i don't know what to name this...

naming things. i find it hard to find the "right" name for something. things as small as this, all the way to our unborn child. how do you pick a name that is going to be a strong name? a name that is going to be a good name as a kid and as an adult? how do you pick a name that has all these things and still has very few ways to make fun of it?

...you stay up all night one night looking at a baby name book with some of the strangest baby names. you spend the next few days bouncing names off each other. you come up with off the wall names to make your other names sound better. you stop thinking about it awhile and it creeps into your brain again without you even realizing it. vanessa likes a few names, some i like, some i don't. i'm no help. i have no good ideas for names. soooooo, we are going nowhere fast with this name business. oh well, we have plenty of time.

so this weekend i was out doing a few shows. friday i was in helotes, tx at the john t. floore country store. saturday it was nacogdoches doing our red dirt roundup, or at least the first of our two red dirt roundup shows. the next one is in fort worth on the 31st.... rain. its always rain. we have figured it out and it has rained every day that we have had a show since june 27th. thats right, june 27th. even if we played inddoors or outdoors. outdoors is obviously a problem, but even when we have played indoors it has rained on us during load-in or load-out. wet, muddy, cold. sick of rain.

helotes wasn't too bad. it rained for awhile in the afternoon. we got through all the soundchecks and setting up without having to go out of our wayy to stay dry. the first act, a girl named stephanie briggs and her husband matt, took the stage. good show. they play with us quite a bit when in the texas area. next was micky and the motorcars. they are out in support of their new album, naive. set change goes off without a hitch. then we start. we have been joking on the bus that we should play drought relief shows. i put in my two cents and said we should go play in california and put out the wildfires. we would be heros! you guessed it...it rained. fortunately it wasn't enough for us to have to stop the show, but people got pretty wet. thirty or forty minutes of rain is enough to continue our streak. well, load out was dry and quick. we had a relaxing night and headed to nacogdoches.

with a relatively early load in, nine in the morning, we started our day. our long day. with a production company that didn't care, and a hot, muggy, slow day...it was a looong day. the local production company who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, sucked. the lighting guy, and i use that term very loosely, had no clue. he made his little assistant do everything. hell, his assistant knew more than he did. anyways, the sound guys didn't check on brian or mccoy, our sound guys. the lighting guys didn't check on me. its pretty much a standard that if the touring tech doesn't specifically ask you to stay by him during the show that you at least check in during the show three or four times. i'm kind of ranting, i know....so yeah, the production company sucked. it started raining about thirty minutes before the end of randy rogers show. the lightining was too close to be standing on a stage made of metal, with a bunch of copper wires laying around. i have to give the city of nacogdoches some respect. they had the sense to evacuate the park. sent every body away. after about thirty minutes of waiting out the rain and lightining, they opened the gates back up and the masses came running in. we put on a show, people had a great night, the guys played a great show.

sunday was our breast cancer benefit show in san marcos, tx. my wizz-ardry was not needed that night, but i have heard nothing but good about that night. you can check out some pictures of the show and learn more about the benefit at www.myspace.com/rdr3day . vanessa and twenty or so more girls are going to san diego to do a three day, sixty mile walk for the susan g. komen foundation. it's all for research and treatment of breast cancer. my girl will be twenty-three weeks along by then. that's right, i have a badass for a wife. a little over half way through the nine months of carrying our child, she will walk twenty miles every day, for three days. go donate some money or something! what are you doing sitting there reading this boring blog?! go donate! theeeeeen come back and finish reading this.

...good to see you came back.

since i wasn't needed at the benefit show, i took advantage of being right down the road from home and spent the evening with my girls. madison was excited about having her first day of first grade the next morning. we spent the evening having a sit down dinner. mimi was in town, so she was staying at our house. it was quite the to-do.

eventhough madison had her real "first day of school" last year when she started kindergarten, it still seemed just as special. she seems really excited this year about learning and knowing cool things. i think she is really going to like this year of school. we took her to school today and picked her up, but tomorrow she starts riding the bus. her idea! she thinks it will be great. tomorrow's the big experiment!!! we met her teacher last thursday at open school night. her name is Miss Vandelden. don't worry, she let's the kids call her Miss V. madison seems to really like her already. here are some pictures of this morning before we took her to school.

mimi went and ate lunch with madison. after that, mimi came back to the house, picked up makenna, and headed back to the farm. i think madison is already enjoying having a little alone time with me and vanessa. right now she's sitting on the couch right next to me, eating her macaroni and cheese with bits of fried spam, watching a little television "just like mommy and daddy do".

well, it has been a hell of a summer and things finally feel like they are falling into place as far as having our little family back on somewhat of a schedule. madison being in school, vanessa being pregnant...i think things are going to slow down for a while around here. i'm gone the whole month of september, so that will give the girls time to adjust to being back home and in the swing of things.

there it is. the last three or four days of my point of view from the road and home with our little family...

one week at home. i'll probably post something again towards the end of the week unless something comes up before then....

oh yeah, and as far as boy names, wich do you guys like better.....willard phoenix cash kendall or willard silas kendall?