Kimberly and I were recently joined by our dear friend, Casey Ewen, on a trip from Monticello, Arkansas to Hiram, Georgia (just outside of Atlanta). We were primarily going on this trip to visit our friends Brad and Pattie Nix (and their little girl, Kylie Dakota). We left at around 7:30 AM CST on Thursday, August 24th, following Hwy. 82 and I-20 for most of the route.

Monticello, AR to Hiram, GA

We were probably halfway through Alabama before we ever turned on any music in the car, which should be a testament to how enjoyable the conversation was with Casey and Kimberly in the car. Once we arrived at the Burger King in Hiram (Brad seemed to think we wouldn’t find the house easily), we followed Brad back and sat down for a wonderful dinner with his parents. Later that evening, the music began…

Music Time!!

Kylie loved music time!!

On Friday morning, Pattie had to go to work (teaching can be a bummer) so the rest of us loaded up and headed to Atlanta. Our first stop was the Coca-Cola museum.

Jonathan and Kimberly ready for some Coke excitement!

There were lots and lots of really cool things to see in the Coke museum… I was a bit surprised, to be honest.

An oddly interesting Coke bottling machine at work

There was, of course, the obligatory “stick-your-head-through-the-holes” picture spot and the “larger-than-life-recognizable-promotional-character” picture spot:

The most fun room in the whole museum, however, was the tasting room. There were drink dispensers that contained different Coca-Cola products from all over the world. I enjoyed several of the orange-flavored varieties but steered clear of many of the different flavors. Casey, on the other hand, sampled every flavor, I think.

Casey was the brave one…

My one complaint with the museum was that the thing that I wanted to do more than any other was to sample the taste of “New Coke” so that I could remember just how awful it truly was (the only reference to this business bungle was one small can next to a picture of Max Headroom). After leaving the Coke museum, we decided that we did not have time to visit the Underground (just time for a picture). We later learned that it had to be evacuated due to a bomb threat.

Casey and Kimberly outside of Underground Atlanta

We then enjoyed a very filling and greasy lunch at The Varsity where I indulged in a chili-cheeseburger that was very good but very tiny. If you put the Varsity burgers and two Krystal burgers together you might actually then have one decent-sized sandwich.

Jonathan and Casey at The Varsity

We then visited with Brad’s former professor/mentor/friend/colleague Dr. Haydon on the campus of Georgia State University in the heart of Atlanta. Later that day, Brad began the process of teaching me how to be thoroughly whooped in pool on a consistent basis (I was a quick learner and was often thoroughly whooped over the course of the weekend).

Jonathan and Brad having intelligent conversation…

That evening, we played more music as one of Pattie’s sisters and her husband as well as Brad’s sister came to visit for dinner.

When Brad plays blindly… watch out!!!

On Saturday, we all took a trip to downtown Hiram to visit the antique stores and eat a little Mexican food. Kylie enjoyed the fountain.

Later that evening, we all went to Stone Mountain to see the laser show. As we drove around trying to figure out where to park, we saw a police officer writing tickets for people who had parked illegally. I asked him where the best place to park would be considering that I had a pregnant wife and he kindly gave us a handicap tag that allowed us to park VERY close to where we were going. It honestly saved us at least 30 minutes of walking each way. What a blessing! That walk would have been tough on all of us but especially for Kimberly and Casey.

Group photo on the hill near Stone Mountain

The show was great but after being out there for nearly five or six hours… well, fatigue is not quite the word. Sunday morning came very early and we all headed out to Macland Baptist Church in Powder Springs. This church is VERY much into Southern Gospel music which I like as much as the next person, but this was a little much for me. During the afternoon, we were instructed that we must have a photo taken as a group in our “Sunday attire”… thus:

One last group photo

Sunday evening, however, was spent in a nice church called Pickett’s Mill Baptist in Dallas, GA. I sang and played guitar on MercyMe’s I Can Only Imagine with Brad playing the piano part and I really enjoyed getting to sing in an acoustically pleasant room and environment (it’s been a while for me). We spent some time talking to Pastor Tony Samples who had known Casey’s husband, Shane. Tony seemed like a great guy and I hope to run into him again one of these days. Nice church! I would recommend it based on my one evening there.

Kimberly and I drove back to Arkansas by ourselves (after having a new battery put in our car) because Casey was flying from Atlanta to Denver to substitute teach for her sister for a little while. We decided to take our time getting home and enjoy some random moments (for those of you who REALLY know me… you know how much I love randomness). I had to get a picture of this sign because apparently Krispy Kreme = School Holiday.

Krispy Kreme = School Holiday

We made one final stop in Leland, Mississippi, as Kimberly spotted a sign that said birthplace of Kermit the Frog. I whipped the car around very quickly! Can’t miss Kermit, ya know? As it turns out, the Jim Henson Exhibit was quite nice. There was no admission fee and the lady that was running it was very pleasant and courteous toward us. They had an original set piece from one of the Muppet movies:

Original Kermit movie set piece

After a few more minutes of looking around and taking pictures, we purchased a small, soft, and furry Snuffleupagus stuffed animal for Micah’s nursery and then headed home. We were pleasantly surprised to arrive home and discover that my parents had painted the nursery for us while we were gone! WOW! What an awesome thing! Great parents! Great trip! God is good even when it’s hard to see… God is good!

It’s Not Easy…

[tags]Monticello, Arkansas, Atlanta, Georgia, Hiram, Dallas, Burger King, Varsity, Krystal, music, Casey Ewen, Brad Nix, Pattie Nix, Kermit, Jim Henson, frog, Leland, Coke, Coca-Cola, museum, imagine, mercyme, underground, haydon, gsu, pool, piano, guitar, stone mountain, pickett’s mill, macland, baptist, krispy kreme, green [/tags]

So, I started off the morning with a table bible study at breakfast. I still didn’t feel like I had slept (foreshadowing of the sickness that would really hit me hard that night) and still regretted missing the David Crowder Band. The morning worship session with Louie Giglio and Chris Tomlin really helped to get my day started right though. This was followed by a ridiculously long meeting for all the registrants where we got to “meet” the important staff and basically learn about all of the things going on during the week.

Competitions: Following the orientation meeting, I had to immediately get ready for a contemporary vocal competition. One of my biggest regrets for the whole week was that I missed the Chris Tomlin/Louie Giglio songwriting class because I was competing. I can’t say that I bombed my song, but I was also not pleased with how I did, thus did not expect to move on to the semi-finals. There were a lot of great and talented singers and songwriters in my group… including my friend, Nick Atchley. Nick, if you read this, I still have “Tiny Spaces” (or is it “Tiny Places”?) stuck in my head! Anyway – after eating lunch, I went to compete again in the Southern Gospel category. Now I didn’t really think through the difference in singing in Estes Park with the elevation and lack of humidity being slightly different from Arkansas – it definitely showed up as I sang David Phelps’ version of “No More Night.” It was not great. Again, I pretty much knew that I wouldn’t be moving on to the next round… the disappointment that I felt, however, came from both knowing that I could have done MUCH better in both categories and in knowing that I had missed nearly an entire day’s worth of classes to do these competitions. It’s not that I wouldn’t recommend the competitions to anyone, but I would say to REALLY evaluate how important they are to you beforehand.

Artist Teaching Concert: Geoff Moore

I really enjoyed this… Geoff Moore was at least interesting to listen to speak and sing although I must say that it sometimes seems that he is on drugs (am I the only one who thinks this? … my apologies, Geoff… just an honest thought).

Monday Evening Concert: Sponsored by Compassion International

This was a really great night of music and worship. Danny Oertli kicked things off as he was joined on stage by Dave Beegle. Several of my roommates commented that Danny Oertli was not a very good guitarist, but when you have to stand next to Dave Beegle… well… anyway – I actually have heard Danny play before by himself and he is quite a good guitarist. He actually let me play his guitar after the show (pretty cool, right?) at which point I became ruined to any other guitar as they all pale in comparison. It was an Olson and I probably haven’t even the ability to dream of owning a guitar of that caliber. Danny was followed by Kim Hill, Geoff Moore (who also hosted the evening and was joined for a song by his good friend, Steven Curtis Chapman), The Isaacs, The Afters, and Bebo Norman.

The Isaacs were outstanding musicians as a group and as individuals. Even if you don’t care for bluegrass or other similar styles of music, you can’t help but be impressed by this group!

The group that blew me away, however, was The Afters. I immediately went and bought their CD which is great though they are even better live. The song “Wait” was absolutely amazing live.

Bebo Norman played on a broken leg and you could tell that he didn’t really have the energy for that long of a set though he still did a great job.

[tags] Bebo Norman, The Afters, Afters, The Isaacs, bluegrass, Geoff Moore, Steven Curtis Chapman, Olson, guitar, Dave Beegle, Danny Oertli, Compassion International, David Phelps, No More Night, Nick Atchley, Chris Tomlin, Louie Giglio, David Crowder Band, songwriter[/tags]

The Gospel Music Association’s 32nd Annual Music in the Rockies event held in Estes Park took place between July 30th and August 5th, 2006. This was an incredible event and now that I have had a bit of time away from it… I will begin giving my impressions about the week at the event and give some details of other things that I did during the week.

I actually flew into Denver on Saturday morning and spent most of the morning scouring every grocery store between Denver and Boulder for Act II Sweet Corn on the Cob microwave Popcorn… alas, to no avail. I had planned to buy as much as I possibly could (as it is not available in Arkansas) and was going to ship it to my home. I gave up my hunt for the morning (I would later resume it full force and still come up empty) and gave my friend Hermes a call. He and his wife Jacolyn were going to be moving to Texas the next day and I thought it would be good to have lunch with them… so we went to the Spicy Pickle (absolutely delicious as always). I then spent a few hours going to different bike shops in Boulder (this is something I miss horribly) and bought a few of the newest energy bars and goodies to try out. I stayed with my friends Georg and Betsy Pingen on Saturday night and we caught up on things that have been going on in the past year. They are also expecting a baby very soon and were gracious enough to give Kimberly and I an outfit for our little Micah as they had a duplicate from a baby shower. Betsy gave me a copy of her book, “Did Your Grandfather Steal My Christmas Present?” (one of the most intriguing titles I have ever heard) and I am very much looking forward to reading it.

Sunday morning, I led the music at East Boulder Baptist Church where Kimberly and I attended during our time in Colorado. It was a great morning of getting to hear about the work that is going on for the Lord all over the world. Lunch at Old Chicago for some great pizza brought back some memories for me… most of “the gang” from Sunday School was there, but it just wasn’t the same without Brad and Patty Nix and Shane and Casey Ewen.

I took Highway 36 from Boulder up to Estes Park and thoroughly enjoyed watching all of the cyclists between Boulder and Longmont. By the time I got to Estes, the traffic was crazy and I started worrying that I had overestimated how much time I would have to get registered and settled. I was right, but it was mostly because of the insanely long lines for registration and then lodging check-in.

General Registration: SERIOUSLY… if you are going to the event next year show up early! This was supposed to take place between the hours of 1:00-5:00. I finished my registration and check-in at about 6:15 which gave me very little time to get done eating and get to the evening worship service. It was also just a little warm at the time and I had not changed out of my Sunday morning attire… big mistake!

Sunday Evening Concert (sponsored by Bible League): Chris Tomlin (here is his blog) is the real deal, folks! He did a great job of helping us worship corporately and prepared us for a very powerful message from Louie Giglio. The gist of the message was asking us what our worship services would be like if our church members stepped through the door to God’s Kingdom and stood in His presence before ever stepping through the door to the church building. They probably wouldn’t care too much what type of music was being sung or if there was any music at all… since they were already in an act of worship… it would just continue with other people around. Life application: Are we waiting for the church service to begin to start worshipping? I was exhausted at this point and went on back to my room… I still regret that I missed getting to hear the David Crowder Band. Maybe one of these days…