things happen…

At the request of Truitt, who apparently needs to hear my voice (in a sense) on a regular basis, I will be updating my blog more than once every 3 months.

Actually, the only reason it’s been so long between this post and my last is that I’ve been away pretty much the entire time.  “What have you been up to?” you ask?…….let me tell you

After playing at the fair, I had the rest of the week to finish getting ready for camp – for the last 5 years now, I’ve been going with our senior camp group up to Camp Monadnock in New Hampshire for a week.  My primary role these years has been to lead the music part of camp, and I love getting to do that.  Every year that I’ve done it, I’ve always had little Dave with me – we’ve been the 2 constants of the music – but this year, he couldn’t make it (his band, Phone Calls From Home, is still touring to promote their new EP), so it made things a little more stressful in the preparation.  I knew my bass player and had played with him for a few years at camp, but the drummer I had never played with before, and because of where he lived, we weren’t going to get to practice at all until we were actually at camp……

Long story short, the music went well the whole week…actually, it started off a bit rough on Monday night.  Last year was my first graduating class at camp – I had been at camp every year with that group since they’d been in high school; so this year there were a LOT of new faces – a lot of young teens, and the first night it felt like I was singing by myself….so I tried that night and the next morning to talk about worship and what the songs are supposed to be for us……and you wouldn’t believe how incredible the turnaround was!!  Tuesday night was crazy – it felt like all 300 teens were singing at the top of their lungs – totally into praising and worshiping God together!!  It was amazing to be a part of it…..and Wednesday night was even better.  Of all the times I’ve been at camp, I don’t know that I’ve seen something like that happen except maybe one other time……after the speaker spoke, I came back up to play some music while he led in prayer, and he invited the teens to make serious decisions…..and it was like a floodgate opened up….there were teenagers everywhere just kneeling and praying and crying and…..it was such a powerful moment….and then we all stood and sang a great chorus together (called “The Stand”)….it was such a powerful moment and God was so obviously there…..

So the next day we started to hear stories that Manny had been traded and we were trying to piece all that together (you like that transition?)……and then after the service Thursday night (which is the last service of the week – the campers go home Friday morning), I had to pack up all the music gear on the bus because I had to leave to go up to Maine for my little sister’s wedding!!

I was sick Thursday and Friday (and Saturday and Sunday…..I’m almost better now, but still a little off), but the wedding was great.  It was simple and there were probably less than a hundred people there, but it was very nice, and it was very obvious that they love each other…. (on a side note, I was supposed to sing, but really had no voice, so I ended up playing guitar and Kaleigh did the singing, which was great, as always)

We came back Sunday and I got to spend all day Monday with Sara and her family before her family leaves to back to New Orleans….went to the beach, played some games, went to see Get Smart, which is a fun movie – and I don’t think I’ve heard Sara’s parents laugh out loud so much!!  I think they laughed more than anyone else in the theater, which was great.  Steve Carrell cracks me up – even just his mannerisms are funny to me, so if you haven’t seen that movie, it’s a fun one to catch…

that about brings me up to now……watched the Sox win one last night, and saw Jason Bay (a Canadian, by the way) go 4-for-5…….

so that’s what I’ve been up to for the last week and a half…..