Howdy folks,

Well, last night was an interesting blast

The folks did not pay to hear us (it was at family camp for our church region), but no one threw anything, either. ;)

We arrived to find that the stage was ... a haywagon Without wheel blocks, on an incline. However, our one guitarist (who is only 17) was stoked that he could use his pickup truck as additional stage area, so that worked out ok. Oh, and we only had one 20 amp outlet to run our entire setup plus the PA system. We probably should have laid hands on it, but it was uncovered

We went through a few iterations of getting equipment set up, and boy was it hot. Temperature-wise, I mean. We've had a fairly decent drought of lovely weather this summer (unlike last summer, when it seemed we had thunderstorms every other day), but it cooled off by the time we were to play.

I really really really enjoy playing with Kent, the drummer. "Well seasoned" is a good description, and we've really hit it off (pun intended), so it was a lot of fun. When we started, there weren't a whole lot of folks gathered around, but we had a hard-core group of about 20 teens who came right up front and were grooving and singing to nearly every song we did. We were playing out toward the campground area, so a lot of folks were just sitting at their camp lots and listening, and mostly the kids were coming over to the stage (it was directed more toward their demographic anyway). We were told we could be heard clearly all over the campground (Missionary Church Regional Campground), and if so, then can claim an audience of over 1500 We probably ended up with closer to like 400 folks who were right there where we were, but I'm not sure if they came to hear the music, or if they were more interested in getting up-close seats for the fireworks following the concert.

As it started getting darker (we had no stage lights), I was really glad for all the practice I'd put in (yay, Composer!) - I could barely see my song sheet. Some fellow came along giving out glow-in-the-dark bracelets to all the kids, so by the end of our concert, there were all these glowing bracelets bobbing to the beat, which was kind of surrealistic. It was a very good experience musically, but especially the whole import of the event - some really good music (most written by Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman) and a lot of enthusiastic participation. That was a great worship experience.

We ended with the Terl Bryant/Matt Redman arrangement of "O Come Let Us Adore Him", which is fairly simple in musical structure, but has a very strong drum and bass part that is very "motivational". The bass line is just a G, but the rhythmic impact of how you play it (rhythmic figure and octaves) can really make or break the song. I know, because I tried lots of iterations when I was practicing It was a good song to end with - everyone was on their feet singing for that one.

Now, for the house

That's progressing nicely as well. Here is the stone wall reconstruction:


Since we had the stone mason on-site, I figured we might as well get the porch area re-tuck/pointed while he was around. He hemmed and hawed about giving me an estimate, and I finally figured out that he didn't want to do the nasty job of cleaning out all the old mortar (it was the original, and parts were in really bad shape.) So I got wire brushes for all the kids, and took my trusty rock hammer and went to work. They brushed after I knocked out the biggest chunks of mortar. Then I power-washed the remainder out of the seams and off the rocks. The mason was pretty happy to re-work it then Here is a before/after mortar removal picture. This is with just the mortar chipped out, before wire-brushing or power washing. The white stuff is actually a thin line of white mortar, which was applied to make it look like huge bricks if you're a bit away from the house:


So that only took nearly 4 days of fairly intense labor to get done - I'm glad it's done, and I'm also glad I don't do that for a living

As I mentioned, when they started getting the floor off in the kitchen, they discovered some interesting arrangements in the various levels, so they ripped it all out to start over again. Here it is with only the one stretcher (which has since been removed) going across:


And, the thing that looks quite beautiful right now, the poles are in for the garage:



We're currently waiting on the header materials for the garage, so they can get the roof on that. The ground will need to be graded, and then the cement guy will pour the pad, the approach, and the footers in the kitchen. Then they can put in the joists for the kitchen floor, and proceed with kitchen construction simultaneously

I'm still having to go round and round with our home lender about releasing funds (I wasn't supposed to have to do that, but they've been such a pain all the way round), but hopefully we've gotten to the point where things can move along without as much flack from them.

So, lots of good things going on. I'm generally staying out of trouble this summer ;)

ttfn,
Sherry