I.  I really, really, REALLY love this picture.  It's a rare photo that when I look at it I say "my son looks EXACTLY like me!!!!"

Francesca Batistilli singing.  She is so sweet and we all LOVE her music.

I was up walking around & checking out the tables.  I had heard Jason Castro would be there.  He sang at the pre-concert, but we missed it.  I didn't make the big connection though until I saw him.  For those who don't know, he was on American Idol a few years ago.  It's one of the few AI seasons that I completely watched.  I don't remember exactly where he finished, I want to say he was in the top 5.

Anyway, from a distance, I'm like oh, there is that American Idol dude.  As I got closer though, I sort of turned into this googley eyed teenage girl.  I summoned the girls to come meet him.  I don't know who giggled more, them or me.  We had to wait in line to meet him.  He was very nice & soft spoken.  I chatted with him about his Over the Rainbow performance (look it up on youtube) which I absolutely loved.  I say it all the time....I'm easy to please.  Meeting people like this make me feel like I'm meeting the greatest celebrity on earth.  And it's fun!!


Mandy has long talked about being on American Idol when she gets old enough.  I mean that girl has her audition all planned out for the day she is old enough to go.  As he signed her shirt I told her that was as close to American Idol she is ever gonna get.  That just launched her into her speech about how she WILL be on AI someday.  (Btw, look at those dreamy handsome AMAZING eyes in his poster.  Ahhhhh, as I melt into butter).

Here are the Newsboys.  I forgot to upload the picture of when the drum set & drummer rises up on it's side and spins around.  It was pretty neat.  All of the artist were great to listen to & jam out with.  Since it's held in this huge arena with thousands of people you can dance & sing at the top of your lungs and no one thinks anything of it.

Afterwards we got more autographs.  This is the Newsboys again.

This is Sidewalk Prophets.  They are coming to Galesburg to put on a concert.  Kids are excited about that one too.

This is Chris August.  He just won the Dove award (think Grammy's, but within the Christian realm) for Best New Artist of the year.  I told him he had this Buddy Holly look going on.  It was cool.  He, along with all the artist we met, were so nice & chatty.  We all had a great night at Winter Jam & look forward to going to it again next year.