We had our family October-birthday celebration a couple of days ago (three of us were celebrated, our years totaling 96…do not ask how many of those years I hogged up). We may or may not have had two big pans of homemade brownies, 2 types of ice cream, chocolate cake (icing on the side) a giant pumpkin pie and whipped cream, sang the birthday song three times with appropriate claps {happy birthday to you *clap-clap*}, passed out dozens of presents to oohs and aahs and had a major paper-fight with wadded up gift wrap.
We also did the birthday-question-hot-seat where we ask the birthday celebrants questions about anything at all, important and not so much.
Jovan, Hunter and moi.
One of my kiddos asked who I’d like to see in concert. I couldn’t even think, there were so many names in my brain. I totally forgot I started this list last February. So, here it is, even though I know I have more to add (who are they???)! :)
Kenny Rogers
Dolly Parton
Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton together, I’d get front-row seats.
James Taylor
Carole King. Her story. Her songs. Her piano-pounding.
James Taylor and Carole King together would make me pass out with delirious happiness, possibly never able to recover.
Neil Diamond. Because. I love singing along with the Neil.
Elvis Costello
Willie Nelson and Alison Krauss. I’d see Alison alone and I love Willie, but I want them together!
David Cassidy. No question. Please come to Denver, David Cassidy (“we’ll go up into the mountains so far that we can’t be found…” But my husband Dave will be there, too, of course. I am simply after some singing.) :)
Paul McCartney. I should not have to explain this.
Leonard Cohen. I say this. I said it once before on this blog and he was IN TOWN without me knowing it. That is not right.
Sigur Ros. Because my kids tell me their shows are amazing and they have such great taste, those talented children of mine.
Brad Paisley. Musical genius and such a great lyricist!
Elton John, again. Last time was with Billy Joel, which was very cool, but I want more Elton, lots more Elton. The man can write the anthemic like nobody’s business. His melodies and his fingers on those keys UN.be.liev.able!
The Eagles, again. Because they are The Eagles. Also, I really like Glenn Frey.
Boz Scaggs. He has just gotten better with age, I think. I would volunteer to be one of his back-up singers. :)
Bobbie Gentry. But she doesn’t tour anymore. Boo-hooooo.
Diana Ross. In Vegas – I want the whole over-the-top, coat-dragging show!
Matt Redman. In Denver TONIGHT! (Dave & Tara are taking me as part of a belated birthday gift, yaaaaay!)
Speaking of which, Dave and Tara Powers, at the Armory Performing Arts Center in Brighton, Colorado. Check this out! :)
Oh, I am going to be at THIS concert for sure and getting my picture taken with Santa! ABSOLUTELY!
Our firstborn daughter married the man of her dreams 11 years and two fantastic sons ago. They are still acting like newlyweds and spreading the love around! In fact, in two days, they’ll be putting on a concert, Decades, featuring love songs from the 1940s – right on up through the present. Deets can be found at dtp.eventbrite.com. And there will be food.*
A sample…
Happy Anniversary, Dave and Tara. Thank-you for the 2 outrageously cute grand-boys, the love you are living and all the joy yet to be! So lucky God gave you to us! How can we ever thank Him enough?
Hunter and Malakai after the candy store (taken by Aunt Stormie)
Happy 8th Anniversary, Rocky & Jovan!
Almost exactly one year ago, you lost so much in the floods that ravaged Colorado and you have been hard at work, tearing out, throwing away, cleaning up and re-building. And the number 8 in the Bible signifies new life, the old is passed away, new beginnings {all things are made new} and wow – that is SO right on for you two! God is just doing new-wonderful things in your life!
The 3 little women with their beautiful mama
So glad Jovan started crushing on you when she was only 14, Rocky. So glad you fell for the woman she became. Thank-you for the three extraodinarily stunning little grand-girlies you have shared with us. So much life and love yet to experience and you’re doing it well!
##############
September is such a lovely month, isn’t it? Lovely and love-filled!
Wheels of love go ’round Love go ’round Love go ’round A joyful sound*
Ross and Norma Moslander (also known as my mamala and pappasan), married August 24, 1957. They are my parents, the two people I adore and most admire in the universe. Like most kids, I suppose, there were so many things I was going to do differently as a parent. Then I didn’t. Or I did and found out their way was better, anyway. They are both amazing and flawed, both extraordinary and just plain human. But their trajectory has always been headed towards heaven, walking with Jesus, being guided by the Holy Spirit and the closer they get to their goal, the more perfect they become.
My mom thanks me each Mother’s Day and on my birthday for making her a mommy – everything she had ever wanted. I love them! And I’m so blessed to have them as mine!
He ain’t got a penny For Cotton Jenny to spend But then Wheels go ’round*
Another grandbebe is on the way!
That’s right: you heard me. GRANDbebe #10 is due at the end of February 2015. He or she will be Tredessa and Ryan’s second child. Eight-month-old, Evangeline Lilly made the announcement at church wearing a shirt that said, “Only Child, expires February 2015.”
Singing through the Decades
Tara (my firstborn) and her husband Dave are back with a concert follow-up to the wildly successful, sold-out show they did for Valentine’s Day at the Mad Cap Theater in Westminster.
This concert is called Decades, where, rumor has it, they will sing some of the best love songs from various , you guessed it, decades in the past. They are pulling out some of my favorites and I don’t know if I am suppose to tell, but one is a very sexy version of “Let’s Stay Together,” and **maybe-maybe-maybe** even “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” one of my mom’s all-time fav songs (she wants me to make a video of pictures of my dad and add that song as a soundtrack – how cute is that???).
Anyway – the concert is at the historic Armory Center for Performing Arts up north and you can get tickets at dtp.eventbrite.com. It WILL be sold out, so buy early. I get a pass ‘cuz I am their mom! :)
Rocky @Rez.org & other places
Rocky just started a new phase of life and ministry at Resurrection Fellowship in Loveland.He’ll be leading worship a couple of weekends a month and engineering sound in a super-cool exposed brick office with a full-blown recording set-up. He is a little bit in heaven.
He just got back from The Big Tent Revival in Butte, MT where he led worship and just a day before that from a Rez trip to Lake Providence, Louisiana where they were raising money for a ball field there and he was thrilled to get to meet Uncle Si and some other Duck-Dynasty family. This was an explanation of the event CLICK HERE.I think there were follow-up news stories, but I live in Colorado, people.
Image from The Big Tent Revival, Photographer Tom Curry, copyrighted
Jovan is going to home school Averi this year as they transition, prepare to sell their house and move to Loveland (which, while only 45 miles from us, will still make them seem quite a ways away compared to now, which has been 15 miles). They are having an exciting year.
Stormie was at The Big Tent Revival, too
Crazy girl plays bass and sings. She uses her vacation time to travel wherever she is invited to glorify God. We like her very much!
Image from The Big Tent Revival, Photographer Tom Curry, copyrighted
You have been following Beat a Day, haven’t you? You haven’t??? What?!
Stephanie and Tristan are movers and shakers and are always doing something new that wows all of us. And they are both wildly popular on Instagram. Is that such a mom thing to say? It is! :)But it is still true! Steph is an extraordinary photo stylist, see here.
Tristan started posting a 15-second “Beat a Day” drum vids to Instagram {he is the BEST drummer in the world}} and everybody is talking about it! You MUST check it out!:) You totally have to watch the 100th beat that has exactly 100 hots played at 100 beats per minute! So cool!Also lots of beats at TristanKelley.com
So-this is just a little bit of what is happening with my people around here –
All the result of Ross and Norma saying I do 57 years ago this week!
*”Wheels of love go ’round” are lyrics from the song, “Cotton Jenny” written by Gordon Lightfoot. But it was the first song I ever heard by Anne Murray. I was 12. I loved her low voice and I still sing this song around the house! A lot!
To celebrate the anniversary of your birth, I have words…
Of course, I do. Many words. Still, some 12 years since we met, I am so grateful you married our daughter and became a son to us. She wasn’t the only deliriously happy person about that, you know. You were an answer to prayers and a fulfillment of hope and Tara’s dream come true. :)
If for no other reason than that you chose my firstborn and love her so deeply (and have blessed us with two spectacular grandsons), I’d think you were extraordinarily smart and wonderful.
But there are many reasons I love and admire you and my heart is tender towards you.
There have been incredible times since you became one of us, since the early days when we could suddenly be in the room with you: you, so well-liked, so sought after and admired and we could know, beaming with pride, he’s one of ours. You married the beautiful Tara and got the bunch of us, foibles and frailties and all. As mother-in-laws go, too many times, I haven’t been the one I had planned I’d be and for that, I apologize. I hope for all the times I have failed to encourage and bless you and for all the times I may still let you down in this winding path called life, you can find it possible to forgive me.
But I hope you do realize that I love and admire you and my heart is tender towards you.
Thinking about you turning 33 has had me reminiscing {of course}.
Three sweet memories on your 33rd birthday
1// I remember years ago, when your hair was longer, some person(s) started referring to you as a surfer-dude, which was a totally erroneous label just because you have the ability to adapt immediately to culturally distinct people groups, one after the other, rather effortlessly. But was a silly summation.
Because, like Paul the Apostle, you can be Greek to the Greeks and a Roman to the Romans, skater to the skaters, or mighty man of prayer among the intercessors. You are fluent in joy-speak and compassion-mixed-with-mercy is a native tongue for you. Because you’re able to adapt and flow as easily among Christian-magazine-produced minister’s meetings as you are with well-known rockers-saved-by-grace backstage at festivals, an old-timer mistakes you for merely a surfer-dude, with no offense to surfer-dudes.
It may have never bothered you a bit, but it irked me that you might be boxed in.
Because the point was and is – the apostolic anointing, the call. You fit. You have what it takes to be part of many groups and streams and situations. I so very much admire your courage and ability in this.
2// I was also remembering a late summer night in 2006 in a barn east of Brighton. It was a night of ordination, really, doors open wide and the warmth of God’s smile permeating the atmosphere. The sun dropped slowly giving way to twinkling stars signifying God’s good pleasure as rich worship rose heavenward. I watched as you and Tara, in almost a second wedding ceremony of sorts, the sacredness so palpable, became wholly united (one voice, one heart, one mission), stepping out from the safe into the holy wild. Worship and the Word Movement revealed.
And those of us in that barn that night, the small group of us privileged to stand on that holy straw-strewn ground, were witnesses to divine oil poured out from heaven. We were the yes and amen as we watched this man and this woman courageously say YES with everything they had and we stood in agreement and echoed from our hearts, yes, so be it, Lord.
You had already gathered the familia around your table a month earlier and we’d spoken blessing and prayed over you, then, for this movement-to-be. But the barn night, it was a night of nights, as we all watched you emerge, your voices blended, such power pulled from deep places of humility. You could practically hear a thunderous “This is my beloved Dave and Tara, in whom I am well-pleased.”
It was one of the most amazing and powerful nights I’ll live, I guess. I was so honored to get to be there, watching, pondering, treasuring the beauty of God’s call on you both, as one. So grateful I got to witness the birth of something of this magnitude, so full of favor.
Philippians 1:3-6 – “I thank God every time I remember you. In all my prayers…I always pray with joy…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
3// Then there was this festival we did together.
Man, those years meant so very much to me. In case I ever forgot to tell you or if time and circumstance has obscured the telling, thank-you for letting me be a part. I mean – God gave me something to share there, but how many men would be brave enough to let their mother-in-law be that close, anyway?
I love how God prepared me ahead of time {I still love the memory of the surprise of it} and you had the discernment to recognize and receive that and welcome me there. I will ever be grateful for that. It was the time of my life.
A blessing for you as we celebrate your life and look ahead this year…
And now, let me bless you and pray over you a little and impart some things I want you to remember. Is that ok? Let me assure you: I have asked God to edit me and I promise to do my best on letting Him! ;)
“Dave, may the Lord bless and KEEP you. May He make His face SHINE upon you and BE GRACIOUS to you; may the Lord turn His face toward you and give you PEACE.” (Numbers 6:24-26).
I bless your life, David Michael Powers. I bless the days He has planned for you and I thank God we get to be included in your fascinating so-many-cool-things-to-come story. How very wonderful for us! I bless the days we have known you so far {of course I do!} and all the ones we have left! You were uniquely crafted and specifically designed for God’s great purposes in these particular days on the earth. And to be in our familia. Now that is the coolest part!
I know God rejoiced when He was fashioning you in the secret place, and could not wait to celebrate and boast when you were born. Your parents both beam with delight when they are around you. I know they are soaking in the love of God in you, on you and through you! So I bless you to know {really know} the height, depth and breadth of His intense love for you – not for what you do or have done {as fantastic as it all is and will be}, but for who you are, as a man in his image and after His heart.
I bless your marriage to my lovely Tara-girl. She is the best thing I could ever give you. And we did so gladly present her to you at the front of that church as the setting sunbeams blazed through stained-glass windows but couldn’t hope to match the bright light of love passing between the two of you! There was not hesitation on our part in seeing her be joined to you, become one with you.
We raised Tara to be your wife, to love you, to walk in covenant with you. And we stood as witnesses that day to your marriage union and so we continue now to bless and pray protection over your marriage. We recognize what God has joined together and we pray that you are ever increased in love and oneness and laughter and mystery and discovery and romance and passion and friendship and rest. I pray that the wife of your youth will bring you joy and delight all the days of your life.
I bless you as a dad to the two magnificent grandsons you brought into my life {and God bless Hunter and Malakai!}. I pray that if there is any special grace or anointing or gift or heavenly blessing on my family of origin or me, that it be poured out on you and Tara and that through you it would be generationally passed on to Hunter-Magoo and Kai-Kai. Just the good stuff, though! :)
May each of your beautiful boys provide the opportunity for you to impart and teach and discipline and love and advise and find understanding about God’s heart towards you. And I pray you’ll have the wisdom to know how to bring them up, individually, to become the men God created them to be and that your ministry in your household will remain foremost in your heart.
And is it ok to say I am praying for increase and another blessed bundle of sweetness for you, too? Well, I am. Please do not refuse the gift of God in this area, and in fact: work for it! ;)
Worship. I bless your song, your music, your worship. I bless the psalmist in you that brings pleasure to the Father and Peace into the room. Your song opens many doors to many rooms and the song of the Lord, well, it is enemy-defeating, battle-winning treasure.
Word. I bless your leadership and pray you’ll be bold and humble and settled. I pray you’ll complete the things God started in you and through you. You have influence through your words of understanding. I remember seeing a glimpse in February 2003 and saying, “One day I’ll say ‘I knew him when..'” These are those days and I bless the work of your hands, the words of your mouth, and I pray that all the things you do and say in His name will bring God all the glory.
Movement. I bless you as a man of God, a man’s man, strong enough to be gentle. You have everything you need for the next step, the next rooms, everything. Hebrews 13:20-21 – “May the God of peace…equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
Finally ~ May you live securely and have full supply (full!). And may you be filled with the measure of all the fullness of God (can you even fathom what that will look like?). I pray your joy is full as you walk the steps God has ordered for you, that you are satisfied and content. But also challenged and surprised!
I pray these things with abandon, I bless you with all I have which is so limited, but also by all He is and all His promises, which are so limitless.
2 Timothy 2:1 – “You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
And the birthday guy sings…
He’s one of my all-time favorites. Ever!
I started cautiously liking you from the time we met (May 2002, Could he be for real, I wondered?). Then, very quickly, my admiration grew and I loved you deeply. I still do and my heart is very tender towards you. Always will be. On the occasion of the celebration of your birth {Happy Birthday!}, just wanted to say so. {mom}
Where on earth does the time go? It’s the middle of May!
5 minutes ago, it was May Day, and suddenly the month is halfway gone, school is about to be let out, graduation parties are happening in earnest and spring seems awfully late this year (a little snowstorm on Sunday and Monday???).
What do 30 kale seedlings, 14 tomato plants, a couple dozen pepper plants, zinnias, daisies, cauliflower and cabbage, 4 cubic feet of vermiculite, 9 cubic feet of peat moss and a bunch of bags of compost have in common?
They are not in my garden, as they SHOULD be on Mother’s Day weekend because they are waiting for some sunny warm days to happen, you know, inarow! Do I seem bitter about the spring snow? Because I obviously am.
Where in the world are DP and Tara?
Paris. In France. Or maybe London, in England today? Not sure which. But they are somewhere 8 hours ahead of us.
I am watching Kai while they are gone. He is a little bruiser and quite independent. He is 16 months of power and speed. But when he runs to me with his little arms up, I scoop him close as fast as I can, before the moment passes.
Yesterday, I was cuddling him for his nap and I swear a blanket of deja vu swept over me and I felt like I was in my 20s again – a young, energetic mommy. It was a heady moment, so sweet. And Dave and I still have our co-parenting rhythm, I have found – the gentle give and take and ins and outs of baby-chores: diapering, bathing, feeding, diapering again, playing cars on the floor. We were once top experts in our field, with so many babies in the 1980s!
But at about 1 am I woke up with aching back, neck and shoulders and realized, uh no. I’m not in my 20s anymore. I am a Nonna in my 50s. Ha! But Malakai’s darling squeals and trails of cheese crackers and Hot Wheels do take me back. Memories…
How is it possible to just so deeply love this many people I have known for 11 years or less?
It’s like – I couldn’t have imagined them and then, *poof,* here they are and I cannot fathom anything without them. I could ramble on about them all, I actually could. But suffice to say, Steph gave me these shots for Mother’s Day. And I just want to give them all a *kiss-kiss* from Nonna. Tonight is Gavin’s last band concert of the year. It’s scheduled to be outside. Hope the rain holds back. He’ll be 11 soon, and officially a middle-schooler.
Here is the low down, left to right (above): Hunter (9 1/2); he is holding Eva (5 months tomorrow), she lives to smile with her whole heart and face; Then there is Averi (6); Gunivere (8 1/2) is holding Bailey (who is 1 and wants to run); Gemma May (7 next week) got glasses recently; Amelie Belle (4); Malakai (16 months) making a getaway; and finally the one who started it all, Gavin (turning 11 in June).
The lovely and fair Guinivere, as soft and sweet, thoughtful and gentle as she looks (but also sharp and wry, with a sense of humor that comes out of nowhere) just became an official business woman. She has been sewing decorator pillows (by machine, then stuffing, then finishing by hand) for $3 each to raise money for a camping trip at the zoo.
She worked really hard and sold lots more than she even needed to reach her goal and her mommy said she felt the pressure of deadline order filling. But she did it. And she did it well. I am so proud of her.
Which is worse: failing at something, or not even trying?
I think almost everyone would say that not trying would be so much worse than trying something and then failing at it. But maybe the question is really this, Which is worse: failing at something you had the courage to try, or feeling ashamed by others’ reactions when you fail at something?
Forget Hunger Games, the shame game is the most deadly in the world. Though we understand that failure is just experience in the making, a stepping stone to something really great, the heaviness of having shame heaped on when it happens keeps us from trying the things we were born to try. Shame says:
You did it wrong. You shouldn’t have tried.
You have now ruined it for everyone else in the universe.
I hope you’ve learned your lesson.
Shame is a liar.
Don’t you just wish we would call its’ bluff more often? I want to master the art of “the shrug,” the oh-well, I tried. I did my best. I love people who can take flying leaps, outrageously stumble, then tumble, skid on their knees into brick walls, get up, hobble away with a smile and say, “Ok – next time, I think I will..” Yes! Those kind of people amaze me.
Keep trying!
BTW-what the heck with the vermiculite?
I used to be able to buy course grade vermiculite for about $3 per cubic foot at a garden center in Westminster. They closed and I need a new supplier. Now I am paying more than $10 per cubic foot.
As I understand it, vermiculite is made from mica and other minerals being heated to the point of “explosion,” puffing up like popcorn! It’s like tiny, rock-looking, little sponges that soak up moisture and keep it in the soil near the plants’ roots where it is needed. It also keeps the soil from getting hard and compacted.
I am creating more tomato space in the garden this year (of. course!) and I just had to pay more than $50 for 5 cubic feet of this stuff. I am willing to raid a vermiculite stash in the night, trash bags in hand, if anyone knows where I might find such a place?
#tbt Throw-back Thursday time again!
Since I am having memories of when our kids were little so strongly this week, well, I’ll share from that era. You know I always tells you the 1980s were a blur, as we added to the family in rapid-fire succession. Oh, they were sweet days. Big hair. Silly children. Songs, church, gerbils, bikes, face paint, kids clubs, walking to school and oh, so many hugs and kisses and love among us!
At the beginning of the movie, “While You Were Sleeping,” the Sandra Bullock character is recalling her childhood and they were depicting scenes from her hazy, muted memories and she says something like, “I just don’t remember it being so…orange.” haha. I feel somewhat the same!
Baby Dessa napping with her handsome daddy. Summer 1983.
Does it go without saying that I, like my mother before, would not be caught without lots of sailor-inspired outfits for my children. We even brought one to their little cousin, Jordan one year!
Stormie’s first birthday.
Getting Stephie ready for her dedication at church, summer 1982.
Tara’s 2nd birthday.
Rocky’s dedication day. Fall 1984.
One of those church directory photos. They are always the worst! But still, October or November 1982. My little family in Kokomo.
I was the picture of a pastor’s wife, I think. Pantyhose and dresses at almost all times! Fall 1987, when the kiddos were 1 1/2 – 8 years old.
Well, this was quite the mish-mash of memories and thoughts and garden frustrations. But that is what Thought-Collage Thursdays are all about.
Please let me know if you have the answers to the riddles of life that swirl in my head, and plague my existence…especially if your know where I can get that vermiculite! :)
And he is directing it. And he is acting in it. And so are other people related to me by blood. And so are many of the cast from last year’s Merry Gentlemen ~ A Christmas in Mediocrity, but it is a whole new story and feel. In fact, the infamous and ridiculously good-looking Bill Barrow (and he needs to be because he is married to the ravishing Candi), whose character has a much more expanded role in this show said,
Bill Barrow, himself
“Last year’s play was good. It was really good. But this year’s is fantastic. It is so much better!”
Well, then! Last year’s production was amazing. REALLY good. Two sold-out, standing-room-only nights of fun with live music and great acting. So – wow, then…THIS YEAR will be even better!
It is slated for two performances, December 20 and 21 at Community of Faith in Broomfield (90 Emerald Street), which is sponsoring the whole shebang.
All I know about the story is what Dave will let me know until the performance: It’s about a children’s pastor who has been assigned the task of putting together the church Christmas pageant even though he doesn’t really care for Christmas and doesn’t even really like children, either. But poor Pastor Mike is stuck. He is stuck with overbearing assistant directors, a Joseph who wears football pads, a little superhero who calls himself The Pigeon, a prima dona named Twinkle and a skate board riding redhead known as Dorito. Can Pastor Mike pull it off without losing his sanity?
Well, here is the deal~~ it’s a Christmas story through and through, Christmas as in Jesus was born. It’s written by a man who LOVES Christmas like crazy – so you know it will be Christmas-y in every good way. And it is laugh-out-loud funny (I have this on good authority) and yet heartwarming, too. There is great music (PLUS live music with Rocky Rhoades, Tris and Stephanie Kelley, Stormie Rhoades, and Dave and Tara Powers – which is worth a huge ticket price alone and I am not just saying that because they are my kids, hehe). And, because it’s Christmas? It has a little magic, too! So COME ON people! Soooooo worth the $5 ticket price! BUY TICKETS online www.callbacktheater.com.
Plus: check out the cute director. I know him. He is a talented writer and director. And actor. So come to JESUS, MARY and JOSEPH! :)
Omygosh…I JUST realized I sort of married my very favorite actor from the High Chapparal 1960s TV show…Manolito Montoya, of whom this website says:
The classic 60s Western centered on The High Chaparral ranch in 1870s Arizona where Big John Cannon married Manolito’s sister…Manolito himself was a dashing rogue who’d rather make love to the local ladies than get involved in fighting. Read more here…
Um yeah-the actor’s actual name: Henry Darrow? Manolito to me!
A sweet, really sweet wedding, so joyous, so full of love.
A wedding I will always recall with great joy. I shared a little about it last week, but my favorite part was when the bride and groom served communion to all their guests. I had never seen that done before or since. The song was, “I Pour My Love on You.” It was amazing.
Like oil upon your feet ~ Like wine for you to drink
Like water from my heart ~ I pour my love on you
If praise is like perfume ~ I’ll lavish mine on you
Till every drop is gone ~ I’ll pour my love on you
I think the fact that you not only speak on dating at youth conferences, but also still {actually date} is a really good thing.
And now your love is displayed in and through your sons.
And oh, how I love those boys, a double scoop of wonder and delight, with kisses sprinkled freely! You’re not only good friends and lovers, but amazing parents, too.
Hunter’s first day of 3rd grade
It’s beautiful~your love and marriage. Many more happy years to come! Love you, my sweets!
Love grows more tremendously full, swift, poignant, as the years multiply. ~Zane Grey
Tristan (world’s greatest drummer) recently went in to the recording studio with his friend, Sean Blancherd, and some other guys and here is what I know from the website:
The Thought Process:
Sean Blanchard – Bass
Tristan Kelley – Drums
Brer Rabbit – Vox
Special Guest:
Jon Wirtz – Keys
The Thought Process started as just that, a thought that bassist Sean Blanchard has had over the past few years while playing and touring with some other amazing artists. “What would it sound like if certain styles of music were mixed over the bass grooves that were filling up my computer?” The two styles that kept coming into play, hip hop and jazz. Thus, The Thought Process was born.
Groove oriented story telling, melodies, in the pocket drum and bass, with an intellectual vocal vibe.credits
released 25 October 2011
Available for immediate download today.
I am so {obviously} not the hip-hop demographic, but I wholly love good lyric and jazz just folds me in, melts me a little.
Plus? So proud of Tristan!
In other music and the arts news…
Dave and Tara have a single or two coming out soon, as well! We have been waaaaaaaaiting for this!
One of my all-time favorite songs, “A Million Stars” is going to be such a blessing to you!! It is to me.
And – my best friend and full-time lover [Dave Rhoades, of course], is debuting in Prairie Playhouses’ “Is He Dead?” A New Mark Twain Comedy.
I love the arts. I love my {talented} family and God has surrounded me with light and color and melody and song. The hills are alive with the sound of music….
Congratulations on the very awesome release today, Tristan!
Our very seriously creative and talented, colorful and multi-faceted photographer and graphic-designer friend, offers to help the {very expensive} adoption process along.
Ellie is proprietor of 2 super-cool businesses, one being her photography (www.lilacphotography.com) and the other, specialing in unique, personalized photo cards and announcements (www.photocardchef.com). You can read all the details here , but basically, Ellie will donate $100 off any Lilac Photography photo session and/or 20% off any orders with Photo Card Chef. Mention Tara’s blog to get the discounts. Check out Ellie’s work. It is really good!
“Adoption means you grew in your mommy’s heart instead of her tummy.” Author: Unknown
The Powers Family Journey
Dave and Tara got married in September of 2003. They were going to wait 5 years or so to have a baby because of all the traveling and plans they had. But **sUrpRisE!** They got pregnant 5 months later with Hunter Magoo. He was born 3 weeks early in October of 2004. And a joy he is!
When he was 2 1/2 or 3, they started thinking about adding to their family. As time went along, their curiosity was picqued about the hold up. Getting pregnant the first time had been a breeze. A physical exam did reveal a serious condition for which Tara went through surgery. We thank God it went well and she was whole again – pregnancy would soon follow, we felt certain.
But this is God’s story and we cannot wait to read the next chapter!
Dave and Tara and Hunter have decided to choose the next baby or small child. They have started their plans, filling out papers, having the home study, all the things needed to prepare for a new member of the family.
