A few cell phone pics and a quick highlights video from my weekend with family and friends at Hills Alive 2009.

I’ve always tried to volunteer and serve in some shape or form at the annual festival – especially since it’s “gone free”.  But, this year I ended up getting to bus around one of my favorite rock bands, Skillet, and their crew.  This, of course, was more of a treat than a task, but hopefully served well.  I don’t want to give away details for the band’s sake, but here’s a pic I snapped of some of the tech guys up at Mount Rushmore.  Fun times! (click pics for full view)…

Of course, if you know me, I was following all the tweets this weekend through a Tweetdeck stream I had set up to follow the #HillsAlive hashtag and any tweets containing “Hills Alive”.  The stream never stopped moving all weekend long.  Wow!  Here’s what it looked like on my desktop…

Duckman seen walking the festival grounds on Saturday afternoon…

This is the view from where our family landed the chairs on Saturday…

The Afters played a great set — very impressed with their live sound…

Kutless rocked out, warming up the stage just before Skillet…

Who is this eating a fudge bar and the remains of a chocolate cream pie at the Shoup after-party back at the house?  Any guesses?

Sunday early afternoon — after church — was spent out in Summerset with family.  We had hamburgers off the grill — YUM!  We went into town and hit the festival at about 3:30 pm.  I went directly to a special youth workers meet-up / Q&A time with Casting Crowns.  Here’s a pic of the band chatting and taking pics with area leaders…

Clouds loomed and rain threatened Sunday afternoon crowds, but never really came in full force…

Sunday evening was more of a family night.  I stayed back in the chairs and watched the girls play…

Kella attacks with balloon sword in hand…

Long, but fast-moving lines extended from both sides of the porta-potties…

And finally, here’s a recap video from the whole weekend…

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