Shock

I was shocked to discover Becky Sauder has kidney cancer. VOP had the privilege of spending the night in their home while we were on our Nov. tour. Richard and Becky lived in our area here in Gladys years ago, when I was a lad. I remember Becky as always being quite cheerful and friendly. I was never uncomfortable when she was around. So, I am in a state of shock.
From the information I have received from Karen, Becky's daughter. They are hoping to remove one kidney. For further information visit Karen's xanga site. reflectthelight.

Blogging

I just noticed I have been jotting things down on this blog for since August of 05. I had no idea it had been that long. What a shock...
I am wondering how long you have been reading this blog?

Korwin Dale

Korwin, my nephew, Jon's son, was diagnosed with a slipped femur. Have you heard of such a thing? I never had. Anyway, they went to see an orthopedic surgeon Monday evening and they threw him in the hospital and by Tuesday afternoon he had been operated on. If I am not mistaken they put three pins in his hip area. I believe this is to keep it from slipping any more. There is a fuse plate that fuses things together at some point in our life. The fuse plate fuses the thingy to the thingamajig. If the thingy isn't right, to low because it slipped, then he would have had a limp the rest of his life.
They operated so quickly because he could have done major damage if he had tripped and fallen on the hip. If something like this would have happened he could have really messed things up and would have needed a hip replacement at some point.
So now you are up to speed on Korwin and his slipped femur. Hopefully this information is accurate. If not I am sure Korwin will have plenty of time to set me straight...

Retreat Roundup

We had a very good weekend. lloyd talked about phrasing of songs. How to communicate the song to the audience. How to interpret the song. How to sing a song in a way that will allow the song to speak itself. If that makes sense...
We, VOP, cornered Lloyd for about an hour on Sat. evening and had our own private critique session. This was very helpful. We learned a few things that made an immediate difference in our sound. We will be trying to use what we learned this weekend to make songs become more real or alive to the listener. That is the reason we sing, to minister...

Concert

We had our first program tonight with Joe in the bass. Went very well. We plugged in several new songs and they went well.
Tomorrow we will know how many folks will actually be here for the retreat.
I am looking forward to it. I have plans of finding it very helpful and am hoping VOP will be able to put Lloyd Kauffman's ideas to practice.
Well, have a good night everybody...

Quartet Retreat

The quartet retreat has come upon us at a rapid pace. I feel totally unprepared for the weekend. Which is ok, because, I don't have anything to prepare for aside from some music. At this point we have around 20 people registered and there are a few coming that haven't registered. So, it should be a decent turn out. If your in the SMBI area we would love to have you stop in for the Sunday afternoon concert. Starts @ 2:00 in the chapel.

Home

Our first flight on the trip home was uneventful. Jack was nervous but nauseous. We had a lovely stewardess on this flight. Really interested in the children. She came back one time and chatted with Rachel for 10-15 min. about the children, adoption, and life. She made it a point to talk to the children. I was impressed. She heard one of the children talking about being hungry so she brought a bag of M&M's and gave them to us. I think they were selling these for $2. I noticed later she brought us a small can of Pringles. I don't know who was hungry this time but they were free as well.
Due to trying to be cheap I had bought my ticket separate using my Father In Laws air miles with NW. This means I only had to pay $10 for the ticket. Well, when I booked it I must of clicked on the wrong flight. Which means, Rachel got stuck with all the kids from Atlanta to RDU. Thankfully this flight is only an hour long. She managed fine aside from being somewhat stressed out.
Oh, I nearly forgot, on the plane from Tuscon to Atlanta they had these TVs on the back of the seat in front of you. You could watch TV, play games, or watch your flight. This was interesting. They told you how cold it was outside. How fast we were going. How much of a tailwind we had. All kinds of neat facts. Plus they had an aerial map showing where we had been and where we were going. Very cool indeed.

Good Bye

For some odd reason, I was totally unprepared for the good bye ceremonies this evening. Rod's family is fairly emotional and apparently so are my girls. I had known this but had forgotten. So, I was surprised when my girls started sobbing and continued for quite some time. I don't have a problem with it but I was surprised.
So, in the morning we will be headed for the airport using the hotel shuttle service. Our flight leaves at 7:30 so we will be heading out bright and early...
Please pray that Jackson doesn't experience such nervousness that results in hurling his cookies, or peanuts as the case may be...
He has already informed us he isn't ready to go home and this is based on his fear of flying or fear of something, what I do not know...