We are having a blast down here int he Valley and are enjoying visiting with our relatives. We have gotten to do several wonderful shows so far and have met many wonderful people. We are looking forward to meeting many others over the next several weeks. HAPPY NEW YEAR! We want you to have a great 2012! We will be very busy this year - at least through April. We also want you to know that we now have the gospel CD, Renewed, ready for release! It is available here on the web site and also where ever we are performing. We hope to have it available through the digital stores soon as well. We want to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year! Please keep Christ in Christmas! We also want to let you know we are VERY close to releasing our gospel CD. The art work and master CD went to the duplicators today. This means in a few short weeks we will have our new CD, Renewed, available for our fans. The powers that be say we will have it by the beginnning of the year. We are really excited!We are SOOO excited! We have been in the studio working on our gospel CD! We have been making great progress and should be through in the next day or so. We should be able to make the release date goal of the first of the year and, of course, it will be posted here on the web site as soon as it is available. Thanks for all y'all's patience!WooHoo! The trailer for the movie, Indescribable, is finished and it is awesome! Check it out at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thorncrownproject/indescribable. Enjoy and hope you all will want to own a copy of the film! We had safe travels to Iowa and back - thanks for all your prayers and support. We had a fabulous time up there! It was a great break to have highs in the 80's and lows in the 40-50's. Since we were up that far north in the midwest we decided to take a side trip to Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse - it was awesome! We were feeling for the people back here in Texas with the heat and the fires though. We were (are) fortunate (so far) not to have been affected by the fires and we pray there will be rain soon to help the firefighters with the severe outbreak of wildfires.In Iowa they had all sorts of contests - we don't really do contests but thought we might try our hand at one or two. They had a "busking" contest - playning music on the street for tips - (yeah, it was a new word for us too) but I won it! They also had a band scramble contest which all three of us entered. All the people who wanted to enter the contest put their names in a box and the organizers drew names out of the box and placed them in bands together - randomly. You find out who is in your band the evening before the contest and you have to practice with them for a 15 minute show. There is only about 12 hours between the time you find out who is in your band and the contest. Mom & Dad got lucky and they were in the same band together and with a young lady who played the fiddle but I was in a totally different band - it was great! Mom and Dad's band won it! All bands won 5 pizza's! I had also been given a homemade, in a dutch oven, over an open fire apple pie from the Busking Contest so, needless to say, we had a wonderful meal that evening which we shared with another musical family camped close to us - the Kooi's. Well, the filming for Indescribable is done and - BOY! What an experience! That was great! However, there were many, many long days in the triple digit heat but the cast and crew hung in there and accomplished a great movie. Now the editing begins! What a job. We are very excited to get started on our next venture. We have been invited to participate in the National Old Time Music Festival in Iowa at the end of this month. We are also working on our gospel CD and hope to have it done by the end of the year. No prpomises but that's our goal! It will be announced here on the web site as soon as it it is off the press! Of course, in between all that, we have our booked gigs! We love staying busy. See ya on down the road!OK, here we are again! An exciting few months have passed and I need to catch everyone up on the happenin's. Somehow all three of us have been cast in a Christian film being shot in the Bryan College Station area. It is called Indescribable and it should be a great family film. The plot is about the man and his family that wrote the hymn The Love of God and you can see us perform the song on YouTube! We are very excited about the project and are looking forward to the filming beginning next week. We hope many of you will order a copy of the film for your personal library. We will post the information on how to get a copy when we know more! Boy, have we been slackers in keeping this page up to date! We spent 7 weeks on the road in the Rio Grande Valley area playing all over! We got to meet some great people and some very talented families and individuals. Lots of fun, but also lots of work. That's why we're just now getting to add to this page - we've been trying to catch up! Hope to see some of y'all at one of our shows!We have just learned we have been played on KEOS 89.1 FM radio station in Bryan/College Station, Texas! Yeah! One day maybe we will hear ourselves on the radio! Hope our fans will hear us on the radio as well!We are very excited - we were played on the American Family Radio (AFR), 88.3 FM station today and will be played again on Tuesday (6/29/10) at 6:15 PM on the Buddy & Friends Show. We hope ya'll can tune in and hear as they play one of the songs from our CD. Apologies to all of you! We have been very laxed on the Journal the last few months. We have had house repairs (yuk!) to do and had some family in and out of town to help. We haven't been playing very much on the circuit lately due to that but we are about to get started up again! Keep checking the Where We're Goin' page and maybe we will see you at one of the venues!We were very saddened to learn of Johnnie High's death on March 17. He has been a huge part in many artist's lives, including ours, and he will be greatly missed. Our prayers and thoughts are with his family during this difficult time.It is very nice to be home for a few days. We have been catching up on all the chores around here, like, school for me! Anyway, we are going to play tonight but it is very close to home so we dont' have to travel very much.We are here at the Rio Grande Valley Music Festival in Mercedes, Texas and it is so much fun! We get to meet so many talented people and jam with so many as well as workshops and all sorts of activities. I have been asked to conduct a mandolin workshop too! I've never done that but think it would be loads of fun! I will probably learn all sorts of things too!Wow! Saying 2010 sounds so futuristic! Hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years. We enjoyed some time off spent with family and are ready to get back into the swing of things. We have had a stressful last six weeks as I lost my Grandmother shortly after Thanksgiving and last week one of our dogs passed away. It will be good to get back to something resembling "normal". We hope to see some of our fans at some of our upcoming shows! The time is flying by and it is already the end of November. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We do hope to see you down the road at one of our shows in the future though! Please visit the Where We're Goin' page frequently as we update it often.Well, I can't believe it is already almost October (OK tomorrow it will be) - the time is passing so quickly. It will be Christmas soon! Matter of fact we are already working on Christmas music! We are very busy for October and are really looking forward to it. Hope we'll see some of y'all at some of our gigs!WOW! I didn't realize it had been since April that we had written anything here! We have been very busy with so many things and we just didn't get to it! In June we moved my sister and brother in law into a new location for his new job. It was a great visit but LOTS of hot (over 100 degrees), hard work! Then in July we had some time off and went to Colorado to visit my older brother and his family. We had a blast and got to see Sante Fe, Carlsbad Caverns, and all sorts of stuff! Now it's time to get back to the entertainment and writing music. We have missed it but are booked heavily for August so it will be fun. It's always great to get out and see our fans. Thanks for your support! Big River is over and it's always sad when a great production is done but we all have to move on. I made some great new friends and hope to keep in touch with them as time goes on. It will be good to get back to my normal (if you can call what we do normal!) routine but I'll miss all the wonderful people from Big River! Well, tonight is opening night at The Theatre Company for Big River. The rehearsals have gone much smoother and the Preview performance last night was awesome! Hope some of you can come see the play - it's GREAT! Wow! I have been asked to play mandolin as part of the orchestra for The Theatre Company's production of Big River in Bryan, Texas. It is the story of Huckleberry Finn and has some great music! The msuicians that play in the orchestra are very talented and it will be a pleasure to perform with them. Please check the Where We're Goin' page for times and dates of the performances of Big River. We have just returned from an incredible week at the Rio Grande Valley Music Festival in Mercedes, Texas! WOW! That was tons of fun and we got to have a good friend and upright bass player, Jason, with us! We are tired but have met lots of great people and hopefully gathered a few new fans! Whew! We are tired puppies from our Texas Gulf Coast Tour last week. We had a wonderful time and got to meet lots of great singers and musicians and see some great folks! We are gearing up for the Rio Grande Valley Music Festival in February. We still have several great gigs before we set out fpr the Texas Valley.Well, here it is the end of the year already! We hope you and yours will have a very prosperous and joyful New Year! I can't believe it! Our album is on the internet music stores now. You can get it from Napster, Rhapsody, Groupie Tunes, Amazon MP3, Lala, Shockhound, and all iTunes stores. That broadens where everyone can get a copy! Tell your friends so they can have their very own copy as well. In case I don't get to write vefor Christmas we wish all of you a very blessed and MERRY CHRISTMAS! We will be very busy getting ready for Christmas ourselves and then our Texas Gulf Coast Tour in January. Hope to see some of you down the road! It's been a while since I wrote anything in here. Time sure flies when you're having fun! We have been very busy and all the venues we have been at have been wonderful! We played at a historic theater in Mount Pleasant, Texas this past weekend and it was lots of fun. Well, we survived Hurricane Ike with minimal damage but know many people who suffered an array of major damage. My Grandmother still doesn't have power and is staying with us until her power is on. Our prayers are with all those and their families who did suffer damage. Oh my gosh! We were played on the air on the Notably Texan show on KETR 88.9 radio station in Commerce, Texas! TWICE! They have the show on Saturday nights and our music was played on July 26 and August 2! The host of the show has asked for more songs! YEAH! We are SO excited!We got news from one of the many stations we submitted a track from our CD to. They will play our song on their "Inspirational Time" on July 20. Unfortunately, we don't know the exact time but the station is KATX FM 97.7 out of Eastland, Texas. Hope some of you will be able to hear it!The Fresh Hay CD is FINALLY here! Go to the Merchandise page for ordering details or come see us at one of the venues we will be at! One week closer to the CD release! We are soooo excited!The CD has been sent to the duplicators! This means all the mixing, mastering, & graphics are completed! It also means the CD is almost here - literally! Thanks to all of you who have been so patient with the wait and we really hope you will enjoy the final product. Mom has begun to get the Merchandise page ready for the release of our first CD - Fresh Hay. We are very excited about its release and it should be ready early this summer. Be sure to keep checking back to see when it is released. Update on the CD! It is in its final mixing stage and soon we will have a copy to listen to and approve. Once this is done it will be off to the duplicators and - voila! it will be available for purchase! Hopefully your wait will not be too much longer. Thanks for being so patient!For those of you not from Texas, today is Texas Independence Day - we won our independence from Mexico. We had the privilege to play in a very unique setting - a small town (and I do mean small) had a celebration for Texas Independence Day. The town is named The Grove, Texas and the entire town is a museum! We will have some pictures of it on the website. To top it all off the entire town is for sale! What an experience! We got the first mix of the CD with our vocals and instruments - it sounds great. However, we are listening for anything that we may need to change or redo. Our fans deserve it to be as close to perfect as we can get it! I can't believe it is so close to being ready! We have to get our graphics ready for the CD soon! We are working on it. The last few days we were in the studio recording the vocals and our instruments for the CD. We have finished our parts - unless we have to redo something - so now it is up to Jason (the producer) to mix it and see what it sounds like. It will be a few weeks before we get to hear it to approve it or work more on it. We will keep everyone updated on our progress so check back often! Well, we had our first session in the recording studio and WOW! We worked on five songs today and will go back on the 16th to work on the other five songs. They are sounding great! We are very excited and can't wait to get it ready for everyone to hear! Stay tuned!Well, here it is, almost Christmas and I wanted to wish all of you a very blessed and Merry Christmas as well as a Happy New Year! In January we will begin working at R/R Studios in Lake Jackson, Texas to record the long awaited CD. It will take a while so please continue to be patient! It has taken so long for the "change" of my voice to complete and now it seems it is done (or at least pretty close); which means now we can record the CD and not have to worry about re-recording songs after my voice changes further! I can't believe it's been since September that I wrote anything here. Whew! How time flies! Well, we played at Hometown Opry and at the Lake Theater this weekend and what a great time we had! They are both great venues and the people are all wonderful as well. There may be some exciting news coming later so stay tuned!We had a great time in Colorado this week. While we were there we went to Manitou Springs. For those of you who may not know about Manitou Springs; it is a very artsy type of town; and we happened to be there just before their annual Mountain Music Festival. Mom, Dad, and myself went into one of the shops there, The Dulcimer Shop, and picked up a guitar and a mandolin to play and hear how they sounded. The owner of the shop is also the organizer of the festival and he heard us play. Little did we know we were auditioning! To make a long story short, we have been invited to be a part of the Mountain Music Festival for next year. In February we were having lunch at Mueller's BBQ in Taylor, Texas when a film crew showed up. They were with Guy's Big Bites on the Food Network on TV. They were interviewing lots of people at the restaurant and we were one of them. It is part of a new show called Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives that is to air on April 23, 2007 at 9 PM central. I don't know if we will have made the "cut" or not but we may be on the show! I got my very first request for a newspaper interview today! The article will be in The Cove Herald this Friday. We will be playing at the Copperas Cove Opry Saturday night and they were doing a preview of the various artists that would be performing. Hope it comes out well! There may even be a follow up in the next week's paper so check back and I will let you know if there is coverage the night of the Opry.
