HappyFunTime's Blog

In the Ari-"Zone"-a

As our Grand Canyon Tour draws to a close, we wish to hit upon some highlights of the last week...

On our way down to Phoenix we stopped by the Grand Canyon. We didn't self-title this tour "Grand Canyon Tour" for nothing. While there, we took a little hike down the historic Bright Angel Trail. As you can see in the picture, we encountered some pack mules on the trail. These mules were hard working, friendly and interesting to watch. They were not, however, pleasant to smell. But then, who is? After a total of six miles and 3,000 vertical feet, we were ready to head out and get some shut eye. Let us just say that words can not describe how awesome and majestic this place is. If you ever get the opportunity to check it out, do it! And let us know...we would like to go back.

Over the weekend, DJ Hiro joined us and we did a little more sight seeing in the area. We visited Sedona and Slide Rock State Park. In the words of the good DJ himself, "I love it, love it, love it, love it, love it, love it!!!!!" Yes, fun was had.

On Sunday we brought our crazy little side show to the wonderful people of Community Church of Joy. We had a rockin' time there, doing improv in each morning service, the youth service and then an evening show follwed by ice cream social. A huge thanks to Pastor Paul, "Woody," and Patrick for making everything flow well throughout the day. A super great big huge time thanks to Jon Burgess for setting the whole thing up and being a major supporter of HFT and especially for hanging out with us. Man, people are nice!

We spent the bulk of this past week meeting together to discuss the operations and direction of HFT. The good news: We have set a goal to have a sketch show up and running within a year. The bad news: We still have no plans at this point to do a show in Singapore. Maybe next year.

This morning (Thursday) we went back to Community Church of Joy and did a short set for their school chapel service. As we expected, this was a fun and receptive crowd of students. They must have a good thing going on over there.

Tomorrow we head off to Faith Lutheran in Albuquerque, NM for a show and the make a 24 hour drive back to Minneapolis for a show Sunday morning at Venture Church. Please pray for us as we drive through the night and day. It is a long drive, not to mention very boring...

Hope to laugh with you soon!

--Wes, Nica, Nate and Mike

Rocky Mountain Hi!

Greetings from Colorado! As we get ready to head southward on the next leg of our Grand Canyon Tour, we want to give you an update on our time spent in Colorado.

Friday night (9/17) we drove into the mountains to Hermit Basin Conference Center to do a show for the Village X ministry of Village 7 Church. Fun show, equally fun people. That night Wes and Nica scooted back to Denver to join up with the Fitz Family for their annual board meetings. Nate and I (Mike) had the pleasure of staying back and hanging out with the folks at the retreat. It was here that we met Craig Dunham, the speaker for the retreat. Craig is a great guy who works for The Navigators at Glen Eyrie and has co-authored the book, "Twenty Someone".

On Sunday (9/19), HFT was re-united in Colorado Springs. Tears were shed. fellings were felt. Ice cream was eaten. We rose early Monday morning (9/20) to do a show for the staff of Focus on the Family. We spent the rest of the morning meeting the nice people there. We even got to take a tour of the FOTF headquarters. This picture is of the sudio where Dr. Dobson does his broadcasts. We tried our best to reinact one of these broadcasts. Maybe you'll hear it some day on the radio...but then again, maybe not.

Then it was off to Colorado Springs Christian School where we did an appearance for their 8th grade drama class. We met some very motivated, talented and ultra-energetic students there.

As if Monday wasn't chock full o' goodness already, we took some time that afternoon to head over to Glen Eyrie. "The Glen", as it is affectionately known, is the conference center owned and operated by The Navigators. We met up with Craig there and received the grand tour of the place. This place was unbelievably beautiful. We hope to come back someday.

WARNING! SHAMELESS PLUG: The Navigators holds a variety of conferences each year at Glen Eyrie that we think you should consider. Coming up are their Twenty Someone and Blue Like Jazz conferences. Thank you.

Last night and today we've been hanging out with Rich Melheim and will take off for a stay in Albuquerque tonight. Then we're off to Phoenix for a show at Community Church of Joy on Sunday (9/26). Check back for more updates from the road and make sure to swing by each of personal blogs too! Until next time...

--Wes, Nica, Nate and Mike
HappyFunTime.

HFT @ NWC Fall Fling!

For those of you in the Twin Cities and surrounding area, this is a reminder that we will be bringing our show to Northwestern College this Wednesday, September 15th. We are performing and speaking as a part of the annual Fabulous Fall Fling, a free event hosted by the college for students 7-12th grade and their leaders. (If you don't happen to fit that description, you can still come...)

The event starts at 6:30PM but come early get good seats. Elizabeth Hunnicutt will open the evening with music and HFT will follow. The event will be done by 8:30PM.

Click here for more information.

See you there!

Now and Then

This past Saturday, September 11th we had the opportunity to do a show at Nowthen Alliance Church in Nowthen, MN. We had a great time performing as a part of their annual Family Fun Festival.

One highlight involved our "Story" entitled, Daren's 2nd Worst Day. We had done a "Day in the Life" about Daren's worst day a year ago at Nowthen and this time gave us the opportunity to create a fictional sequel. Daren, if you're reading this, thank you for being a good sport and never take a job in fast food.

Another highlight was the sun. (Pun intended) The sun was directly behind us as we performed which made for two interesting situations: First, those that watched the whole show need retinal surgery. Second, never before has a musical about Eskimos involved so much sweat.

Spanning the Globe...

After performing another fun, crazy show for the folks at Covenant Pines Bible Camp, we "performed a pop inspection" of their kitchen. Basically we ate their food really late at night. But it was a nice, clean, food-filled kitchen. Then we headed out to Wisconsin...again...

This time we were at the Salvation Army's Central District Music Institute. Despite suffering through DJ Hiro's narcolepsy, we had a lot of fun.

Then we headed north, still in Wisconsin, to Milwaukee. Wowfest made most of us say, "Wow." Nica, however, said, "Fest!" We're not sure why. But it was a fun, fun, fun show.

Then we were off to Michigan...also again...

Did you realize that Michigan has TWO Great Lakes? That's just selfish, honestly. I mean, places like Nebraska don't even get one Fairly Descent Lake. Come on.

Editor's Note: I've been informed that there are actually FOUR Great Lakes touching Michigan soil. Who knew? The question is: Which Great Lake is not connected to Michigan?

(Keep reading to find out more about our crazy trip and future insanity...)

We started our Michigan fun in Monroe, MI at Trinity Lutheran Church's "Celebration Picnic Hoo-Ha at the Fairgrounds" Celebration. I'm, of course, making that name up. But that's pretty much what it was. We were excited to see a lot of hard-core HFT fans already wearing HFT gear. Bless their hearts.

Mad props to Bob Huntoon for setting everything up in the tent and running the sound for us. Bob, a professional electrician by trade, taught us all something that day; you cannot run a mic cable through a puddle of water and expect impressive results from the microphone on the other end of said cable. Thanks, Bob. We owe you one. Our show went off without a hitch, though, thanks to Bob's excellent work.

We also got to see our good friend, Pastor Jeff Walsh. He's a great guy and they sure seem to dig him at Trinity. We can hardly blame them. Pastor Walsh was nice enough to hang out with us even though it was, in his words, "..my wife's anniversary today." I'm not sure what sort of issues they're working through, but let's keep them in our prayers, huh?

The other huge event in his life going on that same day...he was taking his daughter Rachel to college.

...Another prayer request for the Walsh family...let's not forget to pray for Sarah Walsh. She was really feeling a strong calling to camping ministry but now really seems to be leaning towards some sort of college ministry path.

After that, we were off to one of our favorite places on earth, Camp Arcadia. We performed for a group of rambunctious seniors who were there for the Lutherhostile week. Then we stuck around and did one more show for the folks that came up for Labor Day weekend. They were a lot of fun, too. I think that everyone at Camp Arcadia is always thinking somewhere in the back of their brains, "I can't believe I'm here right now! This is awesome!" That makes our job as hilari-ticians a lot easier, honestly. That's nice.

We're here in Minneapolis for a couple of weeks doing local shows, including one at our Alma Matter.

Then we're off to Colorado to perform at a singles retreat and also do a chapel service at Focus on the Family. Then we're going to Community Church of Joy in Arizona and Faith Lutheran in New Mexico. I've been to the Old Mexico, so I'm really excited about seeing the new one, to see how they've improved on what seemed to me to be a pretty good Mexico in the first place.

...Stay tuned for more information about our Traveling Monkey Show...