Bill, Karen and the Twins come for a visit!

When Regan heard the news that my brother Bill, his wife Karen and their twin girls, Lindsey and Leah were coming to visit, she was VERY excited!

Bill called last Monday to see what our weekend looked like and I told him that we were pretty much open, so he and Karen devised a way to come out from Tulsa for a visit.

They arrived Friday evening around 7:30, and from the get go, both Lindsey and Leah asked, "I hold Baby Regan?" With a little supervision, we were able to grant their wish!







Here's Leah!




with Regan, after their trip to the Amarillo Zoo to see "a lot of monkeys!"










On Saturday, Granddad stopped by for a few hours. With young and not-so-young assembled, there was a span of four generations!





Here's Karen with Regan.








Supervised popsicle eating!








And here's what their tongues looked like afterwards.








Granddad went to pick Dolly up from her Bridge Game and she spent some time with us, too. From the stories about her game of Bridge, it sounds like she had a much better time with us!






Then on Sunday, the whole group went to church and the girls did a great job in Sunday School. After a nice lunch at Rosa's Mexican Cafe, Bill and Karen loaded up the twins and headed back to Tulsa.





Regan, did you have a good time with everyone?

"I sure did!" she exclaimed. "And, I can't wait to see them again!"

What I'm listening to now...

I've had the good fortune of stumbling on to some really great music recently. I've added that to my standard playlist and this is what I'm listening to now:

This is an album by Sufjan Stevens. I wish I could very succinctly describe his music, but I'm afraid that that is a daunting task! The two friends who recommended it to me did what they could to describe it, but until I finally heard it, I wasn't able to really wrap my brain around it. And to be perfectly honest, I still can't really wrap my brain around it! I'll try to describe his music in a way that (hopefully) won't conjure too many preconceived notions.

First off, Sufjan plays nearly every instrument on the album and while that's not unheard of, the scope of instruments on the album probably is: guitars, drums, keyboards of every sort, even trumpet and oboe. Of course, he is a very good singer also. Secondly, many of the songs rely on complex time signatures, which should automatically tell you that these songs have a more sophisticated make-up than your standard FM pop music. Thirdly, lyrically, the subject matter goes from light-hearted songs about (essentially) nothing, to some pretty deep and moving ones.

Finally, Sufjan has set out on a mission to write an album for all 50 states (except for Rhode Island which will be an EP -- seems fitting...). The first album in this effort, Greetings from Michigan, is brilliant. Both albums are, but both are also very different and equally likeable. I think that, right there, just shows how much writing talent and creativity Sufjan has. Go to www.ashmatickitty.com to look around and purchase a Sufjan album. (It appears that the best prices for his CD's are on that website too. I've looked other places, but the prices are all higher.)


Next is David Crowder Band's Illuminate. Yep, I know I'm a little behind the times here and that DCB has released like 27 albums since Illuminate, but I just got into this one again for two reasons: One, it's stinking great and Two, I've been learning how to use the music program Reason.

For those of you who don't know what Reason is, I'll try to feebly sum it up as best as I can. Reason is a program that allows you to record any type of instrument, while generating a drum loop to go with it, while creating a drum machine of assorted sounds, then add as many effects to it (reverb, digital delay, phaser, etc...) as you'd like.

Our church bought the program to use during our contemporary worship service. Basically, I programmed a track for each song in our set to give a fuller sound to the band and to keep us honest and on a click track (like playing with a metronome). While you can get VERY complicated in Reason, we were only scratching the surface by using a few drum loops with some shaker and whatnot, to add to the worship service, but not to call too much attention to itself.

Illuminate uses Reason extensively in the creation of most of the electronic sounding elements on the album. It also has a demo version of the program that you can download and it also comes with two of the albums' Reason files so you can see specifically what DCB was doing with it. Very educational!

I'm also listening to quite a bit of talk radio these days. As a matter of fact, my daily line up is as follows: Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Bill O'Reilly and Dave Ramsey. Depending on what time of day it is and when I have a free moment (or am in the car), this is who I'll be listening to.

Because I spend so much time working with music (either writing and arranging or, during the school year, teaching music), I won't necessarily listen to a lot of music unless I'm trying to just clear out my brain.

Have a great day!

Spotty Rain today...

Otherwise a normal day. Had a few errands to run and a dozen phone calls to make and messages to return. It was nice to get that rain. June is supposed to be our rainiest month --which doesn't mean much in Amarillo, TX. We'll take what we can get and spare having to water the yard one more day this week.

I was glad to get one drumline arranging project completely done and delivered and now off to the next. It sounds like a lot of fun: Music from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Yesterday was my birthday. 28 years old. Once you hit 25, the next big birthday is 30. Think about it, every birthday you have growing up is a big deal because it means getting to plan the party you're going to have and figuring out which of your friends will be invited. But there are some more specific milestones I'd like to point out:

Year 5: Kindergarten.
Year 10: You've hit double digits.
Year 13: You've become a dreaded teenager!
Year 15: You will at some point be able to start the process by which you get your driver's license.
Year 16: You get said driver's license. Also, sweet sixteen if you're a girl -- and I'm definitely not one (no, it doesn't matter how I throw a ball).
Year 17: There's a magazine dedicated to it (never read it; again for girls) and you can go to R-rated movies by yourself.
Year 18: You can vote.
Year 20: You're no longer a teenager (although, you probably haven't acted like one, hopefully, for a few years)
Year 21: You can drink alcohol. And if you waited to drink until you were 21 (as I did), you find out that it's really not a big deal. Did you know that most people who have serious alcohol problems drank underage?
Year 25: My favorite so far: your car insurance is likely to drop in rates!

and what's next for me?
Year 30: Become a thirty-something and prostate exams... Also, I understand that the word 'fiber' becomes part of your everday usage...

Now here are some pictures of the family:

Here is my wife Kayla and I right before we left the hospital with our new daughter Regan Renee`.

A close up of Regan at 7 - 10 days old.

And Kayla and Regan at the Park.

My first father's day!

Now that you've met the family, here are some pics from other aspects of my life:

Here's a good picture from the Drumline Cook-out/Baby Shower for Regan. From left to right is Katie Lyn, Amanda and Joel. These are just a few of the very talented freshmen class of percussionists coming up to the high school. The others aren't pictured because none of those pictures turned out to be that good. (Is Josh capable of taking a good picture?)

We had a good time at the Wingo's house. Actually, their name comes up as "Winog" on caller ID, so I have a distinct feeling that Wesley might end up being called "Winog" a few times this year!

Here's a picture from our Percussion Ensemble Concert this year. We had Dr. Lisa Rogers (right side), professor of percussion at Texas Tech University as our special guest artist. Dr. Rogers played two pieces with the ensemble; "Farmer's Trust" by Pat Metheny, arranged by Steve Houghton and Tom Warrington. And "Blume 'n' Cuban" by Jeffrey Nearpass.

The ensemble peformed various other pieces including, "Lua," by Airto Moreira (arr. Steve McDonald); "Head Talk," by Mark Ford; "The Doomsday Machine," by Michael Burritt and "Finale from Symphony no. 1," by Prokofiev (arr. Rice).