notes on life, etc.

Rukia

2011-02-23T14:00:00.001-06:00

[Sharifa (Rukia's mother) - Rukia - Me - Keith - posed just outside their home in Kibera (their home is the turquoise painted wall...the front door is just out of the photo on the left)]

Yesterday I got to once again spend time with the most beautiful teenage girl I know. Our team headed to a project on the outskirts of the Kibera slum, the largest slum in East Africa, and the home to my sponsor child, Rukia. We listened to a program about how the project directors run the program. We took tea. I met the mother of my mother's sponsor child Issac. I met my friend Sunny's sponsor child, Joseph Maina. And then I went to Rukia's house.

Keith had already visited her home in May of 2009 on another trip and I'd seen some photos of the walk through Kibera. But you can't prepare yourself for the crowds, the smells, and the narrow bee-hive-like pathways until you walk them yourself. Our little group consisting of me, Rukia, Keith, Nick, Triss, Stella, Tony and a project worker walked through the bustle of the main road and then ducked through a nearly invisible tin "gate" then walked through narrow alley after narrow alley...I wondered how many years it had taken Rukia as a child to learn her way through this network of passages on her own...and then we turned a corner into a quiet nook and saw her mother dressed in a beautiful traditional purple gown waiting for us.

We all crammed inside their tiny house...Rukia's mother Sharifa had obviously cleaned for the occasion. Although she has a one room place in the slum, it hasn't stifled her decorating taste...lace curtains across the window, a lace curtain dividing the single room in to half...a lace doily on the small end table on which she'd displayed the framed picture of Keith and I that I'd sent with him as a gift in 2009. Stella, one of our Compassion graduates, jumped right in as translator and we spoke with Sharifa about Rukia, about the rest of the family (10 of them live in this one room), about how happy she was that we had come so far to visit, about what she wanted us to remember in prayer.

She said that since Rukia joined Compassion that she has become much more obedient as a daughter, has begun to take on responsibilities helping to care for the two young nieces that Sharifa is raising after her daughter-in-law passed away, that her entire character and attitude has improved, and that she does not act like the other children in the slum. Rukia's birthday is today, so I gave her a necklace to celebrate (she's 14 now!) and we sang "Happy Birthday" which has about 5 verses in Africa. :) We prayed. We laughed. I almost cried on any number of occasions. At one point I asked a question and Stella translated Sharifa's brief answer: "She is just so very overwhelmed at it all."

Leaving them there was so difficult. Sharifa has been there, in that very house, for 15 years...and for the past 12 has been a single parent since her husband died in a traffic accident. But their hope gave me encouragement. Sharifa hopes that her older daughter would be able to go to University. That Rukia would realize her dreams of being a doctor. She told Keith and me that she was so happy for our marriage and wished us many blessings. Somehow...in that uncertain environment, they were happy and hopeful. And I am happy and hopeful. Happy that this beautiful family has become a part of our family, and hopeful that Rukia will be yet another triumph in breaking the cycle of poverty.

[Just another angle of the photo from the top.]

Masai Country

2011-02-22T23:07:00.000-06:00

So it's actually Wednesday morning here in Nairobi, but I'm going to ask you to step back in time with me to Monday afternoon when we visited the Masai lands. I'm just going to give you a brief overview and then post pictures for you to enjoy as I think that's the best way to communicate this beautiful culture. I think the thing that struck me the most was the disproportionate amount of work the mother does. Throughout the day they kept telling us all the chores the mother has to do (which we did for her the day we visited! What a learning experience). She washes the dishes, cooks the food, she builds the very house that the family lives in, she fetches the water, she collects firewood (which is really cow dung), she raises the children, she collects and burns any litter that might be around the grounds of the family compound. She milks the livestock. From what we could tell, the only tasks the men do are keep the cow pen clean of dung and stand out in the fields and watch the goats, cows and sheep graze. Momma has an awful lot of work to do! We spent a morning helping the family with their chores and then ate lunch and watched a program where the women and children sang for us and put on a drama depicting a Masai wedding ceremony. The landscape was so beautiful that I think it was difficult for me to remember that this was just another face of poverty, albeit a picturesque one. When we helped fetch the water, it was approximately a 3 mile round trip walk, half of that carrying heavy jugs of water. They said that the women sometimes make that trip 2 or even 3 times a day depending on the needs of the family. And while to us Americans it seemed like such a beautiful and simple way of life, we were reminded that theirs is a difficult cycle to break. Most of the children will grow up and remain in the community without opportunity to attend University or pursue other dreams. It was encouraging to see the work of Compassion in this community and the faith of the Masai!

[Our group arrives at a Masai home for our home visit.]

[Stella, a Compassion LDP student and Compassion graduate, laughs as they show me how to carry water!]

[I found this to be a much more suitable water carrying method. :) ]

[Unlike the Masai men, Keith was happy to help out when I got tired of carrying water. I taught him everything I knew about water carrying technique. haha.]

[The patriarch of the Masai family we visited shows Keith the best way to shovel cow dung. Apparently it's quite an art.]

[Our home visit team (me, Keith, Nick, Amy, Stella, and Boniface) with the Masai family whose home compound we visited as well as the pastor of the church and a Compassion project worker.]

[Some of the mothers of Compassion children sang songs for us in their brightly colored garb.]

[I believe these ladies were the church choir, but there seemed to be a good deal of overlap.]

[At the end of the day, we divided into teams of two and each planted a tree outside the Compassion Project office to commemorate our visit. I hope to return to see a tall tree in that spot one day!]

Maina

2011-02-22T09:04:00.000-06:00

So I'm about to get things a little out of order....but hang with me. I've still not blogged about yesterday which was our visit to Masai country...but I just had to blog about Maina quickly. Maina is sponsored by a good friend of ours, so we had requested to meet him and had brought a gift for him from his sponsor. Unfortunately poor Maina met the front of a Nissan last Thursday on his way home from school and ended up with a terrible scrape across his forehead. Thankfully, there were no other injuries except the obvious of what you can see, and he seems to be bouncing back quite nicely. Keith took this video today right after we gave him his backpack. If his giggle doesn't make your day, I'd venture to say you don't have a soul.

Safari Walk with our kids!

2011-02-21T12:49:00.001-06:00

So since I'm a day behind now due to the exhaustion that set in last night....It's Monday evening here in Nairobi, but I'm going to be blogging about our Sunday. I'll try to write another post tomorrow morning to get us back on track....so be sure to check back either LATE Monday evening (CST) or early Tuesday morning (CST)! Or else, you'll just have multiple entries to read at once which is perfectly OK too. :)

[The team on the bus headed to church and then to the Safari Walk on Sunday morning!!]

We started out Sunday morning by attending Nairobi Pentecostal Church - Woodley. I was surprised at how "Western" the service was...the entire thing was in English and after the third Michael W. Smith song, I'd about forgotten that I was in Africa at all! (I filled out the visitor card and this afternoon received a lovely email from the outreach team inviting me to please visit anytime I happen to be in Nairobi! Love it!) Post-church-service lunch was spent at Nairobi Java House which is sort of a cross between a Starbucks and a sandwich joint....well, and I had quesadillas while another guy had chicken curry.....so I'm not sure how to classify it.

Of course what we'd REALLY all been waiting for was time with our sponsored children. We all drove to the "Safari Walk" just outside the city which is truly one of the best zoos I've ever been to (and I've been to the Memphis, Ft. Worth and San Diego zoos...so, you know....I've seen a few...haha.) All the animals are African animals and the habitat is completely natural. The bilingual Swahili/English signs are really informational and you walk on a boardwalk through the whole thing which makes you really feel like you're walking through the animals' natural habitats. Keith and I had arranged for his sponsor boy, Tony from Dandora, my little girl Rukia from Kibera and my mother's sponsor child, Issac...also from Rukia's project in Kibera to meet us there. It's truly an amazing thing when a child who up until that moment has just been a face in a photo, a name on a letter and a $38 withdrawal on your credit card every month comes running at you with a smiling face and a hug the strength of a vice grip, and you realize that this "good thing" you think you're doing is far beyond that. It's a relationship...and it's changing the nature of that child's very existence.

[Our Compassion "family" inside the Safari Walk park. Issac wasn't so sure about all the group photo taking!!]

Keith has sponsored Tony for almost 6 years now and has met him several times, but was amazed at how tall he has grown in the year and half since they last saw each other! Tony is an incredibly kind, good-natured (tall!) and gentle 14 year old who is at the top of his class. They enjoyed catching up and talking about Tony's family and how well Tony is doing in school! He wants to be a doctor and he is in the top few students of his class!

[Tony and Keith. I think next time we see him, Tony will totally be taller than Keith!!]

I've sponsored Rukia since the spring of 2009. Keith got to meet her shortly after I began to sponsor her, so I've been blessed with many pictures and a few videos from that trip, but was thrilled to finally get to meet her for myself. She stuck to me (literally...she wouldn't let me further than a few inches away from her) like glue and seemed as equally really-excited-but-not-sure-what-to-do-with-her-emotions as I was. We talked a good bit (English is her best subject) and giggled even more. I get to visit her home tomorrow and I am so excited to see her again. When I asked her what her favorite sport was, she replied "futball" (soccer). When asked if she owned a "futball" she replied, no....but that she'd much rather have a bicycle. :) At least she's honest.

[Rukia was super sassy stylish in her beaded sandals she bought with extra money I'd sent her family as a gift.]

When my mom wanted to sponsor a child, I was excited to find one in the same project as Rukia! Issac is super smart, but was really quiet all day. It wasn't until we were giving them their gifts that I found out that part of why he'd been so quiet was that he was disappointed when I showed up instead of my Mom...who sponsors him!!! He dreams of being an engineer when he grows up. There were several university students with us who had been Compassion children growing up, and one of them took a few minutes to really encourage him to work hard in his studies so that he can go to University and achieve his dreams. He seemed to really take her words to heart and she promised to go visit him and talk to him some more about his future which was awesome! I really hope my Mom gets to meet him one day!!!

[Issac and I after a long day of animal spotting and gift opening!]

There is so much more that went on with the kids and in my thoughts....but that's all I've got for tonight! Please continue to pray for our trip!

Jonathan & Ryan's points of view

2011-02-20T20:46:00.003-06:00

Hey guys....because I didn't get a chance to blog yesterday, I'll link you up with Jonathan Whitt...a guy who did get to write about meeting his little girl, Martha (he's also got another post or two about our trip). Very cool stuff. http://www.oldtokens.com/

I'd also recommend checking out Ryan's blog as well. I've got some great trip mates!

http://heytherejohnryan.blogspot.com/

Blog Links

2011-02-19T22:21:00.001-06:00

To give you a little background on this trip, Keith is the trip leader from Compassion International and the group with us consists completely of employees of a fantastic Birmingham-Alabama-based ministry called Student Life that runs summer camps for teenagers. Student Life is a ministry partner of Compassion and they promote the work of Compassion at their camps in effort to find new sponsors to sponsor children in the Compassion program. The group with us are some dynamic folks...all with a passion for the Lord, social justice, and a world view that understands that when Christ said we are to take care of the poor, that he meant all of them....no matter their geographical location.

That being said, I thought I'd link you up to the blogs of some of my trip-mates as I know we'll all see things differently, we'll each remember things that the other forgot, and in some cases...we'll even be in different places such as home visits where they will document things I wasn't even present for. So this first blog I'll post is from a guy named Bo. You can read his blog at http://bobe85.wordpress.com/
Check it out. It's great! More will follow.

Mathare Valley

2011-02-19T11:50:00.000-06:00

This is the view out of my hotel room window!!!

Well, I'm exhausted (and a little sunburnt) but absolutely in love with the Kenyan people! We did our first project visit this morning to the Mathare slum which is the second largest slum, population wise, in Kenya. (Kibera is in first place). We had an amazing time at the project this morning. The project director spoke and gave us some information on the area and then a few children gave various performances. When it was time for the children to perform, a kid named Nelson was put in charge of being the emcee and this kid was hilarious! He totally could have been a circus ringmaster, or we decided that he will some day host a Kenyan late-night talk show (ala David Letterman). First, a boy sang, then another boy recited scripture verses and then a small choir came and sang a few more songs. Then Nelson asked for our group to perform so I got the opportunity to do play a song on the violin (which was really cool because almost none of the kids and most of the project workers had never seen one in real life) and then our entire group got up and sang Amazing Grace together. After the assembly ended, we were served tea and broken up in to groups where we observed the classes that the children participate in on Saturdays. Keith and another boy and I sat in on a "cognitive" class for 12-14 year olds where the topic of the day was how to make a good decision. The teacher, Kelvin, was a really dynamic young guy. Those kids are blessed to have his instruction and example.

[The kids sounded great singing for us!!!]

After class time, we broke into three groups and did home visits. Keith and I, along with several others in our team, visited the home of Ann, a 17 year old girl who lives in the thick of the Mathare valley. We aren't sure where her parents are, but she lives with her older brother and his wife Tabitha, her younger sister, and Tabitha and her brothers three children who are 11, 9, 7, and 1. Ann and Tabitha were both very shy, but were excited to have us visit their home. Ann loves to sing and said she dreams of being a pilot someday. She is in class 8, which is the last year of primary school and is about to begin her four years of high-school. She won my heart a bit. The trip to their home required a long walk through narrow passages filled with wet stinky sewage and then across a bridge over a river. The views from the bridge were incredible, but unfortunately there was also an illegal brewery operating in plain view and our country staff advised us that it was not safe to take photos in that area. Even though I've been to that place, and walked the alleys, it still seems surreal that people actually live there and that it wasn't a movie set. I think it will take me a while to process what I saw and smelled. I've spent the day thinking through lots of things that I won't blog right now....and may never blog about.

[Entering the Mathare Slum...you can see that it stretches on for a while. We walked a good ways before we got to Ann's home]

[Ann's sister-in-law, Tabitha, holds her 1 year old boy in the home she and her husband share with his two sisters and their own four children. The baby didn't know what to think of me.]

[Ann and I on the grounds of her school which we visited on the way home from her house]

[Keith and I loved meeting this boy, John, who was as hilarious as he was smart. ]

After the home visits we got to serve lunch to the children at the project. I was thrilled to be stationed behind a large bag of chipati to hand out! (Chipati is a thin, soft bread, sort of like a thick tortilla or pita bread, or the naan that is served with Indian food.) It was hard not to eat it all myself! It's one of my favorite foods! Then we ate lunch at the project and luckily, there was a whole stack of chipati for us too, so I might have eaten 3 of them! We also had beef and mashed potatoes and rice. It was all delicious.

[Serving one of the Compassion students a piece of chipati. Mmm Mmm, Good!!]

After returning to the hotel, (and having an hour to take showers!!!) we all ate a lovely dinner in the hotel restaurant, and then we all went our separate ways, and Keith and I were happy to be able to return to our rooms at 8:00pm! It will be lovely to get a good nights sleep before tomorrow's activities! I am so excited because tomorrow I'll get to meet Rukia, my sponsor child!!! Be sure to check back as I know I'll have lots to say tomorrow night. :)

Blessings, from Kenya

If its Monday....it must be Arkansas......

2009-12-01T00:11:00.004-06:00

The auditorium....before the audience arrived! What a great venue!

David and the rest of the band rehearsing for the show!

Whew. So I’ve clearly (again) fallen behind on my writing. So much has happened since my last entry that there is no way I could possibly try to catch up in detail….so I’ll give you a brief overview:

July/August: Spent a fabulous month at the JH Ranch serving in the worship band as well as on the high ropes courses. It was an amazing time again to see so many lives radically changed, including my own (again!) and to spend time with friends new and old and get in some good ole fashioned camping and such!

September: Got to spend a wonderful week in Colorado with my dear friend Mary-Hall and her husband August (the man, not the month). Keith was out there as well for some meetings the first part of the week so we got to explore Rocky Mountain National Park, the first snow of the year on Pikes’ Peak and take a tour of Compassion (Keith’s company) Headquarters.

October: lead worship at a few wonderful Outback America events……but most notably, KEITH AND I GOT ENGAGED ON OCTOBER 11 on a Ronnie gig in Asheville, North Carolina. He took me to the Overlook at The Cove, the Billy Graham training facility and got down on one knee. It was the most perfect proposal that I can imagine. For the entire story, check out our wedding website here.

November: In the midst of lots of wedding planning and traveling, I started a Fall/Christmas tour with Christian singer David Phelps. It’s a great gig….lots of nice people…but whew! Learning all the music is quite a challenge! Keith and I were also blessed to get to spend an entire week in North and South Carolina visiting his entire family for Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful visit and I got to meet (amidst a gaggle of aunts, uncles and cousins) Keith’s Grandmother, Dad, Step mom Dreama, and older brother Brian, the 4 members of his family I hadn’t gotten to meet yet. They were wonderful and it’s at Dreama’s request that I’ve decided to return to my blog once again. You can thank her, or blame her, however you want to look at it. ;)

And I guess that brings you up to snuff on my life, in short, over the past few months. At present, I’m sitting on stage at a church in Texarkana, Arkansas in the middle of sound check (It’s taken me about 4 hours to write this blog installment because I keep having to stop and work. Haha.) for our second Christmas show of the tour. We kicked it off last night at “The Pentecostals of Alexandria” in Louisiana and are excited about another great show tonight. Christmas is such a fun time of year for me because it’s really the only time of year that I get to sing anymore…and while background vocal parts are always a challenge, it’s fun to dust off my vocal chords and give it a whirl. Speaking of….I think I’m needed onstage again. J Keep checking back…it’s going to be a busy December and I’ll be blogging along the way. Merry Christmas!

Hellooooooooo,Sacramento!

2009-07-12T17:03:00.004-05:00

So I don't have much time to post, because my friend Kim and a few other Ranch staffers are on their way to pick me up (with In and Out burger for me to go...might I add) ...but thought I'd let you all know that I've arrived in Sacramento! Thus begins a 4 hour trek to the Ranch! I'm so excited to be here! I'll have an update with more news soon....but for now I wanted to let everyone know I'd arrived....and to remind you to check back!
Blessings!

I mean...I'm here for a month! Cut me some slack! :)

blogging in the baggage claim. I'm a girl on the go!

"Let's Go to the Movies" :The sequel

2009-07-10T23:35:00.004-05:00

So today I'm packing like a madwoman trying to figure out how to get everything I'll need for an entire month (including bedding) into two suitcases. However, since I've been on a blogging roll as of late, and I'd hate to break my streak now...I figured I'd post something for your viewing pleasure to amuse you until my first California post which will be sometime either Sunday night but more likely Monday.

Here is Episode Two of Emily's golf cart tourism future. In this episode we learn about the various trees that inhabit the woods. I'm not sure what happened to the British accent she was using on the previous day, but this video contains some sort of funny voice, although I can't quite determine what sort of voice/accent it is. :) Hope you enjoy this peek into our 4th of July with two of my favorite girls!

Watch out for that tree, Uncle Keith!!!

Rollin' on the River.

2009-07-10T10:57:00.011-05:00

For those of you (my parents) who have actually followed our entire vacation via my blog and thus are eagerly awaiting the exciting conclusion..my apologies that it's Friday and I'm just now getting around to putting up Wednesday's post. But to be honest...I've been completely exhausted and this is the first second I've gotten to just sit down and type. So...without further ado....

Since Keith and I decided we needed one more day of vacation, we drove back to Columbia Wednesday morning to go tube the Saluda River. Keith found Palmetto Outdoors through Google, made a reservation, invited his brother Mark, and off we went. Well...sort of. The story is a tad more complicated and amusing than that. When we arrived in Columbia at 1 pm (we'd called on the way and made a 4pm reservation for 3) it was overcast. Nay, thundering and stormy. We were pretty determined that we wanted to tube the river, but Keith (and I really...if I'm going to be honest) was worried that tubing a river during a thunder and lightning storm wouldn't be the best idea. Especially since we've seen all too recently what lightning can do. So we called the tubing comany. No, they said, they didn't think there were any storms on the radar. We'd be fine to tube at 4. We called Mark. Mark claimed that he and their other brother Brian had tubed the river in the rain plenty of times. ("In fact, most of the times we've gone tubing it rains. Once we had thunder and lightning but we just climbed out of the water onto some rocks. We'll be fine.") Keith and I, not entirely convinced this was safe, but both too excited about tubing to cancel unless forced, decide to forge ahead with our plans. At the tubing office we are greeted by the most thorough, professional teenage boy either of us had ever met who laid out the 3 rules of the company:
1. Always stay in your tube.
2. Always point your feet downstream.
3. Never stand up in whitewater.
We fill out waivers and surrender Keith's drivers' licence as collateral. (He asked if Keith was the "group leader" and then continued to refer to him as such...much to our amusement. What did we look like...a youth group?) It's 3:30. He tells us the shuttle will meet us at the parking lot where we leave our car at 3:45. We go straight to the parking lot. Mark meets us 5 minutes later. It's now sprinkling. We wait. The shuttle shows up at 4:02. It's a small bus...the type used by most churches. We climb on board to find that half the bus is filled with kayaks and tubes. The professional teenager is behind the wheel and assures us he's "driven a motor home before." 3 other teenage employees (one of whom shows up on an offroad skateboard wearing a wetsuit) and a middle aged man who appears to be the owner climb on board with us. They are all going kayaking together while we tube. We drive about 3 miles and one of the boys announces that the back door of the bus has swung open. The half-clad wetsuit surfer boy climbs like a monkey over the various asundry outdoor gear and pulls the door shut. We arrive safely at the put-in spot where the professional teenager walks us down a path, reviews the 3 rules, tells us to "hug the right" (side of the river that is) and points at some large rocks. "You can put in somewhere down there" he says and leaves. Keith, Mark and I have all been supressing laughter (I didnt' suppress very sucessfully) this whole time. We clamber over the rocks and put our tubes in the freezing cold water. It rained part of the 2 hour trip...but we didn't have any thunder or lightning and thoroughly enjoyed our trip over all. We'd recommend it...but would caution that organization and punctuality might not be this particular company's strong suit. However at only $15 a person and with the free shuttle service...it's a great deal.

Bring it!

Get ready......'cause it's comin'!

The water was FREEZING when we first put in...and I was trying to postpone my butt getting numb until the last possible moment.

The first rapids we came to...this picture was taken just before Mark flipped and ended up in the drink.

Keith and I chillin' out on the tubes!

Rule #2: always keep your feet pointed downstream. This was Keith's view of the river.

Keith's wallet and driver's licence were in the drybox of the middle-aged owner guy, who took about 20 minutes longer than we did to get down the river so we had a bit of a chilly, wet wait at the end...but not too bad. We said goodbye to Mark (again) and headed back to Keith's mom's where she'd run a hot bubble bath for me in the garden-sized tub upstairs. It was as if I'd visited a spa...she'd also lit candles and had relaxing music playing. I curled up for about 45 minutes and relaxed and read a book. We ate a yummy dinner of crappie fish that Ms. Pat and Rick had caught in Lake Murray and grilled squash from their garden with homemade vanilla ice cream and fresh peaches for dessert! I went straight to bed after dinner, exausted and super-relaxed from my bath while Keith got his turn to visit the spa. We left Thursday morning to drive back to Nashville and had a relaxing drive through Asheville, NC and the mountains on the way back. I hope you enjoyed our South Carolina vacation.....stay tuned for my California adventures beginning on Sunday!

A fast boat and an old house

2009-07-07T18:01:00.013-05:00

I just realized that I'd never bothered to post a picture of our hotel, so I thought it would be a good way to kick off today's blog. If you ever visit Charleston, we highly recommend it. Among many perks...the location couldn't possibly be better. There. Commercial over. :)

Our first activity today, a boat ride on the Thriller speedboat, we agreed might have been our favorite thing that we've done our entire trip! The boat is a high speed catamaran (double hull) that leaves from a dock near the battery and then takes approximately an hour long tour through the ocean past, Ft. Sumter to the Morris Island Lighthouse where the boat turns around. We then headed back to the harbor and sailed past Ft. Moultrie, the U.S.S. Yorktown, and the Cooper River Bridge before returning to the dock. Barbara, the tour guide, struck a great balance between dispensing interesting facts about what we were seeing, and being quiet and letting us enjoy the ride accompanied by 80's rock music. Her husband, Mark, was the boat captain, and did a great job of steering us through some fantastic waves! A MUST if you visit Charleston!

Keith and I on board the Thriller....check out the spray behind us from the boat! (The sunglasses were borrowed....I do not actually own these!)

Some of the big waves made your stomach flip-flop! LOVED it!

The Morris Island lighthouse. It's in dire need of repair due to erosion and such. If you'd like to help keep the lighthouse around...check out this website.

A full length view of the Thriller...back at the dock after her morning jaunt.

After the Thriller, we pulled through Starbucks for a snack and then on to Middleton Place mansion and gardens. We wandered through the gardens for a little bit and then took a tour of the house. The house was actually originally the southern wing of the original mansion...built as a guest wing for gentlemen who stayed on the grounds. The rest of the mansion was burned and only this wing was rebuilt and became the main house. We then ate lunch at the garden shop cafe and concluded our visit with an approximately hour long self-guided tour of the gardens. The gardens bear the distinction of being America's oldest landscaped gardens. They are absolutely beautiful.

The "Wood Nymph" statue in the gardens at Middleton Place.

A view from one end of the "Reflection Pool."

Keith stands on a limb of one of the countless huge "live oak" trees on the Middleton Place grounds.

The cypress bridge...one of the spots I loved the most.

We concluded the day with take-out from TBONZ Gill & Grill, and ordered the same Ahi Tuna and grouper sandwiches that we'd ordered the other night and a marathon of Deadliest Catch, The Office, and the Colbert Report.

OH! And I almost forgot! We were supposed to drive back to Nashville tomorrow morning, but we're having so much fun that we decided we needed one more day of vacation. (we're not very good at going home....if you remember this also happened when we went to Hawaii in January!) So instead we're getting up and driving back to Columbia to go tubing down the river...something I was dissapointed that we didn't have time to do last weekend. We're then crashing with Keith's Mom and Rick for one more night and heading back to Nashville on Thursday instead! Which means....dum dum dum da dum....one more day of the blog from South Carolina! Enjoy!

Fired up about Folly Beach!

2009-07-06T20:38:00.020-05:00

First things first: a little blog housekeeping to attend to. So that you all might maximize your blog-reading experience and get a little edjumication, I've added a new feature to today's blog, and gone back and edited yesterday's blog. Anytime a building, historic site, or excursion is mentioned I've made the name of it a link to either the official website of that place or thing or at the very least a Wikipedia page so that you can pick up random bits of useless trivia or perhaps be assisted in planning your very own Charleston vacation. OK. That being said, on to the events of today.

Keith and I decided that after our late-night ghost hunting adventures of the previous evening, and since we are on vacation afterall, that we'd really enjoy it and both sleep in this morning. We got up in time to grab breakfast at the hotel, but then didn't get around to venturing out until noon-thirty this afternoon. We stepped outside our hotel and found a pedicab at the corner and asked him to drive us first to Starbucks (we have our priorities straight for sure!) and then to the waterfront so we could find a mansion to tour. Our cyclist cabbie did just that..and our day had begun!

Our cabbie was a marine biology student from the College of Charleston. It was his first day of work and we were his second fare ever!!

Keith and I in the pedicab in front of Starbucks.

We had our pedi-cabbie drop us off at the Battery (also called White Point Gardens) where we took a stroll under the live oak trees on paths that were made wide enough for two ladies in hoop skirts to walk side by side. We then headed north again up the waterfront along the sea wall until we reached the Edmonston-Alston House where we stopped in to take a tour. The house was originally build buy Mr. Edmonston and then sold to Mr. Alston, whose descendants still own the house (one of them lives on the 3rd floor to this very day!). The Alston family and their friends gathered on the various porticos to watch the first shots of the Civil War in 1861 between South Carolina soldiers and Ft. Sumter, in the harbor across the street.

Keith and I standing on the sea wall with the Edmonston-Alston house in the background (the pink and white house just over my shoulder).

After our home tour we continued along the waterfront until we came upon the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon and decided we'd like to take a tour of that as well. Many historic events happened in this building...over 250 Charlestonians and other men were held prisoner by the British during the Revolutionary War, although the space was originally a storage area for various cash crops such as cotton and indigo. Tea was also stored and hidden there during the Charleston Tea Party and various pirates were also rumored to have been held there. The original Charleston sea wall runs directly beneath the building and can be seen in the dungeon. Upstairs, the building boasts two more floors of historic rooms...including where the U.S. Constitution was ratified in South Carolina.

Keith took this fantastic picture in the Provost Dungeon.

On the stroll home we passed the Market Street Winery, a local winery. They were having a tasting so we stopped in and got to have a sip of five of their wines. All of their grapes are grown in South Carolina in their own vineyards and other types of fruit are purchased from local growers. We'd recommend the Lord Ashley Elderberry or the Shaftsbury Blend if you decide you'd like to try some Market Street Wine.

I was pretty proud of this photo that I took of the bottles of wine for sale.

Since it was raining when we got back to the hotel we figured we'd hop in the car and hit some further-away sights instead of walking in the rain. I'd wanted to see the Citadel so we went there first. Fortunately, the rain stopped as we pulled in so we hopped out and took pictures from the Summerall Field (the main lawn in the center of campus). We also found the Howie Bell tower to be unlocked and climbed to the top of it to see the "organ" that controls the bells. (I'm not sure that we really were supposed to have access to that...but no one stopped us...and it was cool. After we left, we joked that we should have played Happy Birthday or Pop Goes the Weasel or something on it just for fun.) We also visited the Chapel and took pictures in front of the "Daniel Library" which I thought was cool.

The Citadel.

After the Citadel, we drove over to Folly Beach for a simple stroll on the beach (and of course had to stop for Italian Ices on the way from a street vendor!) that turned into the event of the evening as you will soon find out. We had to park outside the gates of the Folly Beach park because the parking lot had already been gated closed for the night. Keith had his camera with him (as always) and snapped some great pictures of the salt marsh on the bay side and a beautiful house that I liked next to the entrance to the state park. We had a nice quiet walk on the beach...hunted for sea shells and splashed our feet in the warm salty sea for about 20 minutes before we headed back. It was quite the dramatic end to the day!

Keith took this picture of a pelican at Folly Beach.

Keith picks up sea shells on Folly Beach.

A view of the salt marsh and the house I thought was so beautiful.

When we reached the boardwalk again, we looked up to see that the roof of the beautiful house I'd liked was on fire! We hurried through the parking lot and were soon able to see that the fire department and police were already on the scene. A small group of neighbors had gathered and since our car was blocked in, we hung around until the fire was out. The owner of the home was home alone out on her balcony and unaware that lightning had struck her house and set it on fire. A family renting the house next door was walking back from the beach and saw the roof on fire and called up to the woman who had the presence of mind to shut off all the electricity before exiting the structure. No one was injured and the fire seemed to be confined to one corner of the roof, but Keith and I couldn't imagine the extent of the water damage from the fireman's hoses. Fortunately, the fire was put out about 30 minutes after it started. I'm sure we'll see it in the paper tomorrow.

Keith's initial distance shot of the house on fire.

A closer shot of the burning house.

You can clearly see the corner where the lightning hit the house.

Firemen were on hand from the Folly Beach, James Island and Charleston Fire Departments.

Keith's passat is dwarfed...and blocked in by the James Island Fire Department Truck and the EMS ambulance.

Let's go to the movies....

2009-07-06T11:37:00.006-05:00

So to be quite honest, Keith and I are being lazy bums this morning so I figured that my blog post tonight probably wouldn't be very long. SO......for your enjoyment and pleasure today, I've posted the following video from our time in Columbia of Keith's nieces. They are pretty cute. Enjoy! I'll post more in the coming days.

One of Rick's relatives had a dog named Scruffy who was old and blind and met with an unfortunate end when he fell in the pond when his owners were out of town. When Ms. Pat saw the dead pup floating in the pond Rick took matters in his own hands and fished the deceased pooch out by hooking it in the tail with a fishing pole. Emily gives a dramatic retelling of the tale in the video above as part of our golf cart tour.

doin' the Charleston

2009-07-05T22:01:00.013-05:00

This morning Keith and I left Columbia and drove two hours southeast to Charleston for a mini vacation! We arrived early afternoon and hit the ground running with a stroll around the straw market, homemade gelato from a local candy maker and shop, and then a carriage tour of downtown Charleston. The carriage tour was a great overview of the city and Keith and I found several places that we want to go back to and make sure we visit while we're here. (as a fun side note, the girl who sold us our tickets for the carriage tour turned out to have graduated from Keith's high school 2 years behind his brother Mark, and was the daughter of Keith's high school history teacher. Small world!)

Chris, our tour guide, hangs out in the carriage with our horse, Dakota. Dakota was a sweet horse, although she didn't seem the least bit interested in getting anywhere in a hurry!

A view of the Old Exchange Building (and Dakota's behind.) This building served a host of purposes but also housed a dungeon and was involved with the import and export of goods at the port.

A view of "Rainbow Row."

Our carriage tour company barn.

On the way home from the carriage tour we got take out (Ahi tuna sandwich for Keith and a fried grouper sandwich for me) from a local grill and then headed out to freshen up...this Charleston humidity is something fierce! At 9 pm we met in front of the United States Custom House for a ghost tour of downtown. Our tourguide, Noah, was a total history buff and told spooky tales of the downtown area. After the tour was over we headed in for the night where I'm writing this blog right now! Tomorow is supposed to be a little rainy...but we've planned both an indoor and an outdoor itinerary so we're ready for anything!

Keith took this cool picture of the U.S. Custom House where our ghost tour met!

This restaurant is supposedly one of the most haunted buildings in Charleston. A bankrupt cotton tycoon had sold a shipment of cotton worth around 30 million by today's standards. This contract was going to help him get his entire business back on the ground. As he sat in his office and watched boat containing the valuable cotton shipment sail out to sea, a drunken sailor on the ship dropped his pipe and the tycoon was forced to watch his entire cargo go up in smoke. He hung himself in his third floor office. Since then weird things have happened in the building. The third floor is now a bar and one group of friends claimed that a cold wind blew through the building and the furniture began to levitate and then stack itself up!

St. Philip's Episcopal church.

The graveyard of St. Philip's.

Happy 4th of July!!!

2009-07-04T21:48:00.013-05:00

Happy 4th of July, everybody!!!

Today was a little more restful than yesterday, but still action-packed! Keith's stepdad, Rick had the entire Browder clan over for lunch and he and his brothers smoked an insane number of chickens! While we were waiting for the food to cook, Emily gave us another golf cart tour. Lunch was really yummy...although I'm glad there wasn't a test at the end where I had to recall everyone's name and how they were all related because there is no way I could have passed! (Although the Daniel family clan is also quite extensive so MAYBE I would have been ok since I've had practice!)

Emily and I relaxing in the shade.

Rick and his brother slather the chickens with B-B-Q sauce.
Cooking chickens for 30+ people is no small task!

After lunch, Keith and I took on Mark and Angela in a corn-hole tournament in which we were victorious in a best 2 out of 3! Emily and Abigail were exhausted and took a two hour nap in the afternoon so we took the opportunity to have "adult swim" while the girls were snoozing. Adult swim wasn't nearly as high energy as kid swim was and involved lots of yummy snacks by the pool! We swam with the girls some more after they woke up and were so proud of Abigail who learned how to swim in the deep end for the first time today! She swam all the way from the stairs to the very deepest end of the pool on her own! We were so excited!

Keith concentrates on a throw while Mark watches.

Mark, Angela, Keith and I chow down on hummus and tortilla chips.

After pool time ended, Keith, Mark, Rick and I headed to the field next to the house to shoot some skeet. I'd never shot a shotgun before (although I DID do 4H shooter sports in middle school and had played Annie Oakley in my highschool musical) and had certainly never shot skeet so I was proud when I hit the clay pigeon on my very first shot! I certiainly didn't hit all of them (my stats were approximately 1 hit for every 4 shots) but was proud of my self for having shot a shotgun. Keith, it turns out, is an excellent shot and busted almost every clay target he aimed at!

Keith the marksman keep his eye on the target!

If you look closely below the yellow "rowboat" wind catcher, you can see my yellow shotgun shell flying through the air!

We decided against buying our own fireworks to shoot off and headed out to Lake Murray to enjoy the professional display instead. Rick's sister has a house on the lake so we went there and watched them from the dock of her guesthouse instead of fighting the crowds at the public parks. The main house is absolutely amazing...and my favorite part was seeing the infinity pool...I've never seen one in real life and was blown away by it. The fireworks were beautiful too and far enough away that we couldn't hear them which Abigail really appreciated! The girls and I also splashed our feet in the water on the little beach area in front of the main house and Emily and Abigail even built a sandcastle. We were sad to say goodbye to Mark and his family tonight after the fireworks display and the girls made me promise to come back some other time to visit "even if it isn't even July 4th!" Tomorrow Keith and I will head to Charleston, SC by ourselves for a little mini-vacation which we're really looking forward to. Stay tuned for our adventures in Charleston!!!

European villa? Nope...South Carolina lakehouse!

One of the big fireworks in the Lake Murray display!

Cannonballs and more cannonballs

2009-07-03T21:23:00.011-05:00

This blog is a tad long...but I'll blame it on the pictures! :) This blog is from July 3rd...but I was too tired to post it yesterday...so you get it this morning instead!

I didn't mention this in my introductory blog yesterday, but when I arrived last night, Keith's mom told me that the nieces were really excited about getting to meet me...so excited in fact, that they had insisted upon making me a cake. They made this cake all by themselves with minimal supervision from "Mimi" and what resulted was an amazingly delicious "death by chocolate cake." They had mixed up a chocolate cake mix and dumped chocolate pudding and chocolate chips in the batter! Yummy! They had also decorated it by themselves: lots of flowers and a message that read "Welcome to SC, Monkey" with a large picture of the state of South Carolina. ("Monkey" happens to be a nickname that Emily and I both share...to her delight.) The funny part was though that after they'd baked it, they decided it looked too good ("My mouth was watering!" said Emily) so they each cut a piece out of my cake to eat...before they gave it to me! Kids are so fun! :)

Here's the yummy cake with my two pieces missing!

Today was a fantastically fun, but thoroughly exhausting day. Keith and I both slept in and felt refreshed when we left the house about 10:30 am for a tour of downtown Columbia. Our first stop was the state capitol building, which was unfortunately closed for the "State holiday" of the 4th of July. We walked around the grounds and I got the Reader's Digest condensed version of a South Carolina history lesson. The statue of George Washington out front of the building is missing half of his walking cane...the statue was vandalized not by rowdy teens of Columbia but by Sherman's soldiers as they passed through the city during the Civil War. Soldiers also fired on the still-under-construction capitol building not to destroy it, but to see how far away the city was from their encampment. The capitol building was hit by cannonballs in 6 different places, and when the construction was completed, instead of repairing the granite, large brass stars were added to mark the places where the cannonballs had hit.

Me next to one of the cannonball hits at the capitol building!

Two old men in suits were loitering in front of the building with picket signs (although they had them laying on the pavement so we couldn't see what they said...not a very effective picket line)...Keith suspected that they were there to lobby for the resignation of the South Carolina governor. Anyway...we never did find out why they were there, but got quite a laugh when we heard one man sigh a deep, satisfied sigh and say to the other man, "it's a beautiful day for freedom, isn't it?"

After the capitol building we drove around the campus of USC (where Keith attended his freshman year of college) and then headed to the river walk which was beautiful, although a bit hot! We strolled along the sidewalk and ventured out into the low river to wade, climb a low-hanging tree and jump from boulder to boulder out into the river. From there we headed back to the house with a quick side trip to see the house that Keith grew up in.

Keith the raccoon hanging out at the river walk!

Climbing out on the river rocks!

When we arrived back at the house, Keith's brother Mark and his wife Angela and daughters Emily and Abigail (who I hadn't met) were there to eat lunch and go for a swim. Emily and Abigail are two of the sweetest girls I've ever met, but also two of the most energetic! They thought I was a great pool toy and we dove and jumped and swam and raced and splashed until I could barely stand up. Emily's favorite game was to convince Keith and Mark and I to all cannonball into the pool with her at the exact same time and see how big the waves were when we surfaced again. Abigail isn't a fan of the deep end at all but liked to jump off my legs in the shallow end and pretty much clung to me every second that I was in the pool.

Bombs away! Emily and I jumping into the pool!

Abigail and I hanging out in the pool!

Late afternoon Emily decided to give Keith and I a "tour we'd never forget" of "Mimi and Paw's" land and the adjacent land of various members of Rick's family so we loaded up the golf cart and off we went. Emily was not only our chauffeur, but our guide as she narrated the entire tour in this hilarious pseudo-British accent. She gave out both factual information ("and on the left you'll see the home of Paw's parents', the Browders") and a hilarious running commentary of big words and not entirely accurate information ("now we are entering the deep woods of the famous Egyptian princess Cleopatra where many mysterious creatures live like squirrels, stinky deer that poop everywhere, and dogs which are also called mammals.")

Emily gives us a narrated tour of the Browder woods.

After our tour, we enjoyed a little more pool time and then I showed the girls my violin and played for them because Emily is going to take violin at a week long music camp at a local church in a week or so. Rick cooked an amazing dinner of grilled beef and veggies picked from the Browder garden and the kids watched a movie outside while the adults sat out onthe patio for dinner and "chit chat" (Emily's words again.) After the kids went home Keith and I mangaed enough energy for a trip to Wal Mart to buy ammo and clay pigeons for skeet shooting on the 4th and then both collapsed about 10 pm, thoroughly exhausted.

South Carolina, C'mon and raise up....

2009-07-02T23:29:00.000-05:00

Whew! It's been a few months since I've blogged....and since I'm back on the go this summer, I figured I'd pick it back up to keep everyone from getting confused as to where precisely I am. Today's adventure destination: Columbia, South Carolina.

map of South Carolina. We're in Columbia...which you can see is pretty much in the dead center of the state.

So today I got to check another state off my list as Keith and I made the trek from Nashville to Columbia, South Carolina to visit his Mom and stepdad Rick (who you might remember from our Hawaii Adventures blogs from January of this year) and his brother Mark and his family for the 4th of July. We had a beautiful (and long) drive down. The highlight of the roadtrip was stopping at Moe's in Asheville, NC for burritos. Moe's was a favorite eatery of mine in Jackson, MS, and I haven't been to one in the almost 3 years I've been in Nashville. I miss it. It was wonderful to sink my teeth once again into a "Joey Bag of Doughnuts" and some yummy queso.
We rolled up to the beautiful Browder estate about 9 pm and sat out by the pool and caught up on news of various goings on and then moved the party inside (dern mosquitos) where Ms. Pat and Rick looked through my Hawaii scrapbook. We were all pretty tired so we headed to bed soon thereafter.

Tomorrow is shaping up to be a fantastic day....we're heading to downtown Columbia in the morning to tour the capital building (I'm a nerd) and then Mark and his wife and two girls are coming over to swim in the pool. Ms. Pat has warned me repeatedly about the "swealtering heat" of the afternoons....but I've assured her that I'm a Mississippi girl who can handle heat and humidity and anything else. We'll see. Oh, skeet shooting is also on the docket for tomorrow. Pray I kill only skeet and not any of Keith's family members on accident. Just kidding.

OK...I'm off to sleep now. Tomorrow's blog will be far more exciting for sure!

flag of South Carolina

p.s. for those of you thoroughly confused on the blog title....it's a reference to a Petey Pablo rap song that was popular around the year 2001-2002.

Signs of the road...

2009-02-09T08:28:00.000-06:00

I drove alot this weekend. Let me emphasize ALOT. I drove from Nashville, TN to Jackson, MS, then to Indianapolis, IN and then back to Nashville. In four days, by myself I might add. Music gigs often do not orient themselves in geographically proximal places. But I digress. While on the road I saw the following fabulous signs.

* The first was actually a bumper sticker stuck on a large new model SUV while driving through Memphis, Tennessee. It read "My child has more chromosomes than yours" in large letters and underneath proclaimed "downs syndrome association."

*The next was spotted somewhere between Grenada and Greenwood, Mississippi and was a "public service announcement" billboard that proclaimed "Hey, Mississippi! If our children can't read, we're all losers." Classy, eh?

*My favorite by far however was spotted outside of Louisville, Kentucky. It was a 4'x4' or so white, square, homemade plywood sign tacked to the gate of a rounded arch entryway to the "Summer-(wood, dale, somthingorother) Farm" and its neatly stenciled painted letters advertised "USED COWS FOR SALE!!" Really? I've heard of used furniture or used cars but never used livestock. I can't even imagine what that could possibly mean (and believe me...I had several hours on the road to try to figure it out!) and I'm not certain I really want to know.

Hey, ain't that America?

One more day in paradise.......

2009-01-14T21:19:00.000-06:00

Aloha! How sad that this amazing trip is drawing to a close! This will be your final blog from sunny Kauai, although you are invited to visit again any time you need a quick fix of sunshine from our pictures! :) We kicked off today laying on Hanalei beach which has become a favorite of ours. The surf was bigger than we wanted to tangle with but we succeeded in catching some rays if not waves, and enjoyed a nice walk on the beach to watch the surfers.

Keith's mom and Rick and I camped out on the Hanalei Bay Beach.

I love writing in the sand! :)

and I LOVE the ocean! Yay!

After our beach stint we headed to the Hanalei Dolphin for an amazing lunch! Keith and I munched on "Fin Burgers" of grilled Ahi tuna while his mom had a grilled Ahi tuna salad and Rick went with the traditional fish and chips. Mai Tais were had almost all around except I opted for a "Lava flow" which involved much coconutty goodness.

al fresco at the Dolphin!

This big one didn't get away!!

After lunch we headed around the corner to "Kayak Kauai Outbound: Kauai's Adventure Company" to rent kayaks to paddle up the Hanalei River. I had been wanting to try paddling a longboard, a traditional polynesian sport, all week long so Keith was a good sport and offered to give it a try with me. We LOVED it! If you head to Hawaii, it's a must for sure! The two mile route up river was a great way to get some sun and exercise and we agreed it was one of the cooler adventures of the trip.

Keith and I pose on our longboards.

Keith: Hawaiian Warrior

Paddling past some palms.

Keith's mom and Rick opted to stick with the original kayak plan.

One of my favorite pics of the day. It just looks like a postcard!

Keith and I enjoy one last shaved ice before we leave the island....rainbow ice on top of homemade macadamia nut ice cream! Mmmm! And...the guy who worked the stand is about to take a trip to the Philippines through Compassion International with his fiancee to meet his fiancee's Compassion sponsor child! It's a small world! (For those of you who don't know Keith, he works for Compassion International and he and I both have sponsor children!)

What an awesome ending to an awesome trip. We're back at the condo right now packing up our suitcases and then we're going to a tapas place called "Bar Acuda" (Baracuda? Get it?) for our final dinner before heading to the Lihue airport to catch our 11:30 pm (Hawaii time...you do the math!) flight to the mainland. We'll fly Kauai to Seattle, Seattle to Cincinnati and then Cinci to Nashville just in time for me to make a Thursday night rehearsal and then leave for Green Bay, WI Friday morning. Hope you've enjoyed our Hawaiian adventure! Mahalo for reading!

Coffee, clouds, roosters and whales.

2009-01-14T00:52:00.000-06:00

May I begin by saying that I'm thrilled to be in my bed at the condo right now blogging and not on a flight back to the mainland like I was supposed to be. :) This extra day in Kauai is positively glorious! Today was action packed from beginning to end. I got up early this morning, swiped the rental car, and headed off on my own to Hanalei to mail some postcards to the fam (and ended up purchasing a great pair of Billabong surf shorts from the Hanalei surf shop along the way.) By the time I got back to the condo, everyone else was ready to roll so we packed up the mountaineer and headed southward. Our first stop was the Kauai coffee company where we taste-tested MANY flavors of coffee (between all of us, I'm pretty certain we tasted every flavor they had!) and loaded up on gifts for ourselves and those back home. It was neat also to drive past the rows and rows of coffee plants....and I really enjoyed the amazing smell of the car the rest of the day as the bags of beans we purchased smell fantastic!

The Kauai Coffee Company Cafe and giftshop.

Rick samples some coffee while I munch on a coffee-flavored ice cream cone on the back deck of the Kauai Coffee Co. where the samplin' is set up!

Keith's mom and I on the front porch of the Kauai Coffee Co.

After we were sufficiently caffeinated, we headed up the long and windy road to Waimea canyon. It was a beautiful drive up the mountain, but hard to keep our heads out of the clouds....literally! It was amazing to stand in the clouds and look over the railing into what should have been a massive "Grand canyon" but looked to us like a bowl of cotton. We literally couldn't see anything! We ate lunch at a nearby picnic stop on the mountain and encountered some foul play......lots of chickens being rowdy that is! This is a good time to mention the fact that Kauai is overrun with wild chickens. Because they have no natural predators on Kauai (the other Hawaiian islands controlled their chicken population by introducing the mongoose...but Kauai has not followed suit for fear of endangering their vast population of desirable birds) the chickens run rampant, crowing at all hours of the night and lurking anywhere and everywhere they please. This particular chickens even had the gall to get up on our lunch table while we were eating to try to steal food! Keith tried unsuccessfully after lunch to catch one and it was hilarious to watch him run around after them. We were able to have an amazing view of the Kalalau valley from another overlook point however, thus making the trek up the mountain worthwhile.

At the bottom of the Waimea Canyon lookout....we didn't know yet that there was nothing to see at the top!

Keith and I "on cloud nine." literally! haha.

Chickens on our picnic table! (Today's headline reads, "Potato chips stolen from lunching tourists...forest rangers suspect "foul-play." haha. haha.)

Little did they know one of their cousins had been "oven roasted" and added to my Subway sandwich.

This isn't even all of them! It was insane!

View of the Kalalau Valley.

Me at the Kalalau Valley overlook sporting my new Kauai coffee company shirt....it was a bit chilly at that altitude!

Late afternoon we boarded a Holo Holo Charters Catamaran for a 4 or so hour "Sunset Cruise." The weather (which had promised to be "sunny all day") made a slight shift so our tour was a little grayer than we'd hoped for, but were thrilled to have an amazing whale watching experience! We saw tons of humpback whales swimming in the waters around our boat. Everywhere you turned it seemed you either saw a whale or evidence of one as when they come up for air they send out a puff of water and air that looks like a puff of smoke. They were so graceful as the lazily came to the surface to breathe and slapped their tails on the water. We saw so many I honestly quit counting. At one point we could see three whales on the surface at once! We also cruised down far enough to see the magestic Na'Pali coastline and our captain gave us a brief history of the Hawaiians who lived there as recently as the 1940's.

Me onboard the boat...a tad wet....but loving every moment of it!

We took this picture of the back of a random man so you could get a perspective of how close the whales were coming to the boat! Within 20 or 30 feet easily! The captain said it was the best whale watching day he'd had in a long time.

the dorsal fin of a humpback whale coming to the surface.

A whale of a tale! Make that tail!

Two whales come up at once! Awesome!

Whew. I'm exhausted so I'll wrap it up here and head to bed! I'm so sad that we have to go home tomorrow....but no worries, you'll get one more blog before we depart. :) Aloha!

We ♥ Kauaii!

2009-01-13T02:18:00.000-06:00

In fact, we ♥ Kauaii so much that we've decided we're not ready to leave tomorrow and we called Delta today to postpone our flight reservations and get one more glorious day in paradise! We are beyond excited to be able to extend our vacation by a whole day!!!

Today was a great mix of relaxation and excitement. We took our time getting ready this morning and then headed to Hanalei. Keith and I hit the beach while his mom and Rick did some shopping in Hanalei and then joined us on the beach about noon. They brought with them yummy lunch from Bubbas' Burgers which we scarfed down and then the four of us went for about a mile and a half walk down the Hanalei Bay Beach...to the pier and back. Keith and I had originally planned on snorkeling at Tunnels Beach today but when we stopped to rent snorkel gear the shop owner said, "I'd love to rent you my gear, but I'd also love for you to not die." The rip currents were pretty severe today and the waves, as we found out when we got to Hanalei Bay were HUGE!

Hanalei Bay Beach.....the waves washed my artwork out to sea seconds after this picture was taken.

I LOVE the ocean!

Keith and I next to the HBB pier.

On the HBB pier.

Keith's mom and I "surfing."

Mid afternoon we headed back to the condo to get dressed for "Smith's Tropical Paradise Luau." The evening was way better than we could have even imagined. We were each presented with a shell lei necklace as we entered. The luau itself began with an Imu ceremony where the kalua pig is taken out of the ground and the conch shell is blown calling everyone to dinner. Next was cocktail hour (watch out for the mai tais...they're yummy....TOO yummy!) followed by a fantastic buffet (where I liked almost everything served! A small miracle!) accompanied by dinner music. A hula dancer also performed the hula and then called for volunteers. Since Keith thought volunteering me was a fun idea, I made him come with me and we both joined the group onstage for a hula lesson. It was hilarious! After dinner ended we all traipsed over to an amphitheater for an incredible stage show that explained the diverse Hawaiian culture through dance and costumes of the Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Samoan, Tahitian and Hawaiians. The show featured lots of hip shaking girls, some awesome drumming, and even a chinese dragon! We went home enchanted and exhausted.

Keith and I at the front entrance to the luau.

Mr. Smith gives the history of the Smith family, welcomes all the guests, and explains the Imu oven cooking process in front of the Imu oven.

Mr. Smith's grandson blows the conch to signal the beginning of the luau.

The yummy Kalua piggy! Mmm mmm good!

Keith's mom and I with the two guys who dug up the pig.

Keith and I demonstrate hula dancing at the dinner table for the enjoyment of his mom and Rick.

Keith and I demonstrate hula dancing onstage for all the guests to see. :)

Real hula dancers kick off the stage show.

Hula dancers spice things up a bit by swinging around flaming coconuts on ropes.

The entire cast of the Smith's show take their bows.

P.S. I realize that I have been posting insane amounts of pictures on my blog these past few days and hope that no one finds this annoying. However, let's be honest....you'd much rather see pictures than hear me babble about stuff, correct? Hope the picture overload is acceptable! Mahalo (thank you in Hawaiian) for taking the time to read!

Exploration day.

2009-01-11T22:09:00.000-06:00

Today was an overcast day in Kauai so we decided to sleep in a bit and then head to Hanalei to do a little shopping and have lunch. We walked around lots of little shops and art galleries, ate the best banana nut muffin EVER at a little coffee shop and just enjoyed strolling around. We also ate an amazing lunch at the Hanalei Cafe...apparently a favorite spot of Pierce Brosnan! I had fish-'n'-chips made from swordfish and Keith had a fresh grilled ahi tuna (tumbo) sandwich.

The shops at Hanalei.

Hanalei Center...where the shops are.

Hanalei Cafe....a favorite of Keith and Bethany...AND Pierce.

"on the road to Hanalei" my favorite shop of the day!

More of the Hanalei shops.

After we'd shopped until we dropped and eaten our fill of yummy fish we set out exploring. Our Kauai "Blue Book" suggested that Hideways beach was a "gem" of a beach...it warned that the hike down was a bit treacherous...even with the "steps" and guardrails...but that the beach at the bottom of the cliff was worth it. It also mentioned that because there is limited parking (6 spaces) and the hike is tricky, that the beach is usually pretty vacant. This was true today as there were only 2 other couples on the beach when we reached the bottom. We climbed on some boulders, make a pitiful attempt at a sand castle and took a quick nap.

Me on the hike down...

the view of Hideways beach from about halfway down the trail.

another shot of the beach from the middle of the trail.

frolicking in the waves!

Surveying the ocean, cliffside.

King of the cliff.

View of the ocean from the trailhead. The beach can be seen through the trees in the left center bottom of the picture.

After a catnap on the beach we drove down the road about a mile to visit Queens Bath. Huge volcanic rocks create these amazing cliffs that the waves pummel. The Queens Bath itself is a large pool in one of the cliffs. Apparently this can be a swimming spot during the summer months, but today the waves were incredibly violent and I wouldn't have gone anywhere near them (although some local boys were thoroughly enjoying themselves in the pool.) The highlight of the Queen's Bath adventure was a sea-turtle sighting! We've been so lucky to see oceanic wildlife on this trip...whales, seals and a sea turtle...all we have left is a dolphin! Hopefully we'll get to see one in the few days we have left.

ummmmm..........yet we kept on hiking.....

surveying a waterfall along the way.

Keith and the waterfall.

Ummmm......28 drownings? Seriously? In case you can't read it all, the sign says, "Queens Bath Drownings 28. Unexpected large waves will knock you off rocks and sweep you out to sea!"

Contemplating the sea.

Our sea turtle friend! (I had to zoom in on this picture many times so it's not the best).

Large, unexpected waves: exhibit A.

Local Hawaiian boys playing in the surf....large, unexpected waves: Exhibit B.

After Queen's Bath we headed back to the condo to take own baths. :) As I sit on the couch to blog this, Keith and I are munching on appetizers and watching the video of our helicopter flight from yesterday. It's so cool to get to see it all again! His mom and Rick are cooking grilled zucchini and mahi mahi for dinner! Yummy! Yet another amazing day on Kauai!

Aloha!

P.S. As a side note...Keith's parents decided that they wanted a slightly more leisurely pace today and decided to hang at the condo a bit longer and then do some shopping of their own while Keith and I were out adventuring. They ended up heading in the wrong direction, and arrived at Kapa'a instead of Hanalei, but thoroughly enjoyed their day nonethess. :)

Mahalo for reading!

2009-01-11T12:23:00.000-06:00

Although I'm writing this on the morning of the 3rd day, instead of the night of the 2nd...here is an account of our second day in Kauai!

We began the day with a helicopter tour of the entire island...by and far one of the most amazing things I've ever done in my life. (IF you ever visit Kauai...splurge and do it...and use Blue Hawaiian and request pilot Andy). Helicopters by themselves are just amazing...you feel like you are just hanging in the sky and like you are really flying instead of being in something that is flying like you feel in a plane. We did amazing things like fly down inside a volcano crater (inactive for thousands of years...don't worry!) and get so close to cliffs it felt like we could reach out and touch them! We also saw another whale breaching in the ocean and flew by the Napali coastline which is only reachable by hiking, helicopter or boat. Beautiful!

Keith's stepdad picked these amazing flowers for us to wear on the drive to the south shore for our helicopter tour!

Keith and I with our headsets on ready to go! The tour guide gave us a super informative tour and we could ask questions through a special microphone...and we got a DVD of our exact tour complete with footage of ourselves and the audio of the tour and all of our questions!

Our fantastic helicopter in action!!

View of Waimea Canyon from my seat!

Waipo'o Falls....the waterfall in the famous scene in Jurassic Park where the helicopter lands at the base of a waterfall.

After the helicopter tour we had an amazing brunch of pancakes and omlettes at a diner around the corner from the airport and then explored the south shore of the island. One of our stops was the Hyatt resort where we took the following photos of fun natural stuff!

Black swan and coy at the Hyatt pond.

Bird of paradise plant at the Hyatt garden.

After some more driving around and a bit of shopping we took the rental car off-road down this BuMpY dirt road and parked at the end where we hiked among some cliffs and then curled up on Shipwreck beach for about an hour before heading back to the North shore. The highlight of the beach excursion by far was another monk seal....this time it was a baby monk seal camped out on the beach. The forest rangers had put up signs and roped off the area where it was camped so we couldn't get too close...but we got a few snapshots.

You found us! :) Goofing around on the cliffs.

the surf crashing against the cliffs.

hiking along the volcanic rock...don't trip! That stuff is SHARP!

hole in the cliff where the surf comes in under the rock and makes crazy splashes inside! Don't fall in!

The beach where we laid out. All to ourselves! Love it!

Warning sign for the monk seal.

The baby monk seal. Nighty nite, little baby...it's naptime!

Keith's mom and stepdad made these self-portraits in the sand while we hiked off to see the baby seal. The one on the left is his mom...complete with hair-do! and on the right is Rick...who went so far as to give himself ribs! Hilarious!

After our adventures for the day were over we headed back to the condo where his parents grilled yummy steaks and made yellow yams. One of the best dinners ever! We ate at the dining room table and then swapped stories and laughed for about an hour. Keith and I took a stroll on Hanalei Bay Beach after dinner and got back to the condo just in time for the heavens to open and rain to POUR down! I fell asleep with my windows open listening to the rain pound the ground. A perfect end to an amazing day!

Aloha!

2009-01-09T22:34:00.001-06:00

So apparently it's been a REALLY long time since I wrote seeing as my last post is from Christmas tour....and like the beginning of Christmas tour. Oh well.

To catch you all up....Yesterday, Keith and I flew from freezing cold, rainy, windy Nashville, Tennessee to beautiful, sunny, warm, relaxed, amazing, Princeville, Kauai. We are spending 6 days here in a condo with his Mom and his stepdad, Rick. Today was our first real day in Hawaii since we got in late after dark last night. Keith was so sweet and ran to the gift shop as soon as we touched down and bought a lei for me and for his mom. (insert whatever jokes you want to about "getting "lei-ed" at the Hawaii airport here). We got an sweet new Mercury Mountaineer as our rental car and set off from the Lihue airport to the North shore where we are staying. Our condo is amazing! This is a view from our back deck!

view in the morning.....

and as the sun was going down!

Keith's mom and I sporting our leis.....remember....this was after about 15 hours of travel!

We had an amazing first day! We kicked it off with a 9 am tour of Na' Aina Kai Gardens where we saw lots of amazing flowers and really cool bronze statues. We walked through part of the gardens and then rode a little golf cart/train/tractor hybrid around the rest of the property which included several hardwood forests. One of the coolest things we saw there was a "Sensitive plant" that actually curled up when you touched it! The stems were really leafy but when we poked it with a stick, the plant all but disappeared....what a creative defense mechanism! There was also a tree that had roots hanging off the branches. The bigger the tree grew, the heavier the branches got, and eventually they would sag to the ground where the roots would take hold and nourish the tree! I never cease to be amazed at the Lord's creativity! The pictures below are from the garden tour.

Keith and I overlooking part of the hardwood plantation.

a waterfall at the garden.

overlooking the lagoon in the center of the garden.

Joining in the fun of "Frog Legs" one of the many bronze statues throughout the garden.

on the tour vehicle and ready to roll!!

We ate lunch at the Kilauea fish market and ate yummy deserts from the Kilauea Bakery! Then we ventured to the Kilauea Lighthouse where we not only saw the lighthouse but a monk seal napping on a rock and some humpback whales playing in the ocean! This island is SO beautiful! After that we drove to the end of the island and then took a long stroll on Tunnels Beach. It was amazing to just wander down the beach with our feet in the sand and the waves lapping at our ankles. By that time we were all pretty exhausted since our bodies are still adjusting to the time zone change, so we stopped in Hanalei to have a famous Hawaiian shaved ice (ice cream with a snow cone essentially on top) and then headed back to the condo where we are right now relaxing before a light dinner of tapas. I've posted some pictures from our time at the Kilauea

lighthouse.

Keith and I in front of the lighthouse sporting our sunglasses. It's tough being a celebrity. :)

With Keith and his mom overlooking the island off the coast in front of the lighthouse.

If you look in the center of this pic on the rock, there's a monk seal..the 2nd most endangered mammal in the world!

This is the tail of one of the whales that we saw....they were sort of far out....this was the best we could do photo-wise!

Aloha!!!!

Another day, another city, same show.

2008-12-11T08:57:00.000-06:00

Hey guys!

So it's ben a few days once again since I've sat down to write. The days are flying by and I can hardly believe that something I've looked forward to every second of every day practically since August when I found out I was going for sure is already halfway over.

We've had a good run other than Ronnie catching a cold on our day off a few days ago. He's sniffly, but thanks to some heavy drugs and some quality time in "the cave" (his name for the bus) he's feeling much much better.

Jen and I are loving being on tour, as evidenced by the accompanying photo. Our recent obsession is the Twilight book series....she's working on number two and I finished the first one last night, and am forced to admit, although slightly ashamedly, that I might have a ginormous crush on Edward Cullen like the majority of teenage girls across the country. I'm thinking I might have to break down and buy the second one today since Jen isn't done with her copy....and I'm depressed at the thought of going a whole day or two without Bella and her clan of bloodthirsty vampire friends. Ronnie just called for a runner to the mall, and while I am resolved not to spend money on this tour, I'm thinking I'm going to have to make a small exception.

The shows are going well.....I'll admit that the first few were more like dress rehearsals than shows, but now I feel like I'm part of a well-oiled machine that knows when to go where, what to play when, and has even kicked her music book to the curb, and for the most part is singing her BGV parts by memory. No small feat. :)

The highlight of the week by far was the Lexington show where my friends Jill and McKenzie, along with the Burandt parents came to hear us (even bearing chocolates!). There's just nothing like being with people who have seen you at your best, and worst, and love you anyway.

Well....It's about time for me to get my stuff off the bus and go find the dressing room.

Many blessings....

Lamb of God

2008-12-08T22:40:00.001-06:00

While we're in the Christian Christmas Music Extravaganza mode here at Notes On Life, etc. Here's a video to enjoy. You can kind of tell I'm NOT really a great cellist, but I'm excited to see it anyway. :)

Winter Wonderland....

2008-12-06T09:27:00.000-06:00

Cheesy, I know, since that's the name of Point of Grace's tour...but I had no choice! We truly walk through a winter wonderland just going from the bus into the venue! I just snapped these pictures a few minutes ago looking out my hotel room window! On the way from the venue to the hotel to take showers this morning, the guy driving us literally spun the minivan around in the middle of the street on the ice. He called it a u-turn. Jen and Ronnie and I called it "one of those moments when your heart goes into your throat and your stomach does a backflip." :)

We're doing two shows today...a matinee and then a night show. Jen and I are really excited to have a real shower instead of one in a church gym (although the one yesterday really wasn't that bad) and excited that although it's very cold here and snowing, it's not windy. So that's a plus.

The tour is going so well....I can't believe that the first leg is almost over! Crazy! However, I'm super excited to see everyone in Birmingham tomorrow (pray that we don't get snowed in!) and looking forward to a day of chilling in Nashville on Monday! ;)

OK...it's my turn in the shower, so I'll write more later!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

2008-12-05T22:03:00.000-06:00

We just rolled out of Port Huron, Michigan....on our way to Midland, Michigan where we play two shows before heading back to Nashville.

The excitement of the day today was that it snowed! While it was cool to see the snow come down, I was not a fan of how stinkin cold it was. Not sure that Michigan is really on my list of places I'd like to live. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not. :)

So this morning, Ronnie needed a "runner" to drive him to the store. This really nice 60-something year old man was kind enough to drive Ronnie on his errand and on the way there they made light conversation about the differences in Tennessee and Michigan. Ronnie mentioned "Port Huron" and the man kindly informed him that the locals pronounce it Port "yer-in" which, yes, sounds exactly like Port....well, you know. Fast forward to lunch. Ronnie leans over and said, hey....psst. guess how the locals pronounce the name of their town? he told me. i couldn't keep my laughter in. However, one of the men from the church overheard us and started to laugh too. hard. apparently that's NOT how the locals say it...they say Huron just like we do...and the guy was totally pulling Ronnie's leg hoping that he'd say "Port Urine" from onstage thinking it would be a funny joke. Which really made it funnier. Fortunately, we all got a good laugh and no one embarrassed themselves over the mic. well....not too badly anyway. :)

Gotta love showbiz.

Guess that's all until tomorrow. My eyes are burning. I'm ready to hit the sack! :) Night night!

Greetings from New Holland

2008-12-04T22:51:00.000-06:00

Greetings from small town Pennsylvania! Down the road is a llama farm and an Amish community. We've just loaded back up on the bus from our FIRST show on the Point of Grace Winter Wonderland 2008 tour.

I'm not gonna lie. Tonight was pretty high on the list of greatest nights ever. I positively love getting to be apart of something like this. I get to sing, to play violin.....I just felt swept up by it all. I am amazed that He thought it would be Good to allow me to be a part of this. He is such a sweet Daddy to His little girl.

The past few days have been a whirlwind of rehearsals and packing and traveling. Below is a photo of our beloved bus....there are 12 bunks and 12 of us on here plus a driver! Crazy!

Jen is the other bgv on the tour and she has been such a fun surprise! We've had a blast on the bus and in rehearsals and the show last night! We're both nerds....and the picture below was captured of us the first night on the bus. : )

Here's a more normal picture of us. :)

OK.....I'M about to sign off.....I've actually got a list of stuff to do. :) More later! I promise!

It's been a while...

2008-11-30T20:01:00.001-06:00

I know. And I hate that. It's been a whirlwind of finishing yet two more classes of grad school (well, almost finishing...even as I write this I'm scurrying to finish up my final paper of both a class, and the semester as i took my other final exam yesterday!). I just wanted to let you all know (all you know, one of you who still follows my blog) that I'm about to head out on the road on Christmas tour...which means.....the old blog cranks back up again due to HOURS of free time on the bus. :)

Be excited....and stay tuned. :)

In the mean time check out all the other cool blogs I've made available to you....blogs written by people who update them more than once a month. haha.

15 Minutes of Shame

2008-10-31T13:01:00.000-05:00

Hey guys! CMT released a new video at noon today for Kristy Lee Cook's single "15 minutes of shame." I'm playing the fiddle at the outdoor concert scenes....so go check it out!

not for the faint of heart

2008-10-24T17:23:00.001-05:00

ok guys.

so I'm out on the road again...and as usually happens on the road...we got a little crazy today. David Daily ordered a chicken fingers basket which came with coleslaw which Ronnie and I can't stand. Naturally, we dared each other to take a big bite....and while we followed through...we certainly both lost at the game.

Enjoy....but I don't recommend watching this before dinner...

How to solve a problem.

2008-10-16T10:37:00.000-05:00

Greetings! I've been a terrible blogger lately and am resolved to fix that today. Life has been wonderful, unfortunately, wonderful in my world tends to mean busy with not enough time to sit down and record my thoughts.

Last Thursday night I came across a book called "Practical Theology for Women: How Knowing God Makes a Difference in our Daily Lives" (no...men....this is NOT license for you to skip the rest of this post. God is equally important in your daily lives, and none of what I'm about to say includes clever anecdotes about shopping, husbands or any colour of nail polish.) Although I find lots of merit in the text's notes on the importance of the Word, and on Faith especially...part of what I read in chapter 4 today really leapt out at me and I thought it was worth recounting.

"Have you been dealing with an issue that has sent you into an emotional tailspin? If you are like me, you have allowed your mind to speed through scenarios of how bad the situation might get and what options you have for fixing it on your own. In these situations, the first thing we need to do is stop. We do not have to obey fear and anxiety as if they were our masters. Change your perspective and refocus.

Instead of envisioning the problem at hand, we envision for a moment our God, beautiful in heaven, well aware of our needs, and powerfully able to provide for them. Instead of thinking through our options to fix our problem on our own, we meditate on God's supernatural ability to work out our problems in ways we can not begin to imagine.

The Old Testament saints...understood their lives were about something much bigger than themselves. It's not that their daily problems were inconsequential. Rather, they had learned to look at their daily struggles from an eternal perspective that provided the context they needed to appropriately deal with those issues. We too must train ourselves to take our thoughts captive and make them submit to what we know to be true about God. We don't ignore the details of this earthly life, but we must always read them in context of our eternal reality.

Once we get off the emotional roller coaster that's directing our responses and refocus our spiritual lens to a God-honoring perspective, then we start anew in light of eternity."

May you all stop and consider Christ, no matter how stormy or high the waves of life may be.

[If you enjoyed this, you can read the author's blog or order the book.]

The road to the White House....

2008-10-02T13:35:00.000-05:00

...goes through Nashville.

This coming Tuesday night is the second of three big Presidential debates. This one will be a town-hall style forum of questions from a pool of 100 undecided, pre-screened Middle Tennessee voters. Tom Brokaw will be moderating. It will be held at Belmont University, a mere 3 miles from my house. Keith and I got the opportunity this morning to attend their "open house" event where the public could walk through campus and see the media staging area and the arena where the debate will be held (although the set isn't in place yet.) No, sadly, I don't have tickets. They are nearly impossible to get....and I don't know anyone actually going. However, they are having a "block party" this weekend with lots of special events around town and I plan on attending some of those. Keith took the following pictures this morning on Belmont's campus. I fully expected us to be cuffed by the Secret Service at any moment..but no one seemed to care that we were snapping away.

The front facade of Belmont...decorated for the debate!

I'm a Regan baby! (taken in C-Spans "Hall of Presidents" in the rotunda outside the debate hall)

the arena where the debate will take place....sans the set and carpet which clearly aren't up yet.

The building that will house the press. Every press seat has a phone and internet connection! It was crazy! The building is temporary and is built on top of the soccer field!

bleacher type stands for the media to stand on and film the entrance to the rotunda.

beefing up on my "Debate o8" trivia outside the rotunda entrance.

Keith in front of the Belmont Belltower.

and me in front of the belltower.

the downstairs of the rotunda all decked out in banners!

Redecorating.

2008-10-02T00:31:00.000-05:00

As you have probably noticed, the blog got a little facelift tonight. Just thought I'd jazz it up a bit. Thoughts?

Rollover, Fido!

2008-10-01T19:57:00.000-05:00

I absolutely love the type of weather where you can wear a light sweater and jeans and be comfortable outside....breezy in the 70's...where you want to take lazy strolls along brick sidewalks windowshopping with friends while the leaves flutter past your face and you casually swat at them with your hands, pretending to be annoyed, but secretly thrilled that it's fall again and life is simple. Tonight was simple...simply wonderful. Dinner at PM with 3 friends...and coffee at Fido with the besty and her little sister. Mmmmm....may all our days be as peaceful as today.

Amanda and I hanging out at Fido drinking "Rollovers" (the menu description reads: "Double latte, our rich chocolate sauce, and caramel sauce with chocolate shavings")...our drink of choice.

The Surf

2008-09-28T10:29:00.000-05:00

Last night's show with Emma Mae at the Surf Ballroom was SO much fun! The energy level of the band onstage is one of, if not, the highest I've ever played with and it was so much fun to rock out onstage with them. The Surf is a really cool, old, historic theater in Clear Lake, Iowa and was the last venue that Richie Vallens, the Big Bopper and Buddy Holly played before the plane crash that killed them all. (Their plane went down 7 miles west of the theater in a field). They also have a room in the back where the walls have been signed by everyone who has played there. I thought you might enjoy some pictures from last night.

I'm in my bunk on the bus back home to Nashville....having had a great weekend, and looking forward to getting back home.

Me and Emma Mae after the show.

The Historic Surf Ballroom.

One out of 4 walls of the room of signatures! Crazy!

Point of Grace has played the Surf! I loved that I found this signature! I'll be out with Point of Grace this December for their 17 date "Winter Wonderland Tour."

So......catering brought us Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner...and the wet naps say "Not recommended for underarm use" on the packaging. Which of course, prompted me to take this picture......

Where I am

2008-09-27T10:20:00.000-05:00

I got a phone message yesterday from my friend Mike who queried, "Where on God's green earth are you today?" Good question.

At this moment I'm on a tour bus watching VH1's metal morning on a flatscreen TV while surfing the internet:

...while passing scenes such as this:

As for where in the country I am......I not quite sure where I am actually. I know that I just passed a sign advertising "Bob's Your Uncle Pizza Cafe." I know that I'm eventually going to end up in Clear Lake Iowa to play a show for singer Emma Mae Jacob at the Surf Ballroom. (The cool part about the Surf is that it is the last place that Richie Vallens, the Big Bopper and Buddy Holly played before the plane crash that killed them all. We are all glad that we are riding the bus back and not flying.)

I got on the bus on Music Row last night at midnight (after rocking out to Justin Gordon and the Avett Brothers at War Memorial Auditorium and catching part of the presidential debate on TiVo with Keith,) climbed in my bunk to sleep at about 1:30 am....got out of bed about 9:15 this morning and am chilling in the front lounge with the few band folk that are actually awake by now.....listening to all the songs we're playing tonight that I should know better than I actually do. Bill, Emma's hairdresser, just made me flaxseed waffles (Yummy!) and coffee with organic soymilk for breakfast.

We've got about another 2 hours on the road before we hit Clear Lake. I love the road. :)

P.S......
We saw these along the way today out the bus window. I don't know that I've ever really seen wind turbines before. Thought you might enjoy seeing them too.

how to play the cello

2008-09-27T09:30:00.000-05:00

The other day I was hired to play violin in a music video for Nicole C Mullen. However, as I talked with the producer, I discovered that there was a disconnect as they thought that the 4 bars of cello solo at the beginning of the song were a violin and hadn't hired a cello. What to do? Enter my friend Dabney's cello and my acting skills.

One of my biggest flaws is that I don't like to fail and I don't like to not be good at what I do, so to walk into a video shoot knowing that I was about to be called upon to do something I wasn't really good at, was a difficult thing for me.

My cello playing sounded like a dying cat....a large dying cat. Fortunately, the recording of the song was blaring loud enough that no one heard how awful I was, and the director said I "looked fabulous." which made me feel better. I accomplished what they needed for the shoot. However, it was about the 14th time through the song (we must have run it about 30 times. We played it for 3 hours straight. literally.) that the Lord spoke into my heart. Even my best playing that I think sounds amazing is still a "filthy rag" to Him. The music He makes is finer than anything I could imagine and therefore, my good playing doesn't really sound any better in His ears than my skwaking on the cello did to me. But yet He thinks it's beautiful because I play it for Him. Just like a Daddy loves the mass of cotton balls and glue and crayons and glitter on craft paper that his toddler brings home from daycare. He tells her it's beautiful and fusses over her and the picture and hangs it on the fridge.

I felt my entire body relax and I decided that I was going to turn my cello honking over to the Lord. "Daddy? Listen to this! I'm playing it for you!" I smiled and praised imperfectly as He calls us to do, and I noticed by the end of the shoot, I'd even learned the entire song....He had allowed me to conquer that foreign territory.....because I'd decided to make it worship. Our Daddy is sweet and wonderful.

doin' what i came here to do....and then some.

2008-09-23T18:19:00.001-05:00

When I moved here in August of 2006, I dreamed of a day when I would play music...and not have a desk job. I hoped....and was almost too scared to hope...that some day I could tell people that I was a violinist, a fiddle player, a musician. That when people asked what else I did, I could say, "nothing. just music."

Last November the Lord brought me to a place where He asked me to step out on obedience. You've probably heard the phrase, "don't quit your day job"...well I did. I quit my desk job at Vanderbilt University and headed out into the mean world of full time music industry.

And I love it.

I am thankful to say that since last November I have done just that. Played music. Recently I've done a few acting gigs (a commercial for a lawyer in Georgia that my friend Courtney actually saw on TV in Georgia today), an extra in Billy Graham: The Early Years (out in theaters October 10, 2008), was an extra in Hannah Montana: The Movie (out in theaters May 1, 2009) But mostly played music.

This week...the two will meet. On Thursday I'm shooting a Christmas music video for Nicole C Mullen...and next Monday I'm shooting a video for Kristy Lee Cook (American Idol Season 7) for her song "15 minutes of shame." I'll be the fiddle player in both of these videos. (type-casting? haha.)

I don't think that this is typical of Nashville at all...I'm not sure why I've been blessed with these opportunities...but I'm so thankful for them. I'm just thanking the Lord, living it up and working hard while it lasts.

i can see three corners from this corner

2008-09-09T14:20:00.000-05:00

the Lord obviously rocked my life this summer in many ways, but one of the things He saw it good to bestow in my life was the friendship of three women with whom He sent a sweet bond and has continued to compel us to share life together. One sister is in Alabama, one is being obedient and moving in faith to our nation's capitol, one has followed the Lord across the ocean to Spain. I am in Nashville. Despite being scattered to the four corners of the earth so to speak, He is using the threads He knit together in a brief period of time as a conduit through which we are continuing to be fed and experience life. This week as He poured into me through them, I heard what He does for us described as the ridiculous favor of the Lord. She continued that, "To Him, love is not an emotion that waxes and wanes - come what may, HE is love and will love no matter what." Amen and amen.

Planet of the Apes.....ahem....Grapes.

2008-09-07T21:21:00.000-05:00

Trenton, Ronnie, and Me with our Grape faces on.

Ronnie the Grape...I mean Great....I mean Ape...

Vogue
It always cracks me up when I talk to kids and teenagers at events that seem to think that musicians are "so cool." I frequently want to say, kid...if you knew how nerdy we are....you probably wouldn't be buying that record. But of course I never say that. My job is to sell records. (Today a ten year old girl came up to the merch table after the show and said, "You guys were WAY better than the Jonas brothers. No...I'm being serious...you were!" Aaahhh. I've hit the big time.) Anyway.....this weekend was no exception to the "we do weird things on the road" rule except Glen happened to be there to document it all on his iPhone. Thanks Glen. :)

These little gems were taken by hiding grapes in our lips. The boys think I look sort of like "DW" from the "Arthur" books and cartoon show. I think they look like Planet of the Apes creatures. Suffice to say, we all look super weird. It's good to know that a host of teenagers still think we're cool even though no one else will after this. Fortunately, I don't think that many people actually read my blog. ;)

spinners, running and Carmen Sandiego

2008-09-07T20:51:00.000-05:00

I found a terrific piece of Facebook flair the other day that read, “Chuck Norris knows where in the world Carmen Sandiego is.” Fantastic. Chuck Norris jokes will never ever get old and Carmen SanDiego is one of my most favorite characters ever. I had the computer game as a kid and desperately wanted to be a contestant on the PBS game show of the same name just so I could “run” the map of a continent. Carmen inspired me to participate in the 7th grade home-school geography bee. Don’t make fun.
Anyway. As I’m never home these days, I’m seriously considering re-naming the blog, “Where on the road is Bethany Daniel?” Sadly, Rockapella wouldn't be there to follow me around with catchy lyrics, but maybe Ronnie would write me a little ditty to chant...I'll have to ask him about it. (p.s. i put the Carmen Sandiego theme song lyrics at the end of this post in case you don't have the patience to check out the YouTube video.)

Today’s answer: Montgomery, Alabama.
Home of lots of vanity license plates (spotted today “IGETIT” and a few other gems I won’t repeat here), a “tricked out chopper” with cross-shaped spinning rear-view mirrors, and a teenage girl who drives a standard clutch jeep with a silver hand grenade on top of her stick-shift. I kid you not. I can’t make this stuff up.
Also home to Ronnie Freeman’s parents and the church he grew up in…hence why I’m here. Ronnie, Trenton, Ben Phillips and Glen Kimberlin and I are playing the “homecoming” service at First Assembly of God, Montgomery this weekend.

Tonight we’re at the Freeman’s house for a cookout and while the guys sacked out on the couches to watch the Alabama/Tulane game on pay-per-view ($30 ladies and gentlemen…), I got the workout bug. For those of you who know me well, you know that I’ve been a self-declared “novice runner” for about 2 and a half years now and even though I’d decided to run the Nashville half-marathon last Spring (which didn’t happen, p.s.), however over the past 2 months, I haven’t run one bit. Not a bit. Tonight however, fueled by a random burst of energy I plugged into the old iPod and set off down the dirt road.

Dirt road?

Who am I kidding? Sand road. With every step I took I sunk about an inch and a half into the loose dirt working out my calves more in a mile that I normally do in a month. Once down the road and back with 7 of the neighborhood dogs padding happily along behind me (yes….7….just call me the Pied Piper) and I was dripping with late summer afternoon Alabama humidity; my “muffin top” shifting uncomfortably from side to side as I ran reminding me that I need to get back into a regular exercise routine that includes toning the abs. Crunches, thou art my friend. Much to the dismay of the local canines, I headed to the air conditioned weight room to finish my workout. ahem.....death sentence. (I am actually posting this a day after I wrote it since this is the first time in 24 hours that I'm sitting down to an internet connection....and my calves and abs are KILLINGme!) I then made sure to pig out on Mrs. Freeman's yummy yummy food and undid everything I did in the gym. Nice. gotta love it when that happens.

Carmen Sandiego Theme Lyrics

Well she sneaks around the world from Kiev to Carolina,
She's a sticky-fingered filcher from Berlin down to Belize,
She'll take you for a ride on a slow boat to China,
Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

Steal their Seoul in South Korea, make Antarctica cry Uncle,
From the Red Sea to Greenland they'll be singing the blues,
Well they never Arkansas her steal the Mekong from the jungle,
Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

She go from Nashville to Norway, Bonaire to Zimbabwe,
Chicago to Czechoslovakia and back!

Well she'll ransack Pakistan and run a scam in Scandinavia,
Then she'll stick 'em up Down Under and go pick-pocket Perth,
She put the Miss in misdemeanor when she stole the beans from Lima,
Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Oh tell me where in the world is... Oh tell me where can she be?

Ooh, Botswana to Thailand, Milan via Amsterdam,
Mali to Bali, Ohio, Oahu...!

Well she glides around the globe and she'll flimflam every nation,
She's a double-dealing diva with a taste for thievery,
Her itinerary's loaded up with moving violations,
Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

JJ Heller

2008-09-05T00:25:00.000-05:00

I apologize that I haven't written in a while and now as I sit down to finally update the old blog, all you are getting is a commercial. BUT.....It's a commercial for something free, so that's always cool......

A friend emailed me about this artist the other day and I downloaded the album but tonight is the first opportunity I've had to sit down and listen to it (as I slave away on a grad school project that's due tomorrow...I needed a pick-me-up!)

so....go visit this link....in the graphic below.......and download the album. it's fantastic. fantastic I tell you.

More Bethany-related-clever bloggyness coming soon. I promise. As soon as my grad school project is done tomorrow.

A brief history of God.....

2008-08-26T13:59:00.000-05:00

I'm curled up at a study desk in the Columbus, Mississippi Public Library at the moment toiling away on a grad school project when my eyes wandered from my screen to the shelves of books that stretch all the way from the floor to the ceiling and apparently I'm in the religion section. Amid all the volumes one title leapt out at me; "God: A Brief History." It was about an inch and a half thick and undoubtedly about as comprehensive and thorough as a play I once saw in London entitled, "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged."

I serve a God who is infinite, Who cannot be bound by size or time limitations and Whose own infallible Word only begins to record all that He has done through history.

I serve a God who cannot be summarized in a mere 399 pages....and for that I rejoice!

the best cross-country road trips are the ones where you don't end up driving home......

2008-08-24T09:55:00.000-05:00

Left to Right: Me, Julie Ann, Heather, Kim posing on top of "Fergie" the car. We dubbed her Fergie after the singer because she is so "G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S, Glamorous, Glamorous....."'

Last Sunday when I began this little jaunt cross-country, the point was to fly there, play at the beach for 3 days, and drive home for 3 more days. While I had already flown home for the summer and had to fly BACK to California to participate in this adventure, Kimmy and Heather were still there. The plan was for them to drive (with Julie Ann Burandt) from the Ranch in Northern California to San Diego in SoCal where I would meet them. We were going to then (After 3 days of beach time) drop Julie Ann at the air port for the beginning of her trip back to Spain, and then depart straight from there to get "on the road" The road trip itself had a bit of an evolution as facts kept revealing themselves as time progressed. Let me elaborate.

Kim and Heather were originally supposed to drive a camp vehicle home. While this could have involved any one of several vehicles, the known factor here is that they all are in working order. Which brings us to.....

Road Trip Evolution Point #1.......

Eric asks us to drive HIS car home instead of a Ranch vehicle.

Our answer? Sure...E.....we don't mind driving your car home. In theory, what did it matter whether we drove a camp car or E's personal vehicle? AND...this way we were helping out a friend.

(let me insert here that E's car is a car that someone gave him. (FREE car). It's little, it gets great gas mileage, it was free....sounded like a good deal to him.)

Road Trip Evolution Point #2.......

We find out that the car is a stick shift.

Ok....still.....not TOO scary....Kim is a proficient stick shift driver and Heather and I at least know how to drive one and felt that we could swing it with a little refresher course in a parking lot. No big deal.

Road Trip Evolution Point #3......

We find out that the free, stick-shift car is an '87 Honda Accord.

So it's not roomy.....we've lived in community housing all summer. We're used to lots of girls in a small space. So it's an '87.....that just makes it a "classic car".....right? right?

Road Trip Evolution Point #4.....

We find out the car doesn't have a working air conditioner.

Um....ok. This is where the road trip started losing it's appeal. Kim, Julie Ann and Heather actually DROVE the thing all the way from the Ranch to San Diego...an 11 hour drive...with no air conditioning. I have no idea how they survived. (Well, actually...I DO have an idea...but I'm not supposed to share any of that. haha.) Keith heard about this and purchased me a handheld, battery-powered fan with neck lanyard to help on the trip home. Perhaps one of the most thoughtful gifts I've been given...but I fear that the 108 degree heat in Yuma might not have been much of a match for the little fan.

Road Trip Evolution Point #5.....

We take the car in for an air conditioning checkup and find out that......

It needs a new compressor. This will run about $950. The car's value? About $500. Yeah.....

Road Trip Evolution Point #6.....

We take the car in for an air conditioning checkup and find out that......

The clutch is dying. Awesome. The mechanic shows us a picture of his 22 year old daughter and tells us that as a mechanic he wouldn't suggest driving the car to Alabama, however as a father, there is NO WAY he'd let his daughter and two friends drive it Alabama. No way. Heather's father had a phone conversation with the mechanic (who had an icthus on his business card) and said he didn't want us driving the thing to Alabama. Mr. Francis cornered me when we got home and asked me to tell him "truthfully and completely" the mechanic's recommendations (he had recommended the mechanic). I told him. He tells us he doesn't want us driving the car to Alabama either. This all happened on Wednesday afternoon. We are slated to start our cross-country trek Thursday morning by taking Julie Ann to catch her 8:45 am flight home at the San Diego airport...and then continue on across the desert towards Alabama.

Road Trip Evolution Point #7.....

Mr. Francis talks to God. And God answers.

Thursday morning Mr. Francis began his day with the Lord praying for our safety, and if he could really let three girls get in "that car" and drive across the country. He also was praying for his son Jack, who was getting home Thursday afternoon and had nothing to do until he moves to Bolivia in September for four months. Jack wanted to go to Birmingham, Alabama to visit some friends he'd worked with at the Ranch this summer. And then the Lord spoke. It was obvious....let us girls fly home and let Jack drive Fergie. While he'd worry about three girls driving across the desert in a questionably safe car...a 21 year old boy would think it was great fun and adventure. And it was a way to get to Birmingham to see friends, and see friends along the way. At this point it was about 6:45 am on Thursday morning. I was moving all my luggage out to the front steps and the other girls were on their way to pick me up in the fully loaded Fergie. Mr. Francis presented his case to me. I hesitated....it sounded wonderful...but it was alot to take in. I told him he'd have to ask Kim and Heather. The minute Fergie rolled into the driveway, he ordered them out of the car and spelled it all out. We decide that we need some time to think. He hands us the keys to Sarah's Volvo and tells us to take JA to the airport in the Volvo and think about it. He'd be waiting at home.

Road Trip Evolution Point #8.....

We discuss. We think. We ponder. We think it's an AWESOME idea. We accept.

This, is obviously pretty self-explanatory. By the time we'd said a tearful goodbye to JA and rolled back into the Francis' driveway, we were already excited about more beach time.

Road Trip Evolution Point #9.....

www.southwest.com

We opened the front door of the Francis homestead and before we'd even finished telling them that we'd take him up on his offer, we'd been ushered to the computer to type our names in for the flight he'd found to Birmingham for Sunday, August 24th. This meant we had all day Thursday, Friday AND Saturday to play in Del Mar. So as soon as flights were purchased and parents were called and airport pickups were organized we headed to the coffee shop to hang out and read (and squeal about how gracious the Lord and Mr. F are!) and then to the beach. And then to get pedicures to get rid of our river rot/Chaco rot from the summer. (The bottom of our feet look awful!)

Road Trip Evolution Point #10.....

Day 2 of our "drive home" is spent at the San Diego Zoo.

Monkeys, Giraffes, Elephants, Flamingos, etc. Much better than the 108 degree heat that Yuma Arizona was rumoured to be having.....we wandered about talking to the animals, riding the sky tram, watching Jack eat inhuman amounts of snack food...(more on that with pictures and video footage later)

Road Trip Evolution Point #11.....

Jack finds out what he's been signed up for.

So.....the only thing we'd neglected to do Thursday before we bought our tickets was consult Jack on whether he was cool with the new setup. Apparently his Dad broke the news to him when he picked him up from the airport on Thursday afternoon and Jack was excited about it when we saw him.....BUT.....it was at the zoo on Friday as we were leaving that he found out that the car didn't have air. We pointed to these little souvenir fan/misting bottles and suggested he grab one for his road trip.....he put two and two together and I WISH I had his facial expression on camera. "Awwww man.....that car doesn't have air?........" WE LOVE YOU, JACK!

Road Trip Evolution Point #12.......

Day 3 of our "drive home" is spent learning how to surf at the Del Mar Beach.

Pretty much an awesome day. More pictures and video to come in a later post!

Road Trip Evolution Point #13......

The flight home. It was glorious. :)

As we boarded our Southwest flights home Sunday morning, we kept marveling at how great it was to be flying, to have air conditioning...to have the desert far below us as we zipped through the clouds, etc. etc. To grab Starbucks in the airport as we shuffled along to our next flight...

As we boarded the flight to Birmingham we had to laugh about how we saw the "home crowd." We could even pick out who was going to Birmingham and who would be "continuing on" to Florida from there. The Birmingham crowd were the folks with sorority t-shirts, pearl earrings, Vera Bradley luggage and tote bags, cute young couples with their cute little children, and best of all, middle aged women wearing jackets obviously purchased at Chico's. (Heather mused that their Birmingham store must bring in the most business in the entire chain). Our road trip ended in the baggage claim of the Birmingham air port where we casually collected our luggage and hopped into the cars of waiting friends and family members. Love it.

Girls...I'll take a road trip with you anytime!

If Grace is an ocean, we're all sinking......

2008-08-20T22:23:00.000-05:00

The past three days have revolved solely around the beach. Our daily routine has basically been, wake up, eat breakfast, head to the beach. We lather up with sunscreen and lay on our towels until it gets so hot that we can't stand it. And then we go running to the edge of the water, make a huge girly deal about how "cold the water is" and then jump and push our way through the water until we get the the "breaker" where we take deep breaths and dive in.

There is no better feeling than having your body tossed about the waves, salt water rushing through your hair and over your face and the sound of the pounding surf in your ears.

Today as Joy, Heather, Julie Ann and I were alternately floating and dodging the waves that seemed to be bent on stealing our bathing suits, Julie Ann commented that the ocean was like the power of the Lord. How it is so strong and powerful. How the power is great enough to kill, to obliterate a person, or even an entire town, but how it is also beautiful and perfect.

As the water continued to roll past us, so did the analogy. We talked about how like the Grace of the Lord, all who swim in the water are moved by it no matter if they want to be or not. If a wave is coming at me, I don't have the option of having my body tossed to and fro by it or not. I WILL be moved by the power of the water. The only choice I have is how I will handle it. I can either dive under it, jump over it, or do nothing and be pummeled to the ocean floor by it. We also discovered that if your kept your body in a long sleek line, you could zoom right through the waves and come out unscathed. However, if your flailed about and fought the water, you tended to get tossed and turned, dragged on the ocean floor, water in your nose, etc.

Sometimes we would narrowly miss getting nailed by wave, would dive in time, and would come back up only to get nailed by a second, bigger wave that had come up while we were under water escaping the first one. The first thing I did after coming back above the surface was wipe the water out of my eyes and feel around with my feet for solid ground. Usually if I got caught by a second wave it was because I was so focused on getting my feet back under me that I just didn't see it coming. I do this with the Lord as well...I worry and fuss about "Getting back on track" before I can relax and let the Lord carry me when all He wants from me is not to be "ready" or "prepared" or "right before Him" but to just be willing to let Him carry me. To know that I am just floating in Him, willing to go where He carries me.

...right back where I started from.....

2008-08-18T13:09:00.000-05:00

View of the Del Mar beach from the "Train station" where Sarah's dad has his office. This is the beach we have been hanging out on all week!

Heather Henderson and I hanging out at the beach.....post an hour of wave jumping....and lots of sun!

So....the question of the day is......

"Wait....you missed your flight TO California? I thought you were home!"

Yeah.....so......about that. :)

This summer was an amazing summer of making friends and allowing the Lord to turn my world up-side down. So much so infact, that I came back. Back to California. Back to the girls that I just spent 6 weeks with. We have been having an amazing time here in Cali. We've gone to the beach, gone to the beach, gotten in the pool, and then gone to the beach. :) I'm obsessed with riding the waves in the ocean and the casual, breezy way of life. It's been so nice to not have any sort of agenda whatsoever and to just continue the community that we began at the Ranch this summer. We have stayed with the Francis and O'Bryan families...two families involved with the Ranch and they have been so gracious and open with their homes and hearts. The Lord is truly spoiling us this week.

We said a sad goodbye to Sarah Francis this morning as she headed off to USC for college for to start her freshman year. Then we headed to breakfast to meet Michelle Anderson and Nicole, sweet Ranch friends, and then this afternoon, we spent at the beach with Joy Dailey and Scott LeDuc, more Ranch friends. Julie Ann flies out to Kentucky to see her parents before heading back to Spain tomorrow and then Kim and Heather and I will begin our journey cross the country. Yes....we're driving back. Crazy times. More on that situation later. :)

California, here I come…..

2008-08-18T02:13:00.000-05:00

I have never, ever, in all my years of flying, missed a flight. Ever. Sure, there have been occasions when my first flight was delayed or cancelled and I wasn’t able to make my connecting flight and had to be rebooked. Those instances however were the fault of the airline or the weather. Not mine. I, have never missed a flight…until today. Today, I missed a flight.

Before I expound on my stupidity, let me give a brief “week in review” of what’s been going on for those of you who find my schedule as confusing and difficult to keep up with as I do. I finished up my 6 weeks at the JH Ranch last Sunday and got back to Nashville at 12:30 in the morning on Monday, August 11th. I spent last week catching up with friends, doing laundry, getting paid to sit in the audience of a new Christian marriage talk show that TBN is picking up, etc. You know…normal stuff like that.
Friday night I repacked the suitcase that was lying still partially full on the floor from my previous journey. Saturday morning at the crack of dawn I drove to Spring Hill, Tennessee, met Ronnie, Kevin and Wes, drove to Mountainbrook, Alabama where I parked my car in a friend’s driveway and hopped in the car with the band for the trek to Bowdon, Georgia where we played a show last night. This morning I rode back to Birmingham and the gang dropped me off at the airport where I hopped a (miserable) flight to Atlanta…where I would stay longer than I had intended…

[Random interjection: I’m watching the in-flight tracker map on the flat screen in the back of the seat in front of me and it has struck me how curiously the United States is divided up. The Northeastern states where the 13 original colonies were are so small and then the rest of the Eastern seaboard and really anything directly South of the Great Lakes are sort of the same size and then the further West you go, the bigger the states get and you have places like Arizona and Alaska and Idaho and Montana. It’s like the further along in history we progress, the lazier we get. Our founding fathers divvied things up into nice manageable parcels of land and recently we’ve seemed to say, eh…“just lump it all in together and call it California or Texas. We’ve got better things to do than make cute, tiny states.”]

I seriously have no idea what in the world happened. I got to my new gate 45 minutes ahead of departure time. I stood with the flock of waiting passengers in line for the 6:30 pm Delta airlines flight from Atlanta, GA to San Diego, CA. I heard the gate attendant call for some flight to Buffalo, NY. I returned a phone call. I thought it was funny that the electronic standby list now had my seat number listed beside a standby passenger’s name. I watched them board the plane. I made it a specific point NOT to board the “flight to Buffalo.” I watched them lock the jet-way door. I watched the “San Diego 6:30” notation disappear from the electronic schedule. I wandered to the window to watch the flight pull away and take off. I commented to the person on the other end of the phone that “my flight is running awfully late.” I waited 10 minutes. I approached the gate agent and asked if my flight was running late. She looked at my boarding pass, gave me a blank look and informed me that the flight had taken off “about 15 minutes ago.” I protested that I thought that had been the flight to Buffalo. She looked confused. She didn’t know about any flight to Buffalo. I SWEAR they said Buffalo. I SWEAR. I HEARD them say Buffalo.

The large, bored man at customer service was NOT compassionate and did NOT think I was cute at all. I told him my story. The only words he uttered to me were “So you stood there and just watched it fly off?” Um….yeah……… He rolled his eyes. He didn’t utter any more words. He DID however, rebook me on a later flight at no extra charge. Which is where I am now…the 8:40 pm flight to San Diego seat 20B. Studying the flight tracker, blogging, and doing grad school homework. Bemoaning the fact that had I not missed my flight, I’d already be in San Diego, not still flying over random tiny towns in “Nuevo Mexico” and wondering why the “English” function on my flight tracker actually means “en Espanol.”

Buenos Noches, Amigos.

twenty-six

2008-08-14T00:02:00.000-05:00

so i feel compelled to do some sort of "Year in review" post as it's my birthday today, but i don't even know really where to start. Twenty five wasn't a bad year, exactly, but it brought with it this weird stress of figuring out the state of the union of my life and as I move past that "quarter-life crisis" (so to speak) and into my "late twenties" I'm looking forward to continuing the decade with my feet on the ground and a better grasp of who the heck I am.

In fact, I think I will be so bold as to say that I think I actually know who I am now. And I think she's pretty cool. Which scares me a little.... Hopefully I've not peaked at 26.

The Israelis are coming....

2008-08-13T01:41:00.000-05:00

The JH Ranch has, over the past ten years or so, developed an incredible relationship with the nation of Israel. They have made many trips to the city of Ariel and have hosted many Israeli students at the JH Ranch in California.

The last week that I was at the Ranch, we had the opportunity to host a delegation of 10 Israelis from the Ministry of Education in Israel. All of these delegates work with the school system in a variety of capacities, and the Director of the Ministry of Education was also able to attend. It was truly an amazing week with this group of people. We shared with them the curriculum used at the ranch, which has all been translated into Hebrew. They are using some of this curriculum at the Ariel National Youth Center, a place in the city of Ariel designed to teach leadership skills to Israeli youth using the high and low ropes course elements built exactly like the structures at the JH Ranch. We also had the privilege of learning worship songs in Hebrew and even some of the accompanying dances such as the Hora (Hava Nagila). You really haven't lived until you've seen Eric Nicolai dancing to Ronnie Freeman singing in Hebrew....but, I digress.

One of the most amazing parts of the week however was that it rained. Two days before they were scheduled to leave, the Lord opened the floodgates of Heaven and let it rain. Pour. Mallory, Sarah and I were out on our adventure when it started and we danced around like crazy people and laughed as the drops pelted us the entire ride back to the ranch.

I love that the Lord waited until His flock came to the ranch to let it rain. It felt as if He was saying to us as a staff, "because you have been faithful to tend my sheep, my chosen nation, I will bless you as well. Because you have come before me with petitions for rain and have shown compassion on my children, I am pouring forth favor on you."

Showers of Blessings.

Sugar Creek Adventuring

2008-08-10T19:45:00.000-05:00

Me, Mallory and Sarah's self portrait....

Me and Mallory on the waterfall

Sarah and I wading in the freezing cold water...

Mallory and Sarah and I decided to take our afternoon off on Friday and head out on an "adventure." We took the four wheeler about twenty minutes from "campus" to the Sugar Creek waterfall (pictured). We climbed about twenty minutes up the waterfall (Sarah and I following behind Mallory who is apparently part mountain goat) sometimes up the very center of the water, sometimes from rock to rock on the side... wherever we could find good (or suitable) footholds. The water was freezing cold but crystal clear and one could see to the bottom of every pool.

Having apparently rebounded from my fears of getting hurt after the blobbing incident, I was very proud to say that I held my own, even in the trickier passes, and loved every moment of the climb.

(afterall, it is the "climb" that counts, right?)

"Back" at the Ranch: a tale of pain and double blobbing...

2008-08-06T09:46:00.000-05:00

Photos of the infamous blob.....

My back....4 hours post injury. It got worse....then better....

This past Monday, Sarah Francis and I got off work "early" and had an entire glorious hour to go play at the lake. We did the "screamer," a double zip line that sends you from the treetops straight into freezing cold water (and pulls off your swim trunks if you aren't careful as one man after us found out!). It was exhilarating. We loved it! And then we got daring (and peer pressured) and decided to try the "blob."

This summer, as those of you faithful readers are well aware, has been one where I have constantly been challenged to get out of my comfort zone. I've lived in a tiny space with lots of girls, I've cliff jumped, I've done a disproportionate ratio of manual labor versus the worship leading/ "reason I'm here." (If you're lost, read the "Security Blanket" entry.) That being said, I'm WAY too cautious to attempt the blob had I been in my own mind. However...under the influence of those around me, I was easily swayed. Especially when someone played the "Bible card" and proclaimed that "the Lord says to be 'strong and courageous.'" Right.

My final words before climbing on that floating pillow of death were "I'm not so sure about this...I'm not very 'gymnastical!'" A few seconds later My body was hurtling through the air ninety to nothin' like I'd been shot out of a cannon (propelled by the toned physiques of Ronnie Freeman and Tyler Kempf...whose collective body weight is 3 times mine). My "not so gymnastical" body executed one beautiful front tuck with ease and precision. Then I looked down, saw the 10 foot platform that my blobbers had jumped off of zooming past me, freaked out, opened up to try to "gain control" of my soaring figure, and hit the water. On my back.

I remember coming to the surface and being unable to breathe. I felt as if someone had thrust a large blunt object into my chest and out my back. My lower back felt as if someone was holding a thousand hot curling irons on it. I realized that I looked as bad as I felt when I saw the lifeguard jump in with her float. Still stubborn despite the imobilzing pain, I managed to doggie paddle to shore , stumbled up the ladder, and stood, unable to stand, but equally unable to sit down....and forget breathing. That just wasn't an option.

My back has turned all shades of black, red, purple and now (Friday afternoon) yellow ("Your back looks jaundiced!" proclaimed my sweet friend Julie Anne....).

At first I was frustrated because I felt that the Lord had used this experience as an object lesson of something that I was afraid of, and then I stepped out in courage and did it anyway, and I got hurt. I didn't understand why I had been hurt, when then the Lord impressed on my heart that just because He calls us to obedience doesn't mean that He promises to protect us from everything that might hurt. Almost all of His disciples became martyrs for the faith. Paul was imprisoned. Peter was crucified upside down. Daniel was thrown in the Lion's Den. Joseph was kidnapped, sold into slavery, framed, thrown in prison. He just asks us to follow and trust that whatever we have to endure is still minor compared to the glory of living with Him eternally.

Wen He calls us to obedience even if we are called out of our comfort zone to do something we are afraid of, and even if it might hurt or not seem like a "good thing". We still are called to obey and to trust in Him no matter how painful the outcome. And then the healing that occurs afterwards is beautiful. He allows us to cling to Him as he restores us and makes us whole again.

While unfortunately MY blobbing experience wasn't caught on tape, I swiped this video from the video guys at camp for your viewing pleasure. This is what happened to me....except minus the second and third flip, and add a big back flop at the end.....

Courson McNuggets

2008-08-04T02:05:00.000-05:00

The Lord gave me Psalm 25 on my solo (see previous post about my solo time in the river) and I've read it almost every day that I've been here at the ranch. The following are excerpts from the Courson commentary (See post about Applegate church). I LOVE his perspective on Psalm 25. Wish I could post the entire thing...but for now...excerpts are in order. Figured I'd give you a serving of Courson McNuggets before we ate any more Piper McNuggets....you know...to keep the flavours fresh and new.
You might want to start by reading Psalm 25 (if you aren't near a Bible, visit this link http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2025;&version=47; )...as I've posted the corresponding verses that the following comments were made on.

*(v1-3) Looking back, I can see that whenever I have been ashamed, it's always been the result of a lack of hope. Romans 5:3-5 states "And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing hat tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed....."
When you're in the middle of a trial, you often have no choice but just to wait it out as patiently as you can. As you do, you gain experience, seeing that the Lord will never leave you. This experience gives you the hope that God will be with you in whatever lies ahead. Knowing this, you don't have to embarrass yourself by attempting to manipulate situations. Instead you can be at absolute peace knowing God is in absolute control.
*(v3b-5) What does it mean to wait on the Lord?...We are to say, "I'm here to serve You, Lord, with the sacrifice of praise. I'm here to spend time with You. I'm here to love You." Waiting on the Lord doesn't mean sitting idly, wondering when He's going to show up. It means waiting on Him to no less degree than a devoted waiter [in a restaurant] would do.
*(v12-14a) So often we ask the Lord what His heart is and then think we have the option of deciding whether or not we want ot go His way. God is not obligated to share His secrets with us if we are not committed to obeying the directions He gives. The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, with those who are in awe of Him, with those who are determined to obey. It is the man who says, "Lord, You are my God. You are my King. And what You tell me to do, by Your grace and with Your help, I am determined to do," who will know His will. Sometimes people say they're not being directed by the Lord, that they don't know what His will is for them. And sometimes we need to say, "Have you obeyed the last think He told you to do?" You see, I have found that He won't allow my spiritual "in-box" to pile up. He only gives me one assignment at a time. And when I do that, He gives me the next thing to do. When we do the last thing God told us to do is when we'll be told the next thing we need to do.

Retreat to Applegate

2008-08-03T18:01:00.000-05:00

After our jetboating experience last weekend, the staff continued our time together by camping at a campground in Oregon (which ant beds and interstate noise aside, was amazing) and rose early the next morning to board the buses to Applegate Church. Applegate is an amazing gathering of the Bride of Christ. Founded by Jon Courson, this body meets outside in God's creation (see above pictures snapped on my trusty blackberry) and is such a sweet place for people, no matter where in their journey they are, to approach the throne in worship and to learn through the teaching of the Word. Courson's son, Ben, preached the morning we were there and brought a simple, yet beautiful presentation of the gospel by focusing on how we are not to store up treasures on Earth, but in Heaven. In light of the journey the Lord has me on with regard to finding my security only in Him, it was so encouraging to hear again that there is no merit to storing up earthly things, but that I should be concerned with Heavenly matters. We also had the opportunity to witness the baptism of many, including several staff members who had never participated in this outward expression of relationship in Christ. It was a beautiful service all in all.

And...there was a bookstore. Books are my crack. I love them. I stocked up on three texts I'd been wanting to read and also bought Jon Courson's three volume, hardcover commentary on the Bible. Courson's writing has such a draw...its deep, but so conversational. I don't need a commentary to understand the commentary, but it's not "baby food" either. I highly recommend it.

Heaven on “repeat play”

2008-08-02T17:46:00.000-05:00

One of the complaints I most frequently hear about “contemporary worship music” is that it’s simple and repetitive, and I agree that some songs frustrate me for their lack of depth. For example, the chorus to one popular tune proclaims:
“I am a friend of God,
I am a friend of God,
I am a friend of God,
He calls me friend!”
Generally on about chorus two, I have the great urge to yell, “We get it! You’re friends with God! Move on!”

As He typically does, He spoke volumes to my heart yesterday through my sweet friend Sara Catherine. In conversation, she mentioned Revelation 4:8 which reads, “And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!’” and I was blown away. These creatures were created to only proclaim this one statement for eternity. It never gets boring, they never get tired, they never feel that they need to “change it up a little.” They simply praise the Lord over and over and over and take full delight in it.

The Lord calls us to be like little children….and little children repeat things…how many times have I watched the sweet ranch children giggle and squeal “Again Daddy! Again!” and Ronnie or Jonathan have to toss the child back in the pool for the umpteenth time…or bounce on the trampoline, or push the child on the swing. It doesn’t matter the action…the little child just delights in repeating over and over the action with their beloved daddy. When along the way does our “Do it again!” become “aww man…not again!” How sad that we can’t appreciate repetition! I think it’s a simple worshipful act that is impressed in us as little children that we loose somewhere along the way with the ability to have a simple childlike faith, hope and joy.

There is a reason that CD players have a “repeat play” option. It’s ingrained in our spirits as humans, we just need to tap into the simplicity of driving a point home by declaring it over and over. Jesus often reiterated His points…because they were important! They were things that He wanted us to “get!” To comprehend. Repetition shouldn’t make us weary, it should instill in us a sense of joy in the importance of what we are doing or saying.

So…Holy, Holy, HOLY is our Lord God, Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come!

Bring It, Donny!!

2008-07-30T22:24:00.001-05:00

Ok....here is the long awaited beginning of a string of several staff-retreat related blogs, as promised (AO...I can't promise any more Hebrew. I think I've exhausted it with "Shalom").

Last Saturday we boarded two big yellow school buses and headed North to Oregon for staff retreat. As you just learned in my lengthy and slightly neurotic post...I don't like fast moving vehicles or situations that I can't get out of easily. So when I learned that the first event of staff retreat was jet boating....I was NOT all about it to say the least. When we arrived at "Hellsgate Jet Boat Tours" I sort of wanted to bolt. I like boats...I went on a cruise last spring for goodness sake. However, I had this image in my mind of those speed boats that zoom across the water and barely make any contact with the surface whatsoever. Basically, I felt my death was eminent. So when Jonathan LeDuc, our fearless leader said he needed some volunteers to go on standby, my hand shot up. Then I was faced with another option. Bail entirely and go eat dinner with a small group of 8 in nearby Ashland, or stay on standby. After getting the "you're a wuss....they let people take babies on these things and there are no seatbelts" speech from several people, I started to think that maybe I should have just sucked it up and gone and actually started hoping that there would be space for me.

About 15 minutes later I found myself being herded onto a long metal boat...careful to be in the back row, in the middle. I concentrated on breathing regularly, humbled by the LeDuc's three year old who was hanging tight a row in front of me. I begged our driver, Donny, to "take it easy." I recieved no promise that he would even entertain this thought.

The first part of the ride was amazing. We rode through Hellsgate canyon at about 45 mph (which felt like about 100 mph) which is stunningly beautiful. Periodically Donny would do a 360 degree turn to make the entire boat spin around so that we all got wet. It was amazing. After about an hour and 15 minute ride, we pulled up at a beautiful lodge looking building on the cliff where we ate an amazing dinner. My table turned into an demi "accountability-group" meeting of sweet sisters in Christ talking about what the Lord has done in their lives. It was so edifying in the Spirit and encouraging.

On the ride back, Jamie Herndon (pictured with me) and I decided that we would be "team Awesome" and ride in the second row of the boat. I took everything that Donny threw at us in stride and even stood up at one point and yelled, "bring it Donny!" to which he responded (via microphone) "weren't you the scaredy girl that was sitting in the back row before?" I loved it...Jamie and I screamed and ducked whenever a tidal wave was headed our direction. By the end of the ride we were soaked and happy...and I couldn't help thinking, "I almost missed out on this." Somewhere along the ride I turned to Ronnie who was next to me and whispered a thanks for providing the opportunity to come to the Ranch and for being firm with me when I was waffling in whether or not I was supposed to come. He looked at me and said, "thanks for taking risks." Wow. Risks. And I say I'm not a risk taker....My thoughts returned to the thoughts of security that had been tumbling in my head for the past week or so (if you read my previous blog entry...you're tracking with me) and I wondered how many opportunities I had almost missed out of fear. Riding in that jet boat next to two of my friends screaming like banshees was one of the most exhilarating things I have ever done. My high school Sunday School teacher Forest Allgood told a story once about how he felt prompted by the spirit to share Christ with a particular man for years but never did. The one day he summoned the courage, the man wasn't there...and never returned to his office building. He encouraged us as high schoolers to "not miss the blessing." I've quoted this story many times, but it came back to mind on the boat ride....the ride I almost missed by being on stand by. By being too uncertain to come to the Ranch. By being hesitant to move to Nashville. By feeling silly going to meet Travis Crim who introduced me to Ronnie. By not wanting to go on the retreat where I met Travis. I could continue chasing this chain backwards and backwards (like the movie Sliding Doors...all the what if's...and if I hadn't been there's) but the point is that:

Security is found in God. Within His Will there is safety and no fear. (The Scripture teaches that perfect love drives out all fear, and certainly He loves us with a perfect Love!) Get off the stand-by list and get in the boat. Sit in the front row. Raise your arms and scream. Prepare to be drenched by the water from all around. Bring it, Donny!

security blanket

2008-07-30T14:08:00.000-05:00

Besides pounding into my heart over and over that “He loves me, oh how He loves me,” the Lord has been driving the point home this summer that He, and He alone is my security. I am definitely a “wade in the water” type of girl. I like to stick my toe in to see what the temperature is, then I’ll stick my feet in, then I get in up to my thighs. Then, if I’m feeling pretty good with the situation, I’ll dive my whole body under the water. Its not that I’m not adventuresome, on the contrary…I love a good adventure and when I think back over choices I’ve made, things I’ve done and life stories the Lord has written for me, I am almost astounded at how “out there” some of them are and in a few cases I have to catch my breath in disbelief that I actually experienced these things that I call “my story.” I, Bethany Daniel, (in no particular chronological order) have gone to England, to Scotland, to Costa Rica, to Panama, to Peru. Have ridden a camel. Have held a boa constrictor. Have jumped off a cliff. Have wakeboarded. Have flown to San Antonio, Texas on a plane ticket bought by a person I’d only met once to play with an artist who didn’t even know I was coming (this is how I met Ronnie Freeman…I’ll have to blog that entire story some other time). Have gone camping. Have quit my “good job in the city,” moved 7.5 hours away, to try my hand in the music business. Have ziplined through the rainforest. I’m no shrinking violet, but I’m also not a fan of situations where I feel out of control, where things are moving to fast (literally or figuratively speaking). I have a strong dislike of roller coasters and other thrill rides. I get scared riding 4 wheelers on gravel roads. I absolutely hate free-falling, be it 2 feet or 200.

I guess really, I’m a control freak. If I go somewhere with friends, I like to drive so that I know I can leave if I want to. I just like driving period because I don’t really trust anyone else’s driving. While I actually really enjoy flying in a plane, I hate that out of control feeling that occurs whilst hurtling down the runway for takeoff. I much prefer the actual flying and landing. I like my personal space…be it my own bedroom, my car, my seat; whatever that might look like. I like knowing the schedule (or better yet, making the schedule!), being the one to call the shots, etc. etc. I think I also look for “security blankets” be it a person I know in a crowd of strangers, a role to fill (for instance I’m fine walking into a gig where I don’t know anyone because I’m secure in that I’m “the violinist” …I find security in knowing the task that I’m there to do.), or a place (I don’t mind traveling all over the country because I know that there is an apartment in my name in Nashville, Tennessee for me to go home to.) (Wow…I’m sounding a bit neurotic. Sorry!)

This summer God has asked me to let go of all that makes me feel secure. I don't have cell phone service. I don't have a vehicle. I didn't have an abundance of people I knew...and those I did were not exactly at my disposal to hang out with. My role as a violinist was combined with my role on housekeeping staff, making it unfamiliar. I certainly don't have any personal space. For the first week and a half I didn't even have a bed to call my own. All I had was the Lord. And He has impressed on me that He is all I need. Relationships with people without a relationship with the Lord first, are empty. Without the Lord, the ability to travel somewhere turns into a twisted and tangled trail. Playing the violin is merely a role He allows me to fill, but my IDENTITY is in Him alone. Personal space is merely of this world...but I am in Him no matter where I am, or if there is space for me there. My place is not in or of this world anyway....there is a place prepared for me in Heaven. That is my only true "personal space."

At the ranch we have "intercessors" who come and stay for a week or longer whose sole purpose is to pray for the staff. One intercessor couple prayed over me the other day and the husband asked if I'd be willing to leave Nashville if the Lord called me to. I responded that the Lord had led me to Nashville and wasn't calling me to leave at the moment. He laughed and said that I hadn't answered his question at all. The question was not IF the Lord was calling me to leave Nashville...it was would I be WILLING if the Lord DID. I had to think long and hard about this and concluded that I was not willing. That I take so much security in where I live and having a plan to return there. My thoughts turn to Job who had everything stripped of Him...serious things like family...and yet his security remained in His relationship with the Lord. He identity was that of being the Lord's. Period.

Ronnie and I had a discussion the other day about a desire of my heart...but I expressed to Him that I desired to follow the Lord's will and the plan that He had for me, not one that I would manipulate of myself and Ronnie suggested that I "do this" with it. He stretched his arms out in front of Him and cupped his hands together, palms upward. (My thought was of a little kid showing his mom a frog he'd caught.) He said that he would stand in agreement with me before the Lord (pray prayers of intercession) but not for a particular outcome on the topic...just that I would continue to hold it out to God and say, "Here...you take this. Hold it for me. Keep it safe. I'll be here next to You following along in what I am to do with it." I loved that response from Ronnie. I've adopted this particular physical posture when I pray over decisions now. It's the only way that I can remember that I don't get to hold on to things. I hold onto God..and He holds onto my stuff. God is my security blanket.

The Oregon Trail.....

2008-07-27T19:30:00.001-05:00

Just got back from an amazing weekend of camping and jet boating in Oregon. Much adventure was lived out and much thinking was accomplished therefore much bloggage will be completed when I have a moment to sit down and write. Headed to town at the moment with the housekeeping staff for dinner....but wanted to let you all know why I had been so silent. Be on your guard...I'm liable to throw up several posts in the next day or two. Hope all is well in your respective worlds. Shalom.

hockey and music

2008-07-24T17:28:00.001-05:00

I once read that you can't fully appreciate something until you meet someone who is passionate about it. I find this to be a curious truth. I came across the following quote today and although I don't have a particular intrest in hockey, I could identify my insatiable thirst for music with his love of the game.

"They say that Wayne Gretzky, as a 2-year-old, would cry when the Saturday night hockey game on TV was over, becasue it seemed to him at that age unbearably sad that something he loved so much had to come to end, and I've always thought that was the simplest explanation for why Gretzky was Gretzky."

At two and a half when I gave my first recital, I cried when I was told to leave the stage and put my violin away after rehersing for my first recital. The only way they could make me get off the stage, was to tell me that I had to get down, before I could get back on to play again. To my toddler brain, this logic seemed reasonable.

Nashville Symphony conductor Kenneth Schermerhorn once said "Even before I knew what a musician was I knew that's what I wanted to be." Me too, Maestro...me too.

fire on the mountain....run, boy, run

2008-07-22T18:38:00.000-05:00

Figured I'd give you folks some updates on two interrelated topics of concern at the ranch...fires and mountain lions.

The California wildfires continue to burn and the staff continues to pray that the Lord will send rain upon this place. While we aren't in any real danger of the fires, we have been impacted greatly by the smoke. It makes everyone have sort throats and is causing lots of sinus problems, as well as impacting some of our hiking activities and what not. Please join with our staff as we ask the Lord to bring rain to this dry clime and put out the fires.

Because of this, we are seeing lots more deer and wildlife than usual as these animals are being displaced by the fires. Most notably, a family of mountain lions has taken up apparent residence about ten yards north of the Green Bean. Last friday night, two staff girls spotted them (two adult lions, 4 babies) as they walked home and then last night, Matt, one of the boy staffers was out for his nightly run at dusk when he heard something stir beside him and looked over to see one of the adult mountain lions a few feet to his left. He ran to the Green Bean (which caused a bit of a stir) and called the front desk to alert everyone. Again, I don't think there is any real danger....we now have men in golf carts driving us home at night to the Bean and no one is allowed to wander by themselves at night...but it was sort of exciting to have "mountain lion survival training" at lunch today.

The pictures above are of the California wildfires from 25,000 feet. Photo credits: Scott Booth...as he flew his fighter jet over California on his Transpac journey from North Carolina to Japan.

TheirSpaces

2008-07-21T20:01:00.000-05:00

In effort to support the indie music community (of which I am a part) I've added a list of My Space sites of folk I consider to be quality musicians. check em out. maybe even purchase their music. give some love to starving artists. i'll be updating the list when i see fit...but it will always hover there on the right side of the page for your listening pleasure.

My Granola Weekend: further jammage in Scott Valley

2008-07-20T19:09:00.000-05:00

So as fate (or God) would have it, it just so happened that Sandra and Don who own the drugstore also organized the Bluegrass festival which I was dying to attend. I apparently had established a much larger reputation in Etna, California the night before than I'd realized because when I walked in the door, Don proclaimed, "the Fiddle is here!" (And when Sandra caught me washing dishes she cried..."we're letting 'fiddle fingers' wash dishes!") After we finished the ice cream extravaganza, they were adamant about getting to hear me fiddle again. As David didn't have a guitar this time around, we improvised by putting different rolls on their old upright player piano and I fiddled along to "Tennessee Waltz" and sang along with "The Lullabye of Broadway." Satisfied with my entertainment, Don gave David and I free day passes to the festival that was in full swing (in full two-step?) about 6 blocks over at the local park.

We wondered that way and enjoyed the good (cheap) food, quality tunes, various homemade wares (I bought a beanie hat made out of alpaca wool) and just the good feeling of sitting on the ground relaxing and watching the locals dance about. We hung out for a few hours and caught some really great bands and then headed back to the ranch for dinner. Not to miss any moment of music however, I rounded up another crew of folk and headed back post dinner to catch a few more bands and of course...to jam.

I'd met a few folk the night before that were excited about jamming with me again so as the last band left the stage we headed to the campground next door where they had set up a tent lit with lanterns. 12 of us crammed beneath it...a myriad of accoustic instruments and Mark the dobro player nodded at me and said, "alright fiddle...what'll it be?" Unable to convince them that I really DON'T know any old bluegrass standards, I finally taught them "Cuckoo's Nest" (the one tune I know) and from there my education began as we played a host of old time standards I'd never heard (I spent a small fortune on iTunes when I got home downloading recordings of everything we'd played so I can listen and learn and not embarrass myself next time) although everyone seemed to feel that I'd hung in pretty well. I loved the atmosphere....the pitch black night with the blood red moon, the ragged assortment of unshowered hippie musicians playing their weathered assortment of axes (several guys had headlamps on their heads!)...the tent with the lanterns hung from every corner for light....how we went around the circle, each one in turn choosing a tune and kicking off the solo, and then the hook getting passed around the circle so everyone had a chance to show off their chops. It made my heart sing. I could have stayed all night. At about 11:45 my fellow staffers decided they'd had enough for a night so I wrapped it up with a lively version of Devil's Dream and headed back to the ranch exhausted and happy.

Yes folks...I had to leave the hills of Tennessee for the mountains of California for a bluegrass education...but the genre is alive and well. Music is truly a language...one I'm glad I speak.

(If you would like to incorporate the Scott Valley Bluegrass Festival into your summer plans next year, A) here's the website B) be sure not to go without inviting me! :) http://www.scottvalleybluegrass.com/ )

My Granola Weekend: cliff jumping and free ice cream

2008-07-20T18:00:00.000-05:00

Saturday I had the entire day off. I'm splitting this day into two installments of "My Granola Weekend." So part one opens with loading up a camp van with about 60 sack lunches and coolers and heading about 45 minutes north east of the ranch followed by a school bus of church group kiddies to a place called Shackelford Falls. It is absolutely amazing! We ate sack lunches on the various rocks in the river and then the cliff jumping began.

No (Mom..I know you are reading this and freaking out....) this was not impromptu cliff jumping....this was planned. It was the entire point of going to Shack. There is a "natural water slide," a "low rock" (just over 10 feet up) and a "high rock" (about 20 feet up) above a basin about 20 feet deep of freezing cold mountain water. You climb up a rock face and then jump off the top into the frigid waters beneath and then swim against the current either to the person holding the big metal hook on a rod to pull you out, or pull yourself out with every ounce of upper body strength you have. I'm not really a huge fan of being cold...ever...and certainly not cold and wet, so this wasn't really my thing. However, I'm also not one to pass up a good opportunity and I do like a bit of adventure, so I climbed to the top rock with the best of them and got out on the edge...and froze up. We're talking knees locked, heart pounding, chest tight. I also climbed down like a champ....but not the whole way. When I reached the "low rock" I took the plunge and am proud to say that I pulled myself out without the assistance of the strong man and his metal hook. And that was all I really felt I needed to accomplish for the day in the danger category. :)

After the falls we headed to Etna to the old time drug store for ice cream. I changed from my cold wet bathing suit into my "flowy hippie pants" (love me some sale racks at Anthropologie) and a dry top and headed in the store. Now I've always heard jokes about washing dishes to pay for one's supper...but have never actually experienced this....until Saturday. The drug store owner cheerfully tossed me a dishrag and said if I washed dishes my ice cream would be free. David and I hopped behind the old timey soda counter and he collected money while I scrubbed away. (By old-timey I mean old timey. If you order a soda they pour syrup into a cup and then add seltzer water from a special metal tap on the marble counter.) At the end of the process I got a cone of chocolate chip cookie dough and a hand made coke. Mmmm. Delish.

The photos above are of Shackldford Falls, Me with a newly washed blender and Ms. Sandra and her orange sherbet exravaganza and of me looking disgusted at something that refused to come clean while Sandra and Don chat in the background. (More on Sandra and Don in the post to follow)

My Granola Weekend: pickin' on Main

2008-07-20T17:51:00.000-05:00

Friday night I had the night off which excited me greatly, so I decided to rally the troops and head into the booming metropolis of Etna for dinner at the "Trail House." Thomas Blackmon, David Dailey and Jamie Myers and I loaded up in Thomas' car and had a fabulous dinner of "tri tips" (which was really quad tips...these little mini steak things) with much random entertaining chatter...you know...those good deep belly laughs that just make you feel healthy. Anyway. After our meal was finished we wandered out into the dusty streets of Etna, California and into the midst of an impromptu bluegrass pickin' party. Seems that the "Scott Valley Bluegrass Festival" was Saturday and Sunday and pickers and strummers from near and far were kicking the festival off by jamming in the street. The one Etna police man had blocked off main street (all two blocks of it) with hay bales and the entire town was either playing something or dancing about to the strains of banjos, guitars, double bass and mandolins.

I of course, was taken with this entire idea and plopped down on the sidewalk to listen in. We hung out for a few minutes and then had to get Jamie back to camp to work snack bar so I reluctantly was torn away and rode back to camp. We had no sooner unloaded at the Ranch when Thomas pulled me aside and asked if I'd like to go back to the bluegrass jam with my violin and see what I could get into. (Thomas gets the friend of the year award for this). So we piled back in the car, picking up my fiddle, Trenton's guitar for David to jam on, Trenton himself, Jordan Mahy, and a few other folks, and made the 15 minute drive back to Main street Etna.

The next two or so hours were pure bliss for me. I floated from group to group picking up what I could learn, engrossed in the melodies of a host of bluegrass standards. The folk there were true pieces of "Americana" if you will. It was such an awesome evening of relaxation, good music, good friends, and authenticity. Everyone was happy to be there and genuinely happy to meet new folk and to exchange ideas and tunes. When I was finally dragged away, I felt that my inner musician was more than satisfied....if only I'd known what the next day would bring.

The pictures above are of me (fiddle) and David Dailey (guitar) jamming on the street. There is also one picture of some of the folk jamming without us.

My Granola Weekend: the grand introduction

2008-07-19T00:47:00.000-05:00

Welcome to numero uno of a multi-part blog series. Granola, you ask? Let me explain. You know the type of folk that only eat organic foods, that grown their own vegetables, that make their own clothes...or better yet that sheer their own sheep to make yarn and thread to make cloth to make their own clothes. Who don't always bathe. Who travel in large vans that barely run with stickers proclaiming various political views from decades past. Who don't always feel the need to wear appropriate under garments. Who don't wear make-up. This isn't really the type of life I lead.....although I do love shopping at Whole Foods, I did grow tomatoes and the like in a garden with my mom when I was a kid, I have been known to make my own clothing (and even won first prize at the county fair in high-school for a dress that I made), I haven't had a shower since before I swam in the river yesterday (but hey...I'm at camp), I do drive an SUV which is sort of like a little van, but my bumper stickers advertise various Christian ministries...but I do wear underwear and makeup (well, makeup some of the time). OK....so maybe I'm pseudo granola. It's times like this weekend, or really the entire time I've been at camp, that I get to enjoy little "Granola vacations" if you will. Where I can run around with no makeup and no one cares. I loved feeling like a hippie this weekend. Hope you enjoy my tales. Hope you don't think I'm nuts for this post. (Jess...I know you're tracking with me. haha. love you!)

p.s. the pictures are of this cool old car I found in Etna. I think the small dog inside it had some sort of mange and seemed a tad snarly. I assumed that this car and dog were a permanent fixture in the town, however, to my surprise, at the end of the night, a man walked up, jumped in the car, cranked it and drove off!

made for His Glory.....

2008-07-18T02:15:00.000-05:00

As music is central to my life, it makes perfect sense that the biggest decision I have ever made was both inspired by and made during listening to a song. In January of 2005 at a little tiny campground in the backwoods of Mississippi, I heard a song played on a CD during a "ministry" time where students were allowed to come forward for prayer. The song was called "For Your Glory," the CD was called "Worship from the Big Top," and the artist was a man named Ronnie Freeman. At this point in life I had heard of neither the song, the album, or the man singing, but was moved by the lyric that proclaimed:

"For Your Glory I was made, to bring you honor, to bring you praise,
for Your Glory, you have saved my soul, and You called me Your own...
for Your Glory."

So moved in fact....that I moved all the way down the aisle to talk to a woman in my church and ask her to pray over me as I surrendered my heart to a full-time music career. At the time of course, I had no idea what that would end up looking like, nor could I have dreamed that a year and a half later I would move to Nashville, Tennessee to play for the very singer I was listening to that very minute...or that I would spend a month and a half at a place called JH Ranch worshipping in the very "Big Top" that that CD was named after, I just knew that in that moment I was blown away by the concept that Christ could possibly receive any glory from my existence on this earth. I think that because I am so in awe of God's big-ness, I find it difficult to compute in my brain that I am important to Him. Not only does He receive glory however, that was the entire point in making me! He made me to honor Him, praise Him and bring Him glory!

This is the point in this blog where I could very easily slip onto some theological rabbit trail about "predestination" and the "elect" and to what extent we choose Christ and how much He just picks and chooses who He will bring to live with Him in eternity, but there would be little point in that. All I know is that I believe and am confident that He not only created me, but He did it with purpose and with pleasure. That He made me the person I am, with the gift that I poses so that I could in turn give it back to Him in praise and worship. That He calls me His own and that He has redeemed my soul and made it precious and beautiful.

Tonight a sweet new friend slipped me a note after worship encouraging me that my violin playing and attitude of worship on stage this summer was impacting those around me. While I was certainly encouraged by her words, I was also almost terrified to think that what I did had an effect on others. It is an awesome responsibility to be in a position where people are watching you because you then have the power to essentially improve them, or harm them in some fashion. It was sobering to realize that the only way people were being positively impacted by my gifts and strengths and not negatively impacted by my sins and weaknesses was because the Lord was allowing them to see me when my heart posture was in a state of total dependence on Him. What would I be without Him? Without His guidance, control and direction....not to mention his grace and mercy that He not only "saved a wretch like me" but is using me to further His kingdom despite my junk and sins. I was mulling over all this still as I stepped back onstage to lead during "ministry time" when Ronnie looked at me and launched into the very "For Your Glory" tune that captured my heart and attention some 3 and a 1/2 years ago and I completely lost it....amazed again that He had called me, chosen me, saved me, uses me and even delights in me! That He created me so that He could take pleasure in my music and in my being. That He thought it was good that I should be given life. Powerful.

I apologize to my readers if this post seems redundant as I know that I have had several as of late focused on how amazed I am that God loves me and how I'm falling head over heels for Him...but the truth of the matter is that I'm confronted with His boundless and uncomprehensible love every day it seems. And because understanding, or rather accepting (since I don't believe one can ever understand), the love of God is absolutely central to our existence. If you accept nothing else in life, accept His love. It is truly the only thing of any importance.

room with a view...

2008-07-17T17:21:00.000-05:00

so the big new in life at the moment is....dum da dum da dum.....

I have a new living arrangement!

I'm still in the Bean, but I've been moved to a much smaller room that I share with 3 girls versus the other room that I shared with 10 or so. Jill and Ginny live in the bunk bed next to me and Ginger Anne has the pleasure of sleeping on the bunk below me. While I've really grown to love all the girls in the Bean (and even the Bean itself in some twisted sort of way) living in this new room with these girls is amazing. I sleep better at night, I get a cubby PLUS a 1/4 of a real closet, we have a window, and a door we can close if we want to go to sleep. Aaaahhh....the lap of luxury. Ha ha. I'll be living in this room until the end of my stay at the ranch, and I feel so blessed to get to share life with these 3 sweet girls. Its allowed me to be alot more relaxed and to get alot more sleep which makes me more at peace throughout the day.

I'll have to post a roommate pic if we are ever in the same place at the same time to take one. :)

"Deer" friends

2008-07-17T17:16:00.000-05:00

Just thought I'd post these pics of me and Mary-Hall (and her lawn ornaments gifted by the previous home owner) from my recent trip to Denver. Love it.

MORE pictures

2008-07-16T02:09:00.000-05:00

so for some reason my computer, or internet connection, or blog, or some combination thereof was on the fritz yesterday and wouldn't let me post pictures. however...that seems to all be straight now, so I went back and edited several of my posts and added pics. check them out all over again. :) blessings.

AND....I've done it again. more photos added to old posts. Go look. Again. :)

Rodeo

2008-07-16T01:25:00.000-05:00

So every camp here at JH starts off with a "Rodeo" which is this hilarious skit/game time. I can't really describe it. Anyway. A friend snapped these two pictures at last week's rodeo that make me happy. One because it's awesome, and one because it's, well, awesome....but on a whole different level. :) Enjoy.

A “Rock-ie” flight turned Vacation (Bible School, that is…)

2008-07-15T18:18:00.000-05:00

so the continuation from below is......

..............at which point I saw the silver lining in the thunderclouds hovering over Baltimore and by the time we re-boarded the plane and took off 2 hours later I’d called my dear friend Mary-Hall in Denver where my connecting flight to Medford had already departed and made arrangements to crash with her if need be.

The flight to Denver was for certain one of two of the scariest flights I’ve ever been on...period. When I hit the ground in Denver (and by “hit”…that’s exactly what I mean) and called MH, she was already waiting at the airport for me. I spoke with the gate agent who suggested that I re-book on the same direct flight from Denver to Medford on Monday afternoon that I had missed on Sunday afternoon as that flight was the only one that hadn’t been having problems getting in on time (the smoke in California is really causing flight problems), took her advice, re-booked, and headed off to spend the night with my sweet MH and her husband (and let’s not forget Abby the dog) in their brand new house about 45 minutes from the Denver aero Puerto. We cruised home chatting 90 to nothing to the musical strains of our favorite CD (which I cannot identify to keep the reputations of both of our musical tastes intact) so thrilled to catch up on the past year of so that I haven’t seen her. Sweet August had dinner ready for us when we got there and after a bit more gabbing I crawled into bed with the windows open and the night sounds and temperate clime of Colorado drifting through the screen over me.

Monday morning we got up early (sweet girl washed and folded the clothes I’d been wearing for me since my suitcase was not locatable the night before at the airport) and went to her church where she was the director of their Vacation Bible School. I mostly stayed out of the way (well, I did decorate a cardboard box…but…) while MH scurried about making sure everything went according to plan and thinking on her feet when no plan existed. I was thrilled to discover that there was a youth group there on mission trip helping out from Bolivar, Missouri where I was a few weeks ago playing at T.H.E.E. Camp (although disappointed to discover that none of the kids had been T.H.E.E. Campers, still….what are the odds?). After a lunch of Mexican food, a trip to the tailor to pick up a dress, a few minutes browsing an antique store (a favorite pastime of ours) and a bit of internet surfing at her house, it was time to head back to the airport to catch my flight to Medford….which is where I am as I write this…comfortably seated in an exit row seat (I have the entire row to myself) listening to Josh Radin, typing and glancing out the window at the clouds and mountains dropping away below me.

It’s been an amazing past four days of relaxing and friends….but I’m anxiously awaiting my arrival back at the Ranch. I believe that the Lord ordained this trip (And even the delay) for a certain purpose of vital spiritual importance, but to personal to publish on a blog to which the world has access, but I’m thrilled to be going back to JH….it’s time…I’m longing to continue the growth I began there and rest a bit more (even if that rest occurs on my knees scrubbing). On my solo the Lord gave me verses that begged Him to “teach me Your paths” and I am confident that I have walked His path this weekend...even though it seemed to lead a twisted unplanned direction. I think there was a big fat, wooden cross nailed to the side of the Denver airport for me asking me to pause there and fulfill the purpose He had for me that began in Bethany Beach, Delaware, and ended in the hall of a tiny church in East Boulder, Colorado.

I feel rejuvenated, restored, and ready to discover the rest of His purpose for me. I feel strong and confident like Lucy when Aslan breathed his great breath on her.

Post Script:
My body is pretty sure it has no idea what time zone, or state for that matter, it's in. I've given up trying to help it sort it all out. I think I’m just going to start sleeping when I’m tired and doing stuff when I feel awake and being where I am.

What did Dela wear boys? What did Delaware.......

2008-07-15T18:13:00.000-05:00

The thing about life on the road is that gigs don't always come in close proximity to one another. For example, I've been in Northern California for about 2 weeks now and will remain there for another month, but this past weekend I had a gig....in Delaware with Beth Cayhall. So last Friday morning, sweet Leslie Freeman packed up all three kiddies at 7:30 in the morning and drove me on the 1 hour and 45 minute trip from Etna to the closest airport, which happens to be Medford, Oregon. From there I flew to San Francisco, California, and caught my connecting flight to Baltimore, Maryland where Brian Oaks and Seth Marcum picked me up at the airport (wearing 3D glasses at night and driving a sweet Volvo rental station wagon, I might add.....) and we drove the three hours to Bethany Beach, Delaware where our gig actually was. Upon arrival at the townhouse (on the beach) I had been awake for 23.5 hours. Exhausted, I crashed in my (queen-size) bed and didn't even think about waking up until 11:30 the next day.

The next day was absolutely amazing. The band ate at this stellar joint on the beach (Bethany Beach is the cutest little shore town ever. I plan on vacationing there often!) called Mango's and then Seth and I went and swam in the ocean for about an hour. I don't think I've really done that since I was a little kid and used to visit my grandparents down the Jersey Shore and it was simply food for my soul. The undertow was strong and the waves were brutal so by the time we body surfed our last wave and got washed up on the shore we were exhausted...but felt like little kids....which was so worth it. :)

That night we played two awesome shows with Beth for her hometown crowd....one at the Bethany Beach Bandstand for about 1,100 people and one at the Milford, Delaware Volunteer Fire Fighter's Association Fire Station....for a smaller (but much rowdier) crowd. We jammed out. People danced. I rode a mechanical bull. Yes. You read that correctly (and by the way I was pretty much awesome at it!) Sunday morning we made the trek back to Baltimore (somehow it took 4 hours this time….who knows.) where the majority of the band had to hoof it to catch their flights back to Nashville. Seth and I grabbed a quick lunch in the terminal and parted ways. He caught his flight to his next gig in Charlotte….and I sat in the Baltimore airport. And sat. And sat. And boarded the plane. And found out that all three DC area airports had been shut down (for incoming AND outgoing flights) due to weather. And then our entire plane un-boarded. And sat………

Seeing as this is the end of the Delaware portion of my weekend and the beginning of the Denver one….I’ll be posting the conclusion in a separate entry…

To be continued…….

P.S. The answer to the riddle is, "She wore her brand New Jersey." [And, if you were wondering what did Tenne see? She saw what Arkan saw." You know I've always loved the cheesy jokes (Win Graham, Matt Minor...here's some more ammo for you)]

criss-crossing the country

2008-07-14T16:14:00.000-05:00

I've actually gotten to talk to a few of you over the past 96 hours which has been amazing. It's felt like a year since last friday when i got in the mini van to drive to medford, oregon to board a plane to fly to san fransisco, california, to fly to baltimore maryland, to drive to Bethany Beach, delaware......

I've now got to get to the Denver airport to catch a plane back to medford, to Etna to the ranch....and will update you in a nice newsy blog, the events of the past four days.....but i'll keep you on the edge of your seats till tomorrow. :) However, I'm safe...I'm happy...I'm amazed at the Lord. and soon...I'll be "back at the ranch."

blessings to you all....until tomorrow.

correction

2008-07-13T15:11:00.001-05:00

I misspelled the name of the artist who sang the version of "Amazing Grace" that blew me away. His correct name is "Wintley Phipps." Now.....go buy it on iTunes!

Solo…….Portion B

2008-07-13T13:01:00.000-05:00

After leading worship with Ronnie and the praise team at the nightly worship service (we call it “Big Top” at the ranch) my solo time turned into a duet. My sweet friend Michelle who lives one bunk over and down from me, and I decided that we would continue our 24 hours with the Lord by hiking up the mountain and spending the night at the foot of the cross (remember that cross that I searched for and just couldn’t find last week?). While I understand the importance of solitude before the Lord, and why we had been instructed to go “solo” on this adventure, for me, spending alone time is easy, and for me to approach the Lord in community with another girl was actually going to be more of a challenge and opportunity for growth than being alone would have been. (Plus a heck of a lot safer. There are tales of folk encountering bears and mountain lions on overnight hikes in the area.)

We packed up our packs with extra layers of clothing and our tarps, camping pads and sleeping bags, food, refilled our water bottles and set off up the mountain behind the big top. For me this trek was so symbolic in so many ways. Last week when I went searching for this place of serenity and solitude, I wasn’t seeking Him out of love or a desire to find Him for Him, I was just unhappy, and was seeking something…anything…better than the situation I was in at the moment. I also wasn’t willing to listen to Him…I just ran headstrong in the direction I thought made the most sense. At least in my life, I’ve found that the Lord doesn’t always work in ways that make sense, but if when I’ve asked for direction…He has always provided it. In this case, I went straight in the direction of the cross because in my human wisdom, the way to get somewhere is to walk towards it. In this case, the path to the cross actually starts out by going the opposite direction and then snakes around and comes up the back of the mountain. However, those little white cross signs were there nailed to trees at every fork in the road. Never were we confused about which path to take, even though it didn’t seem to make sense. He allowed me to come to Him when my heart posture was submissive and actually seeking His face. When I followed His direction….in His timing…and in community with another believer, a sister in Christ.

We reached the summit after about a 30 minute hike up a steep and winding path; the time it took for the sun to leave it’s perch on the top of the mountain and sink behind it completely. When we were almost at the top, we turned around to rest and discovered that two of the guy staffers had had the same idea. We finished the climb as a quartet and set our packs down in front of two stone thrones at the top of the mountain, built for people to sit and contemplate Him. We prayed as a group and shared bits of each of our testimonies there before following the path around to the actual cross where we lingered a bit longer over apples and conversation and watched the lights flickering down on the ranch campus. We gathered our food and hung a “bear bag” (just in case they decided to pay us a visit during the night) and then the boys hiked back down the mountain a little to camp at a flat place we’d passed along the way and Michelle and I returned to set up our campsite at the peak at the foot of the thrones. I’ve never been camping before this experience and I’m so thankful that my first time was so memorable. There is nothing that can be compared to laying under a vast expanse of stars listening to the chirp of crickets and sharing stories about God’s Glory with a sister in Christ. Nor is there anything like being awakened at 5:30 in the morning as the sky gradually gets lighter and the birds begin to sing. Michelle and I got up and packed up our campsite and went back to the cross to watch the sunrise. As it was starting to peek over the trees, she handed me her iPod and told me to “listen to this.” What filled my ears was the booming velvet voice of Whitley Phips singing Amazing Grace (buy it on iTunes this very minute) and I stood sobbing at the foot of the cross watching the Son rise and bring new mercies for a new morning. His Grace is Amazing.

“There’s always gonna be another mountain
I’m always gonna want to make it move
It’s always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I’m gonna have to lose
It’s not about how fast I get there
Or what’s waiting on the other side…..
It’s the climb”
-The Climb

Solo….portion A

2008-07-13T13:00:00.000-05:00

The final portion of staff training here at the ranch is what they call a “solo.” It’s a 24 hour stint where you wander out into the woods by yourself, armed with sack lunch (aka Peanut Butter sandwiches and apples), a sleeping bag, a hiking pack, a tarp and a ground pad and whatever else you can cram into your pack and still be able to keep it on your back. The point is to have an entire 24 hour period to be silent and still before the Lord; sort of an extended-devotional time.

My solo began Wednesday at lunchtime and concluded Thursday at lunch. It ended up being a tad different than the “guidelines” set forth, but was possibly the most impactful time I’ve ever spent with the Lord. I set off on what we’ll call “solo portion A” with two Nalgene bottles of water (you can’t drink out of the creeks here or you can contract Montezuma’s Revenge…not the way I want to spend the remainder of my summer,) my sack lunch, the Bible, Piper’s “Desiring God,” the “Intentional Life of a Disciple” text that we are reading as a staff, a journal, bug spray, sunscreen, and my trusty Mac laptop (which is affectionately named “Sparky”) and headed about five minute south of the Bean to a creek that runs behind the Johnston’s house. I climbed down the rocky embankment, found a flat rock, and set up camp.

I started off by eating lunch and just enjoying being away from the hustle and bustle of camp, and rejoicing in the fact that I didn’t have to clean that morning. The sound of the creek was refreshing and calming and I enjoyed just sitting and being silent and by myself, and listening to everything around me. After a short while I decided to begin to read the Word. I’ve often heard people talk about how the “Lord gave them a scripture” and they “meditated on it all day” and have honestly had trouble understanding that for two reasons. A) I don’t always hear the Lord speaking to me, let alone have Him instant message me a scripture verse whenever I’m struggling with something and B) I just don’t have the attention span to meditate on something for more than about a minute. However, today I ate my words. Julia, our girls’ staff head, had suggested that if we got on our solo and weren’t sure where to start reading the Word, to start with Psalm 23. So I began there and then decided to continue on and read Psalm 24 and then Psalm 25. It was in this chapter that two verses stuck out to me and directed the next few hours.

“Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me,
For you are the God of my salvation;
For you I wait all the day long.”
-Psalm 25:4&5 (ESV)

One of the other suggestions for solo time had been that it was a good opportunity to seek the Lord’s Will on important decisions. At this present time, I have no important decisions pending…I am pretty settled in my occupation, city of choice, etc., etc., and through these verses I felt the Lord calling me to just seek Him because He loves me, and I Him and for no other reason. I was hit by the thought that so often I seek Him only for a purpose; I want wisdom, I want some blessing or some thing to go my way, I received wisdom or some blessing and I want to say thank you. Rarely do I seek Him, just to be with Him. Just to spend time together. Just to love Him, and let Him love me. For five hours I sat and pondered these verses, wrote them in the sand on the bank of the river, and danced in the freezing cold mountain spring water like a silly schoolgirl with a crush. My spirit was so overflowing by the time it was time to go in to lead worship that I’m certain I continued my schoolgirl antics whilst playing violin. But I’m in good company…David was undignified before His Lord, and after all…I’d just spent the day with the Lord with whom I’m crazy mad in love with.

Knock, knock…. “housekeeping”….

2008-07-13T12:58:00.000-05:00

Since I arrived at JH I’ve been not only playing violin, but also keeping busy working at my assigned job on “housekeeping staff.” Starting on day 2 of my “Everlasting adventure” at the ranch, I have found myself cleaning toilets, pressure washing the bathmats in the boys’ communal bathroom, doing laundry, vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing sinks, etc. It has been a humbling time for certain (funny enough the “word of the week” here at JH this week is “humility” hmmmm….) but I enjoy the satisfaction of seeing something dirty become clean (and TRUST ME…..with the boys toilets…there is lots of satisfaction to be had!) . The girls on housekeeping staff are WONDERFUL, as is Grace, our “mom” who keeps us all on task and under control (well, mostly.)

We start cleaning every day after breakfast by cleaning and resetting the tables in the staff dining area. Then we split into three groups and clean 1) the Lodge (where all the offices, the bookstore, the nurses’ station, the staff dining area, decks, game room and “fireside” meeting room are located, 2) the staff housing (parts of The Manor (full time staff), the Ritz, the Convent and the Bean (Girls’ staff) and the Boathouse (the boys staff communal shower)) and 3) the guest cabins (Cottowoods, Dogwoods, Maples, Madrones, Willows, Ponderosa, Redwoods, Birches, Hemlocks and one or two I’ve forgotten…keep in mind that each of these guest cabins has a side A and side B).

A few days ago, Chef Bob brought out “special breakfast” for us as we reset the tables after breakfast for lunch. It turned out to be bowls of chocolate mousse with whipped cream topping (mmm mmm good!) and as one might expect, we got a little crazy with it……this picture is (Left to Right) Joy, Emily, Claire, Me and Jenny.

[so my blog is having issues and won't let my post my pictures. sad. will do it soon.]

Sweet Southern Comfort…..carry on….

2008-07-13T12:55:00.000-05:00

Since arriving in California, two things have been noticeably absent from my diet. The first are McDonald’s French fries and dollar-menu double cheeseburgers (plain, of course). As Wendy (roommate) and I don’t have Internet at our apt., and since I can eat for $2.36 and be full, I often head down to the Green Hills McDonalds for lunch/dinner/afternoon snack, and use their free WiFi to carry out my business whilst I eat cheaply. I am thankful for the lack of McDonald’s @ JH/Etna, CA, as my body is much healthier and skinnier without it. The second thing is sweet tea (Californians just don’t get it) and it is HIGHLY missed. I have yet to figure out how to fill this void.

A few weeks ago about 8 of us from the Deep South (there are a bajillion Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, Alabama folk around here) invaded Chef Bob’s kitchen and worked for about an hour trying to concoct the perfect batch of this magical elixir that runs through the veins of all true Southerners. We never achieved the greatness we hoped our striving would produce, and really the whole process served only to whet our desire for some quality tea.

A few nights ago my friend McKenzie ventured into town and found this Arizona “Southern Style” sweet tea and brought back a can for me. It’s not quite Milo’s (mmmm….the sweet goodness that can be achieved only by drinking that magic mixture tea from a milk jug)…but it was a welcome taste of home. He’s such a sweetie…wait, “sweet-tea.” (ba dum chhhhhhh).

life's a beach....

2008-07-09T20:01:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite parts of ranch life is the lake. (Although I somehow still don't have a tan.....) Here are a few snapshots of hanging at the lake last week....
Jo, Ronnie's son, asked me to bury him in the sand because his "legs are really cold from the water."
Also, me with three of my favorite girls, Katie and Jenny Spalding, and Jamie Meyers.

Piper McNuggets

2008-07-09T19:55:00.000-05:00

When I was in college, Mr. Eubie, perhaps my favorite Sunday school teacher of all time, taught a series on “Desiring God,” a John Piper text. The lessons were wonderful and made me go on to seek out Piper sermons, quotes, etc., but I’d never gotten around to actually reading the book for myself. Last fall the young singles pastor at my church gifted me 5 books, 4 of which were Piper and one of which was Desiring God. I shelved it carefully on my bookshelf under “P” on the “Christian” shelf (I’m a tad neurotic with my books) but never cracked it. I decided that my time at the ranch was going to be when I got around to reading it. I’m wading through it at the moment and loving it, although it takes a while to actually grasp what he’s talking about (the man was DEEP!) and thought that I’d leave you with some quotes to ponder. Piper says that each day we should find a “nugget” to meditate on throughout the day. Perhaps you’ll find one in one of these quotes.

*Life is hard and God is good.
*When delighting in God is the work of out lives, there will be an inner strength for ministries of love to the very end.
*Not only does the pursuit of joy in God give strength to endure; it is the key to breaking the power of sin on our way to heaven. “The joy of the Lord will arm us against the assaults of our spiritual enemies and put our mouths out of taste for those pleasures with which the tempter baits his hooks.”
*We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
*…..all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise. I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation
*Not to enjoy God is to dishonor Him. To say to Him that something else satisfies you more is the opposite of worship. It is sacrilege.
*What does it mean to glorify God? It does not mean to make Him more glorious. It means to acknowledge His glory, to value it above all things, and to make it known. It implies heartfelt gratitude: “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me” (Psalm 50:23).
*Deep within us we all know that it is our duty to glorify our Maker by thanking Him for all we have, trusting Him for all we need, and obeying all His revealed will.
*We have exchanged and dishonored His glory again and again. We have trusted ourselves. We have taken credit for His gifts. We have turned away from the path of His commandments because we thought we knew better.

Whew. That’s all the nuggets I have for now. More later, no doubt.

general update....

2008-07-08T17:33:00.000-05:00

So I haven't had much time to write as of late but thought I'd just get off a quick update while I could grab a free computer.

*Trenton (our guitar player) spent some quality time in the camp infirmary and the Yreka emergency room last week with a terrible case of strep throat. However, his 103 temp has gone away after some prayer and IV antibiotics, and he's back in the saddle leading worship and working on the afternoon activities staff.

*Amber, the Freeman's summer nanny, arrived a few days ago and is wonderful! It's really nice to have another girl over 25 to hang with and I'm enjoying working with her on housekeeping staff and having her in the worship choir.

*I was excited to get some snail mail from my Mom and Grandma this week....it's always great to have something tangible in the mailbox! Thanks also to everyone who has written emails and facebook messages this week. Your encouragement has been vital.

*The "smoke on the mountain" is starting to lift and we've had clear skies for the past 2 or 3 days! We as a staff have been praying for the rain to come and for the skies to clear and for the residents of NoCal to know that it was the Lord's doing. Although we have yet to see rain, the skies are clearing all over the region and a few staffers on a "town run" to Etna yesterday overheard residents in a local restraunt proclaiming that "it must be a miracle from the Lord! Did you see how clear the skies are becoming!?" Praise Him for still moving and showering our land with Glory, if not rain!

*I'll be flying to Bethany Beach, Deleware this friday to play a Saturday night concert with Beth Cayhall and band! I'll be returning to the ranch on Sunday and am looking forward both to leaving, and to returning.

I've got to go get showered for worship rehearsal and have a few more blogs brewing in my brain that I'll get typed up soon. But...for now....thanks for all your prayers! Miss you all!

Blessings....

Humble Pie

2008-07-07T00:43:00.001-05:00

If I’m going to be totally and one hundred percent honest…..I have truly had trouble adjusting to life here at the ranch. I’m living with more people than I’m comfortable, in a space much smaller than I’m used to, and expending more energy than I usually do on tasks that I’m not used to doing. HOWEVER, my attitude has also been pretty terrible. What began as fear and uncertainty has spiraled into a spirit of complaining and grumpiness where I took something valid and instead of seeking to improve my circumstances, I just nestled into my unhappiness and fed it. I’m not certain why I did this….I’m typically a fairly jovial and optimistic gal, but for whatever reason, I have chosen to live the past few days outside my normal persona.
This morning we had biscuits and grits for breakfast, and mine was served with a side (and a big fat helping I might add) of humble pie. I don’t remember the last time I had to be confronted about a poor attitude, but this morning a brother called me out (with love) on my complaining and I realized what an ugly spirit I had been exhibiting the past few days.

My decision to come to the ranch this summer was a long and difficult one, one that I didn’t even really feel I’d received confirmation on until my plane landed in Sacramento last Sunday. It was on the windy mountain roads between Yreka and Etna with the windows down, Hannah Freeman’s hamster gnawing contently on the fake log in her cage, and a Cindy Morgan album blaring on the stereo that I felt Him whisper that He’d brought me here this summer for an appointment and that He was going to complete a great work in me. What I longed for this summer to look like was lots of time in solitude, alone with my Bible and a good book and the Lord, praying through issues in my heart over scripture and a good cup of tea and being enlightened by the voice of God speaking to my heart. When I arrived and realized that that picture was unrealistic and inaccurate, I was disappointed and felt that I’d been refused something that I somehow deserved and became certain that what I needed I wasn’t going to find and that the voice I thought I’d heard whisper to me confirmation must have just been a strong wind.

A few days ago the head of girls staff spoke on Psalm 23 and I heard it in a way I’ve never heard it before. It begins:
“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me like down in green pastures,
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for His names’ sake”

Who am I to decide how my soul should best be restored? Who am I to dictate how I would like Him to go about completing a great work in me? He promised me that He had brought me here, and He promised to do a great work in me. To restore me, to grow me, to give me rest; and He is making me lie down in green pastures. Just like a little child might resist a nap because he would rather stay awake and play, his mother knows that what that child needs is rest, and needs it then. So she causes him to lie down; she carries him in to his crib and physically lays him on his bed so that he can rest because she knows that is what he needs. I left to my own choosing, I would be living in a cabin by myself a little ways up one of the mountains here to study in solitude, but He is causing me to “lie down” here…in a different way…surrounded by people, in community with the body of believers to be restored and encouraged not through being a studious recluse, but by learning the discipline of joy and to remind me that I am truly dependent on Him for my Joy.

My life in Nashville is amazing and blessed and as my mother would say, “a charmed life.” I go where I want, when I want, do what I want, and am blessed by having an occupation where I do what I do best and love most and sustain myself that way. I have amazing friends, a great place to live, everything I need in a five-mile radius. And while I acknowledge that He is the source that has provided all these material and emotional blessings, I don’t always rely on Him. I often extract my joy from the gifts that have been provided and not directly from the Giver Himself. Here, when I’m in the thick of cleaning a toilet, or vacuuming the same floor I vacuumed yesterday, I require Him, and Him alone to give me the strength to complete the task with a heart posture of servitude and an attitude of Joy. To complete menial tasks without complaining takes a supernatural power that only He can dispense.

He has made me lie down where He knows I can rest, and I cannot live a day without Him. My friend Jenny just stopped by the table where I’m writing and glanced at the title of my blog. “Humble pie is so good!” she said with a look of sweet satisfaction on her face. “I mean it doesn’t taste good going down….but when it gets where it’s going….mmmmmm, your blood just surges.”

P.S. I seriously considered deleting my previous two posts, one were my poor attitude was evident, and then the subsequent one where I tried to glaze over my bad attitude, but have decided to leave them both as a testament to the work He has obviously already begun to complete in me. Blessings to you all.

attitude check.....

2008-07-06T00:20:00.000-05:00

wow...i just reread my last post and realized how grumpy it sounded! I'm just REALLY exhausted tonight! On better notes...I have some really really sweet girls in my cabin and I'm adjusting to life here. :)

Casa de Bean

2008-07-06T00:09:00.000-05:00

So..........just thought you guys would like a peek at my new abode. It's cramped. It's messy. So messy in fact, that it makes me nervous. The girls here have commented repeatedly on how neat I am. and what a fast shower taker I am. I have them all fooled. There are 24 of us. 2 bathrooms. You do the math! And to think that just a few days ago Wendy and I were complaining about the lack of closet space in Apt. E. I have included for your viewing pleasure a picture of my "closet." I got here and found out that all the cubbies" were taken so I was miserable for a few days and then got feisty and stole this shelf unit from the laundry room and moved in. This is all the "personal space" that I have. :)

Smoke and Desperation...

2008-07-03T01:11:00.000-05:00

The closest forest fire of the forest fires in California is 19 miles Southeast of the JH Ranch. Normally, or so I'm told, you have a great view of Mt. Shasta on the drive from Sacramento to Etna. When I made the trek with Ronnie and his kids (And hamster) in the cram packed mini van...all we saw was smoke. Not even an outline of Shasta was visable on the horizon. Today, the smoke entered the valley where the Ranch sits and the white cross that I labored to find a few days ago can no longer be seen from the front porch of the Bean.
This reminded me of a conversation that Ronnie and Wes and Trenton and I had two weeks ago on the way to THEE Camp and a blog I'd written, but never posted. Here it is for your contemplation.

As we drive through the back windy roads of Kentucky on our way from Tennessee to Missouri, the conversation turned to the wildfires occurring a few hours south of the JH Ranch in California, a place dear to all of our hearts. Wes asked if it was just because he was older and more aware of it, or if there seemed to be an increase in the number of natural disasters. What if it was the earth groaning for the return of the Lord?
My mind began to ponder what would the earth look like if we didn’t try to restrain it’s groaning? If we didn’t put out the wildfires or dry up the water left by rogue waves or attempt to build things resistant to the winds? What if we gave the earth over to its groaning and watched as the volcanoes erupted, mud and rocks slid down mountains, ice floes melted and flooded the earth, winds and waves swirled and whirled and blew and crashed and destroyed everything in their path without us trying to control, clean up or rebuild. What if we followed suit of creation; after all, aren’t we forsaking our created purposes as worshippers by letting the rocks and trees call out in our stead anyway? What if we adopted the same heart posture and cried out in total desperation; broken, violent, demanding the redemption and relief of our Creator; steadfast in our total reliance on Him and need for him to come and rescue us, set us free from the devastation that we have come to live in.

Two days after Hurricane Katrina hit, I found myself sitting on the floor of a red cross shelter with my arms wrapped around the frail, shivering body of a middle aged man who was suffering from kidney failure. I had wrapped about 4 blankets, a precious commodity in that situation, around him, but he continued to complain about the cold until he could no longer speak and began to groan. Tears rolled down his face and vomit mixed with bile and phlegm came from his mouth in short painful bursts spewing on to the blankets. His chest heaved up and down gasping for breath. We sat that way for about thirty minutes until he ambulance arrived to take him for the dialysis treatment his body needed to stay alive. This mans' entire being groaned and yearned for something to take him from his utter misery and torture. When he ceased to have the ability to cry out, his body did it for him; shaking, gasping, vomiting, pleading for healing or for death.

When I try to epitomize desperation and hopelessness, the picture that comes to my mind is of Mary Magdalene at the tomb of Christ. This woman has lost a dear friend and is already grief stricken, lonely and probably depressed. She has come to pay respects to the body of a man who encouraged her, taught her, loved her, lead her, affirmed her and redeemed her. Instead of finding his body, she finds angels where Jesus had lain and in John’s account she, “stood weeping outside the tomb.” When the angels ask her why she is crying she proclaims, “they have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.” Mary is desperate to find Christ, to see Him, to show her devotion to Him, just to be near Him and in His presence, even in the supposition that she will be only with His dead body, His shell. Like the woman with the issue of blood who was confident in her faith enough to know that if she could even touch the corner of Christ’s robe and be healed
What would my life be like if I existed in that state of groaning and desperation to cling to the Lord so that I was unable to carry on without His presence in my life. Could I reach a point where my life is a frenzied, violent storm of need for my Lord, pleading with Him to affirm my salvation yet again and to carry me out of this world to His home.

the path to the Cross

2008-07-01T16:47:00.000-05:00

This is my third day at the JH Ranch in Northern California and I'll admit that as beautiful as it is and despite how nice the folk are, it's a stretch for me to be gone this long, but mainly to be living in such cramped quarters (there are 26 of us girls in one double wide trailer. Think rooms of bunk beds, piles of clothing and the wait time to get into one of the 2 bathrooms) with so little personal time and space. So yesterday morning I was craving some peace and quiet and decided that a little solo hike up the mountain with my Bible and John Piper's Desiring God would be just the thing to nourish my soul. So I packed my backpack and headed down the road behind my cabin.

I've heard tales of the peace and quite and spiritual clarity one can find at the white cross on top of the mountain behind the stables. From the front porch of the "Casa de Bean" (my cabin) one can see this white cross way up above. So I decided that a hike there was just the thing for my morning and assumed that the road I was traveling would soon lead to a trail to the cross. After some distance I didn't find a marked trail of any sort, but did find a rabbit path that I decided to take. The climb was tricky in places but not technical, so I was fine and I followed it all the way to the top of that little peak. The view was beautiful but to my dismay, I noticed that the cross was on a summit next to me. Down I went....following other rabbit trails I found along the way, and sometimes making my way where there was no path. Every now and then I would glimpse the cross, but as much as I tried to hike towards it, I could not seem to get to it at all. I finally curled up in a shady spot and read the first few chapters of Desiring God before hiking down and heading to lunch.

That night one of the girls, "S," asked me how my day had been. I told her that I'd taken a 3 and a half our hike that morning and she asked where I'd gone. I told her I'd attempted to find the cross but never did locate it. We then moved on to other conversation about life, writing, what books we were reading etc., and then both climbed in our beds to drift off to sleep. We'd been laying there for about ten minutes in the darkness and I thought everyone was asleep when out of the night S said, "Hey Bethany?"
"Yes"
"How could you not find the cross?"
"I just didn't. I kept hiking to where I thought it would be, but I could never get there."
"Did you follow the path with the signs that say, 'This way to the white Cross?'"
"No...................."
"Oh...well you should do that next time......"

How often, I wondered, do I do that. Do I wander in the wilderness searching for the way that the Lord has marked out for me....not knowing that I'm just a few feet away from the signs pointing me in the direction I should go.

Gas Mileage....

2008-07-01T16:04:00.000-05:00

Overheard at lunch today....

Camper 1: So did you drive here?

Camper 2: Yeah.....

Camper 1: Wow....I've heard it's, like, a really long drive and you have to stop for gas alot.

Camper 2: Yeah, it's a long drive but I didn't have to stop too much. My car gets really good gas mileage.

Camper 1: oh yeah? How much?

Camper 2: Really good....like, 14 miles to the gallon.

Camper 1: Wow....you're really lucky.....

He is Jealous for me.

2008-06-30T14:54:00.000-05:00

"He is jealous for me....love's like a hurricane I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.....when all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by Glory...and I realize just how beautiful you are and how great your affections are for me....Oh, how He loves us, OH!"

Over the past few months the Lord has been leading me through a sweet, sweet place of growth, self awareness and discovery, maturity, even recovery to a certain extent (or perhaps "overcome-ery" would be a better phraseology). He has blasted my concept of love and is teaching me an entirely new model of how I should love others and what my relationships should look like and how they should function.

I think inside every grown woman is a little girl yearning for her "Wesley" (thank you Princess Bride) to swoop in on a white horse and whisk her away into the sunset; so devout in his love and adoration of her that years of separation and a plethora of monsters, scheming pirates, cliffs and other sizable obstacles could not deter him from pursuing the hear of the woman he loves until he had claimed it as his own. The mere idea of someone desiring me to that great extent of risking death just to get to me makes my heart skip a beat, I'll admit. To be admired, cherished, important, adored, thrills my heart; to be loved.

A few weeks ago a lyric of a worship tune spoke to the very core of that little girl in me and succeeded in both breaking my hear and comforting it all at once. He is jealous for me? for Me? Really? The God of the Universe loves ME to the point of desiring my returned adoration in such a manner as to be jealous of anything else I apply my adoration to? I was overwhelmed with a flood of joy that my God, Savior and Redeemer is courting my heart in spite of my imperfections and insecurities. And then I was broken over the realization that the jealous part of His love meant that He desires me, in my entirety...my love, my time, my worship, my joy, my attentions and affection. What then is sin really than witholding that which He desires me to give Him? Each time I substitute something of this world for my Christ, I sin...which conjures a mind picture of an "angry" God. Suddenly, this picture was replaced by one of a heart-broken God. Of a husband whose wife has been unfaithful. Of a father whose only beloved daughter has shamed and disappointed her family by being promiscuous or dabbling in drugs or running away and turning her back on those who loved and raised her. Of God weeping because He wanted me and I wanted something else. He desires to romance my heart, to affirm me, to spend time with me, to hear my triumphs and my fears, to be my comfort, my all.

So no matter if a platoon of Wesleys climbed a thousand cliffs, outsmarted a troop of weasley little men with thinning hair, and dueled an army of six-fingered men, they could never compare to the one who has already sought my hear and sealed it as His forever. One man has already taken up that pursuit of my heart to the point of death on a cross, and I am literally reduced to tears. He loves me...oh how He loves me.