How is it, that I spend all year looking forward to the Christmas season, wishing it would get here sooner…then when it finally arrives, I spend most of the holidays wishing it would slow down and wondering where these special days have gone?
Life with our new little one so far has been a bit like that. Time seemed to drag by waiting for her arrival, and now that she’s here… Joey and I wonder where the last 10 months have gone. It’s hard to believe, but she’s going to be a year old soon. But what an incredible year it’s been!
As we say goodbye to Christmas and start waving farewell to 2014, Joey and I are reminded that for most of the last year, we weren’t sure if we were gonna sing or perform anymore. We’d made the decision to take the year off and just be home with the baby, and a part of us both wondered if maybe we were just gonna let that part of our lives go and move on to the next part. But sometime this fall, we both knew in our hearts that we wanted to stand on stage and sing again… and continue to share the special songs and story that God has given us.
So right after Thanksgiving we opened our guitar cases, dusted off our vocal cords, and played three shows here at our farm (about two years ago, we had converted our big red barn into a sound-stage and concert hall, so that we could still play shows, but not have to be on the road and travel as much). The shows were so much fun. Lots of folks drove or flew here from all over the country and we were honored to get to sing for and meet them after the concerts. In a couple of the shows, we even got to bring Indiana out to say hello before her bedtime and sing to her. Those were beautiful moments that we’ll never forget.
Since the stage in the barn was all decorated up for the holiday shows (as was the rest of the barn), we used it to have our extended family’s Christmas dinner and gift exchange on Christmas eve. Then yesterday morning, in the farmhouse, we celebrated Christmas and exchanged gifts under our tree. As always, I had a camera going so we can remember our family’s first Christmas with Indy forever.
Thinking ahead to 2015…
My wife and I have decided to start performing shows in the concert hall here at home one weekend a month starting in January, so I’ll get to hear her pretty voice a lot more this coming year and hopefully meet a lot more nice people. I’m starting to write songs again and am almost finished writing the screenplay for a full-length feature film with our manager (and my cousin) Aaron. It’s a Civil War epic story about a soldier’s wife named Josephine and her journey to reunite with her husband. We’re hoping to start filming it this spring. Besides that? Hmmm… I think there’ll be a big garden, some new baby chicks, more blog posts… and a smiling one-year-old, learning to crawl, maybe walk, and even more importantly, learning to say “ma-ma” (she only says “da-da” and “ba-ba” so far) for her mommy!!
