Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Today was filled with mostly "ups" and a couple of "downs"

As I reflect on the things that we did today it was mostly a lot of "ups" and only a couple of "downs" so as this day ends, I'm going to talk about all the "ups". I'm grateful for those moments that came my way. 
I'm not sure who said it but I love the saying that, "in all things we can find something to be grateful for," and today I had a lot of really cool "ups".  I'd like to talk about those here tonight.
We have been so lucky to have kids who let us keep our grand kids each summer and bond with them as grandparents can do when we have them all to ourselves.  Living here has afforded us many fun things to do with them each and every day. 
Earlier this summer we had our older grand kids, Cortney, Tori, and Tanner for a month and now we have some of our younger grand kids for the rest of the summer, or about 6 weeks. 
The oldest of this set of kids is a grand daughter named Pyper and she's a 10 year but turning 11 in about 5 weeks.  Pyper was born tiny at just over 4lbs and has always been tiny and slightly younger for her age so sometimes she can be fearful of trying new things or of doing things that are age appropriate.  Every year we've watched her slowly closing those gaps which has been thrilling.  Each summer that we've been able to have them I've been able to help her and work on those things in her life that will help her. 
This day was a moment in time when we broke a lot of barriers with her shy, and timid personality and we were able to help her grow tremendously in her abilities. 
It started right away this morning as we had our daily bluegrass music lessons.  A few years ago, I had tried to get her interested in learning to play a guitar like her brother Ryker is learning, but she would always shy away from it because it was just a frustration for her trying to learn it. So for several years she would just throw up her arms and say that she didn't want to learn to play, and I could see that the reason was that it was just too hard for her co-ordination level. 
Well last Winter I received the prompting to start her just chopping on a mandolin with dampened strings and this was our answer.  She was able to do it and had success so she got to play for her class at school with Ryker and his classroom too. She hasn't looked back ever since that day, and now is willing to learn the bass too. 
So back to my morning today... We got out the little Kay quarter bass which is huge for her and for our lessons her brother Ryker started off on playing mandolin, and her the bass.   Then we sang with all three kids, and even 5 year old Greisyn was singing with us as we practiced.  For the first time today Pyper learned how to change chords on the bass and was able to watch my hands and change with me getting it right almost the entire time.  This is a huge step for her to be able to do this and she was keeping good time and best of all, is having fun with it too.  This is so awesome for me to see. 
Then we switched over and had Pyper chop the mandolin and I put Ryker on the bass.  He's been playing the bass since last winter too but he has been playing guitar for 2 years and now is learning mandolin too.  He could already changed chords with the bass on just the open strings.  At 9 years old he's doing pretty good with his music.  So today we practiced with him changing chords on all the open strings and after that I began teaching him to play the pressed down notes for the key of A.  He was able to do it fairly decently for his first try and for such a little guy.  I was so happy to have moved both kids forward with their music.  Learning something new on the bass for each one of them and starting Greisyn on the singing was an "up". 
Then at around lunch time I asked Pyper if she would like to learn to drive the 4 wheeler like her brother Ryker has already become a pro at.  Now normally she would have bulked at the idea and been scared to try but she suddenly just perked right up and said "sure".  We went outside and I began to teach her.  She surprised me because she's been more observant than I'd thought and she knew just how to start it.  I had to somewhat help her but for the most part she had watched Ryker or me enough that she knew.  So she started it all by herself and I taught her how to shift from reverse to drive and to neutral.  I helped her to back it up and then I taught her how to work the gas and drive it. I was riding on it with her but I let her do everything herself and she did it!  I thought for sure that she would panic and not be comfortable when it started to move but, no, off she went and drove it clear up to Will and Gail's and back to our place twice.  All I had to do was remind her to keep looking way out forward so that she could steer it and stay in the middle of our road better.  Other than that she drove it all by herself and shocked the dickens out of me. 
Then if that wasn't enough we all went down to swim in Gail's pond at around 1 this afternoon.  It was a nice hot day and the kids wanted to go swimming.  Now in the past she's been afraid of water and it's been a real deal to help her get over her fear of it.  We've worked pretty hard with her to get her to understand that her life jacket will keep her afloat. She's just one of these kids who has a fear of the water and we've really tried to help her get over that.  Each year that we've been able to have the kids she's gotten slightly better though.  I've had to remind her each time we go swimming that there's no whining and that when I ask her to try and float and go in deeper than her feet can touch she doesn't need to fear but that her jacket will hold her up.  It's been a long haul but today we broke down that barrier as well. 
She willingly went on the float with me first and we floated around together, then I told her that we were going to practice swimming and she didn't complain a bit, so I was once again shocked.  I worked with her and got her to let me completely let go of her hands and everything and float in her life jacket.  Then I would walk away from her by about 5 feet and have her swim to me and she did this too.  She was laughing and not a bit bothered by getting splashed from Ryker actually having fun swimming and this was the first time that's ever happened!  I just couldn't believe all the leaps and bounds that this little grand child made today.  She even drove the 4 wheeler all the way down to the pond for us to swim too, so this little girl has amazed me to no end today.  I told her that we needed to call her parents and tell them about everything she did today so as soon as her mom was home from work we called and she got to tell them.  I think her confidence with all these other things started with her learning to play the bass and chop the mandolin and having success with it at her school.  Suddenly she is learning that she can do so many things.  I love getting to help her and be a part of her growth.  I can't wait to see how far she'll advance by the time summer is over.
Ryker was learning to ride the 4 wheeler last year but couldn't do it without us being on it riding with him.  This year he's an ole pro and he is able to drive it all over our property all by himself.  I've watched him and he's been very respectful on it driving carefully and at a regular speed so I've complimented him on this and hope that he always drives them this way.  Anyway this has been my "ups" today.
Pyper Redman age 10 almost 11



Grandson Ryker, 9 years old does so well with his music he's really a natural and learns quickly. 

You can see how small the kids are and this is a Kay quarter bass but still dwarfs them.  Ryker is playing actual pressed notes as of today.  Way to go buddy, I'm proud of you.
I'm not going to delve into the "downs" of today, but one of the things that happened was that the little deer we found on our 4 wheeler ride 3 weeks ago and that Gail and the Limehouse's have worked so hard to save died this morning.  It was very traumatic for Gail who'd spent so much time and love trying to save the little guy.  The other down was related to this but even in that we can all find things in all things to be grateful for, so I'm going to just leave it at that, and say that all the "ups" trumped any of the "downs" today and I need to remember to show gratitude in all of life. 

Friday, July 13, 2012

Oh yah, I just found my genealogy clear back to Adam and Eve

Well tonight was a very interesting night and I truly believe that because of the service my son Tyler gave to our friends the Limehouse's with their computers and Iphones we were blessed in service back from them with help on our genealogy tonight. 
Yesterday Tyler went up to the Limehouse's house and spent 3 hours helping our friend John Limehouse learn how to put music onto his Iphone and also how to use his Ipad better and also how
to extract pictures off of it and put them into his computer.
This morning PT Limehouse called me and offered to make dinner for all of us then come down and all of us could eat together.  When they called they asked me what Tyler's favorite food was and we came up with Taco's for dinner tonight.  Tyler our son was frustrated with trying to do genealogy a few months ago, and was having trouble with the church's website newfamilysearch.org trying to navigate it.  I mentioned to Tyler that the Limehouse's were really good at doing genealogy and that we could ask them for some help when they were here.
John Limehouse was able to show Tyler how to find the information for our lines and it was so amazing what happened after that.  Here's the story.....
We started on my husband John's lines and it just kept going back further and further until we ended up in royal lineage and I'd been told that if you have any royal lineage in your lines you usually can go way far back.  So this excited us when we found the royal lineage on John's line.
As we kept clicking and clicking to the next generation it ended up taking us clear back to Adam and Eve.  My son was so excited he was jumping for joy.  At first he was typing in all the names into his own Ipad, but when he realized that it was just going to keep going and going he decided that he would have to do it at home later.  Finally it was so long that it took us clear back to Adam and Eve as I said.  This was all on my husband John's line.
So we called the Limehouse's and told them the good news and they were excited that they were able to help us, just as Tyler was excited that he was able to help them yesterday.
After that I was curious if any of my lines might go back to Adam and Eve also and so our daughter-in-law began researching my lines.  The last I'd checked was over a year ago when I had some help to enter in my meager 5 or 6 generations that I had too, and like I said I've never been very good at doing my genealogy either.  I only expected to just see those same meager generations of names.  Imagine my surprise when some of my lined kept going too.  Some dead ended at around 700BC but she kept on going and checking other lines and we found a line that took mine back to Adam and Eve too.  My line has me related Mary the mother of Jesus and so Jesus too, then it went clear back to Adam and Eve on one of my lines just like John's did.  I had a lot of royalty in my lines too and it was on more than one line, but this one particular line took us all the way to Adam and Eve. 
We called my John on the phone to tell him this good news because he's over in Missoula tonight.  He couldn't believe it either because both of us had only plugged in our recent lineage like about 6 generations back but someone else who's done more research has been able to tie into our lines and this has brought up all of our genealogy clear back like this.  Neither dad nor I dreamed that this would be connected and this information on our family tree clear down the lines like this would be there, because the last we knew only the names we had submitted were in our genealogy. This was a complete surprise to both of us.  My John mentioned when we called him that he wished there was some way to print off all these names in a pedigree chart form, and then John Limehouse told my son of an app that he could download that would print it off for him and he wouldn't even have to type it all into his own program like he was doing earlier tonight.  From this Tyler and Deena said that they will compile and have all this printed off into a book for us as a Christmas present, and they plan to do it for all of our kids and family members that would enjoy having it.  Tyler was so excited that this idea came to them because he loves using his computer and he's so excited to have learned this information tonight too, so he's really going to have fun making our Christmas present this year now. 
What an awesome night this turned out to be!  I know that the blessings of service come many fold and in many different ways.  Tonight I know that Heavenly Father blessed us from Tyler giving his service to the Limehouse's yesterday because they were able to serve us back tonight not only with the dinner but with showing Tyler how to use the church's website better which now is going to bless all of us to have our genealogy compiled into a book.
Peter and Lynda Schostag also bought a new TV and were having trouble getting it connected so that it would work to play a DVD player. Tyler went up to their house this afternoon and helped them too, so he's become known in our neighborhood as the tech support guy.  He was happy to be able to help them and said to me "Well it is my specialty".  It made him excited to be able to help all of them and now in turn it came back to all of us many times over.
It's obvious that I've never been interested in genealogy because of how little of it I had compiled and it just takes more time than I'm willing to spend researching it all, but now here it is all there for me and suddenly I'm very interested because it's so awesome learning that I'm related to Mary the mother of Jesus and thus also Jesus through my bloodlines.
It gives me a whole new outlook on who I am too.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

A story of my mom's childhood

In the last few years my mother has opened up and started telling me a few stories from her childhood.  She may have told me some of them in the past but recently she's been talking more openly about some of her life's childhood stories. 
Recently during our family reunion my grandson Ryker along with one of Gail's grandson's Emilio found some small bottles of craft paint and they had a hey day breaking the small bottles and smashing them making a paint splashed mess on our back patio.  My mom was here when this happened and was interested in if the little boys cleaned it all off, so when we talked on the phone tonight it was a topic of conversation that came up.    
This incident with Ryker sparked her to tell me this story of herself.  I wanted to get it written down before I forgot it, so I'm posting it on my blog to get it recorded for my kids.
As she began telling me this story I began to remember hearing it before but now that I'm older and wiser and I realize that I won't have her forever either I'm interested in writing these things down and having them for my posterity. 
She began with how there was a family the Walter Hoven's that lived down Hallowell Lane from where she was raised, which was also where I was raised as a child so I'm quite familiar with the area. This family lived about 2 blocks away and then you had to turn down their driveway which was about a half a block long to get to their house.  They had one boy who was 2 years younger than my mom, the same age as my mom's sister, my aunt Merie.  His name was Harley Hoven. My mom and my aunt Merie used to walk down there and play with their son Harley.  My mom said that she was about 1st grade age and she was old enough to know about and to have played a game called Jax at school each day.  This game is played with a small red ball and some little metal jax.  You bounce the ball and you have to grab one of the jax before catching the ball using only one bounce.  As you get all the jax picked up this way then you toss them out on the sidewalk again and you have to grab 2 at a time with a single bounce of the ball until they're all picked up, then 3,4, 5 in each single bounce of the ball until finally you have to grab all 6.  The first person to be able to do this wins.  Well my mom had played this at school but she had never realized that people could actually own a set of jax themselves, she thought they were just a game that the school had.  So she told me that when this Harley Hoven had a set of jax she was fascinated that he owned them but was especially fascinated with that little red ball, so after they were through playing it at his house she slipped the little ball into her pocket.
Later that night when she was home she was bouncing the ball and having so much fun with it when her mom asked her where she had gotten it.  She told her mom that Mr. Hoven had given it to her, but her mom knew better and she told my mom that she would need to walk down to their house and return it that very night.
It was pitch dark and Hallowell Lane didn't have any sidewalks plus the houses were spread further apart and people never left their lights on like they do now days.  My mom said she was so scared to walk in the dark the 2 1/2 blocks to their house.  She said that she walked slowly because she was scared to death and like petrified to be all alone in the dark and walking clear down to their house alone to return it.  When she got to their house she had to turn down their drive which was another half of a block long to get to their front door. 
She said that she knocked and was so happy when Harley's mom opened the door and she was able to return the ball. She told me that his mom just said to her, "thank you, he'll be glad to have this back because he needs it to be able to play the game."  So then my mom turned to walk back home and she got out to the main road and saw something move in the dark near her.  At first she was so scared but then she realized it was her mom and that her mom had followed her all the way there to make sure she would be safe.  She said that she was never so happy to see her mom and she ran to her as fast as she could then happily skipped all the way home.
She told me it was one lesson she's never forgot, "never take anything that doesn't belong to you."  and it's been more than 70 years ago since that day, but she told me that she can still remember her feelings and the lesson she learned just as clear as if it had happened just yesterday.
So now this brings me to what happened here with my grandson Ryker and Emilio.  Both of them had to pick up all the tiny pieces of glass by hand and with a little scraper dig up the excess paint as best they could, then they had to scrub with sponges that have the scratcher side on them and we had to use paint thinner on the concrete.  We never got all the paint off but we got it somewhat better.  Both boys worked with a good attitude and Gail's other grandson Abrahm, who didn't even have anything to do with it came down to help clean it up too.
Grandson Ryker scrubbing the paint mess he made.

Ryker and Emilio

We all hope it was a good lesson learned and that they'll remember not to do anything like this again.  My son Tyler who is Ryker's dad supervised the cleanup and got some pictures of them.  I had to laugh about it all because I remember our oldest daughter Traci throwing mud and smearing it on a neighbors garage door one time when she was about the same age.  The neighbor called us and we had to take her and the other little boy who had helped and make them scrub it all off too.  So all kids do things like this and it was just another Idaho memory for my grandson Ryker.    

Grand kid fun this summer

We are having so much fun getting to keep our grand kids this summer.  It started off with the teenage ones from Herriman, Utah when they got to come with us the first part of June. We took them to Grass Valley and Weiser with us then brought them back to our house for about two weeks before their parents arrived for the family reunion.  We live in such a paradise for the kids to get to do all sorts of fun things they can't do at their own houses and it's so much fun for us to be able to offer them all the things around here.
Tanner got to ride his motorcycle as much as he wanted to and every day he rode it for hours.  We went way up on the mountain with him and he was able to hone his skills on the trails.  Then they got to swim in the pond as much as they wanted to, and just hang out and rest from all the busyness that they have when they're at home.
They left this last Sunday morning and I think they were ready to go home by then but it won't last long and they'll be begging to be back here again.  John and I just love it having our grand kids and seeing them loving being with us doing all these fun things.
Now we're loving the time we're getting with the next set of grand kids.  Our son and daughter-in-law Tyler and Deena are here with us this week and lucky for us we get to keep their 3 kids for the rest of the summer.  Pyper, Ryker, and Greisyn have been so excited to get here and to get to ride the 4 wheelers, swim, and just play outside.  My neighbor and one of my best friends Gail has her grand kids off and on most of the summer too so these grand kids of ours are in 7th heaven getting to play with all her kids too.  We go to the pond and we swim with all the kids and they just love it so much having all these kids to play with.
Now today Pyper and Ryker are up at Gail's doing things with her grand kids.  Pyper got to have a finger nail painting party and they're making bracelets and doing crafts something she really loves too.  My heart burst with joy as she asked me if she could go up there with the other girls and play and then I called to see if she could come up and was told yes to send her up for the party.  She was skipping and running up our road to Gail's and was waving and laughing as she went saying, "Thank you grandma."  "I love you."   It's so fun for us that our grand kids love it here and that we get to keep them each summer like this.  I want our grand kids to have grandparents who build memories and bond with us so that we are always a close family.  This place we live in is soooooo a grand kid haven. 
Grand daughter Cortney in the red inner tube and nieces Whitney and Heather Baxter.

Grandsons Ryker and Cody jumping from the new dock in the pond.

Grand daughter Pyper Redman

Grandson Tanner tries the new slip and slide going into the pond. I love all the wild daisy's blooming out here right now too.  You can see them in this picture.

Grandpa and our niece Mijandra learning how to ride the 4 wheeler by herself.
Tanner on his motorcycle riding way up on the mountain. Notice the pretty purple wildflowers behind him.

Grand daughters Cortney and Tori
I love it getting to live here and give our grand kids these experiences, and maybe this is part of the reason I love summer so much.

Family Reunion concert July 7th

Each year I hold a family reunion at our house here in Idaho, and I always hold it around the 4th of July. Towards the last day of it I put on a bluegrass concert right in my front yard featuring my two bands plus the Kids In Bluegrass.  Our place here is a perfect setting for a full festival so it works great for this concert each year. 
This year it was decided to hold the concert on the weekend after the 4th because the 4th was on a Wednesday and also because I open up the show to all my neighbors and friends in town.  Grangeville has a celebration around the 4th called Border Days and it's the largest celebration of the year for the town.  In the past I've held my show right on the 4th or at least on one of the days of the Border Day celebrations and so this has been a little tricky getting all my Kids In Bluegrass kids available to play for it.  This was my reasoning for holding it after the 4th when all of their celebrations were over with and also on a Saturday so that working families could make it here more easily.
We ended up with about 75 people this year and John BBQ'd hamburgers and hot dogs while the rest of the people pot lucked the other dishes.
The show kicked off at 3 in the afternoon with the Kids In Bluegrass which included a lot of my grand kids who were here for the reunion, then I also had my new kids band called "The Bluegrasshoppers" play and they were able to play without any help from me.  They did so well that their parents were in shock and smiling ear to ear throughout their performance.  A lot of the crowd of people were coming up to me telling me how they just couldn't believe these kids and how good they were.  Today Gail and I were visiting while the grand kids swam in the pond and even she was shocked at how well "The Bluegrasshoppers" sounded and was so impressed with them.  None of them had heard how well the kids have gotten because at their lessons I basically do a band practice with them helping them learn to play as a band now, but their parents are always busy working around the house and the kids are practicing upstairs in a room large enough for us.  So anyway I was so proud of how these kids have been doing and how good they were for their first real show on stage.  I really love it when they do their favorite song "Barefoot Nellie".  They just come to life when that song comes up on their set list and their eyes dance with excitement.  I can hear them say to each other.  "Barefoot Nellie" guys as they smile and kick it off.  Then they sing it with extra zip and bounce.  I'm so glad I thought of that song to teach them.  They do the stop in it and everything and really sing it out well.  I'm just standing their grinning ear to ear when they play.  I'm so proud of those kids!  It's something I've worked for and now it's materializing!  Pretty cool for me to say the least. 
After they played then our girls band "The Foggy Mtn Girls" played and Lynda Schostag got to sing with us for the first time in a performance on stage.  Before she moved here she had never worn a pair of jeans in her life and in our band we wear overalls and straw hats so this has been so fun for me to see her letting loose and having fun with us.  Now that they live here she bought herself some jeans and just loves them.  She wonders why she never wore a pair before, and I've even gotten her to wear the overalls now.  Our girls band has so much fun practicing and playing together.  I've got to get busy and learn more songs to keep up with being able to teach the kids more of them and also learn more for all my bands too.  
The Foggy Mtn Girls
Finally the headliner band "Will Williams and Gravel Road" played with Hannah on the mandolin for the first time in a performance.  This band recently lost our mandolin player Chris Williams, Will's son because he had to take a job where he works weekends, so Hannah who I'd taught a couple of mandolin tunes to said that she would switch and learn mandolin better so she could take over the spot in the band.  Anyway this was her first try at it for a performance.  We had a great time and my brother Larry, from Stanwood, WA, and his girlfriend Beth took a whole lot of great pictures.  They own really good Cannon cameras with really good lens.  Every year he gets me tons of really good pictures, and I just love getting all of them.

Pt Limehouse on mandolin and 10 year old Victoria Williams on banjo.


Victoria Williams

Emilio Barela

Illyana Barela

Matthew Nelson

Dalton Dennis guitar and my grand daughter MacKenzy Best on Bass

Mickey Nelson

Callie Williams

Gail Williams and Dallas Olson....singing their song What a Friend We Have In Jesus.

My grandson 9 year old Ryker Redman wearing his patriotic shorts for the show.

Just me playing with Gravel Road on my 1939 Kay Bass.

Grand daughter MacKenzy Best, 7 years old.

Will Williams playing his new banjo he just made.

Will Williams and Gravel Road

Mike Schmidt

The Bluegrasshoppers, but where's Victoria in this picture? I'm not sure why she didn't get in the picture.

Hannah Williams... looks like that mandolin is going to be a good fit for her. 
We all had a super fun time and it was a perfect day and perfect way to end the reunion.  Here's a few pictures from the day.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

July 4th celebrations

Today is the 4th of July and my parents along with our niece Whitney and my grand children from Utah Cortney, Tori, and Tanner are all here getting ready for the family reunion this week.  We all went into Grangeville for the huge Border Days fun and we had a great time watching the parade and just walking seeing friends and taking in the vendor booths.  I always love to see those booths and the fun things that people make to sell. 
The Old Time Fiddlers were playing in City Park from 1:00 to 3:00 so I had taken my fiddle along to play with them a little bit.  My parents enjoyed the parade and one of the floats was advertising Yummy's a new ice cream store in town with licorice flavored ice cream.  My dad and I saw that and we both love licorice so right afterwards we found ourselves that new ice cream store and made a bee line to get us one of those cones.   We sat out front of the ice cream shop on a bench and ate our ice cream as we watched the people.  I always love seeing all the cute the little kids dressed in their western clothes and big cowboy hats, and the little girls dressed in 4th of July colors and flip flops etc.  After we finished our ice cream, we walked around a little bit and shopped a little in a couple of stores before heading up to City Park where I played with the fiddlers.  I got to quickly browse the booths in the park and then we went to get some lunch at the Chinese restaurant before heading back home here. 
The grand kids and Whitney went back into town tonight to see the fireworks, but us adults stayed home here and watched some on the TV. 
My grand kids are lucky to have both sets of their grand parents still alive and to even have healthy great grand parents who are able to drive here to our house for these reunions each year.  I hold them over the week of the 4th of July. 
Tomorrow several others are coming in including our daughter Gina and grand kids Jimmy, Cody, MacKenzy, and Zachary, my sister Dayna and her grand daughter Mijandra, and Dallas Olson.  Friday more will be here including my brother Larry and our son Tyler and his family. Pyper, Ryker, and Greisyn will get to stay with us when the reunion is over with for most of the rest of summer. They've been excited to finally get to come here and so has MacKenzy.  All of these grand kids have been calling here every few days with their count down to when they get to come.  We plan to have a band practice tomorrow night with the Foggy Mtn Girls and then on Friday night we're having a band practice with our Gravel Road band.  Saturday is our big concert at the house here with John BBQ'n hamburgers and hot dogs and the rest being pot lucked.  I feel very lucky to have wonderful parents who I was able to spend this 4th of July with today.  Just having fun and enjoying the warm sunshine, and having my parents here made this a perfect 4th of July holiday for me. 

Jamming with Sabra Lindgren and Allison

It's been a few days since I posted anything on my blog as I've been just so busy since coming home from our trip.  I wanted to take a few moments and write tonight though.  I've recently been back in contact with an old friend who was actually the first person to teach me music.  About 25 years ago, when we were first living in Laurel,  I wanted to learn to play the fiddle and I had a violin laying in my closet that was used for a short period of time by my son Tyler. 
This lady, Sabra went to church with us there and  played violin music. I wanted so much to learn and she was kind enough to teach me and get me started.  I really wanted to learn fiddle, but I was excited to learn any type of music on it and she was an Orchestra violin player so offered to help me.  Sabra is responsible for me playing music today because she is the one who taught me way back then and got me started down the right path.  I have a lot to be thankful for thanks to her.  From her, I learned proper bow technique and the proper way to hold my violin/fiddle.  That has spun off to make me a better fiddler because of her early teachings. 
For years now I haven't had any contact with her until recently when she found me on a social media website for helping to promote your business called "Linkedin".  She found me on there and befriended me.  Her last name had changed from Bradley to Lindgren and since we hadn't seen each other for over 25 years at first I wasn't totally sure it was her, but after reasoning that Sabra wasn't that common of a name and that it must be her, I added her to my network and it got me to thinking about how she had been doing these past years.  I found out that she was now living in Missoula and was actually living there at the same time that we were, but we just didn't know that each other were living there.
We began e-mailing each other and re-connecting, talking about our music interests and just what each of us has done with our music through all these years.  I was able to talk about bluegrass and different famous first generation pickers that she could listen to on You Tube and learn more about it too.  She began telling me about her composing and copywriting her songs. 
Sabra has gone on to become a composer of scores and has gone back to school furthering her education and getting degrees in her music, and I of course have gone on to play bluegrass and old time fiddle teaching a lot of people and playing in several bands throughout the last 15 years.  It was great fun getting to know each other better and visiting over the e-mails.
Well a couple of days ago I received and e-mail from her saying that she had a couple of days off and was thinking that if it worked in with my schedule maybe she could come visit me over the 4th and we could play some music together.  I was very excited and surprised.  It just so happened that my company for the reunion wasn't going to be arriving until today and so it allowed us two days to jam and have the time to devote to it with little interruptions.
She brought a fiddle/violin and mandolin and her guitar.  I'll have to admit I was a bit skeptical as to if she would be able to fiddle since she's so adept at orchestral violin style, playing and reading music, but to my surprise she has developed a great ear and has a real talent for hearing something and being able to execute it on her fiddle almost immediately including the bluegrass techniques I was showing her.  I have played with violin, classically trained players and they just have a very hard time understanding and being able to relax into fiddle playing, so this is what I somewhat expected.  Boy was I ever surprised though.  She has become a great player in both the genre of violin music and also now fiddle music.  We had a blast!  I enjoyed meeting Allison and getting to know her also and it was a pleasant surprise learning that she also plays a little bit of music too.  We had a wonderful two days of getting re-acquainted and playing music together learning from each other once again, and having Allison playing some back up guitar for us as we twin fiddled.  I was able to teach them the mandolin chords and how to chop the mandolin in the bluegrass style and also the "G" run used in bluegrass guitar playing. 
We jammed on our front porch until 12:30 last night and finally I began to get a little cold as the weather turned on us and it started to rain.  They had pitched a tent and so I was a bit worried about the weather and hoping that it would just be a short shower but as the night went on we got severe thunder storms and it echoed off the mountains so loud that it shook the house.  I was worried about them in the tent but this morning she told me that they stuck it out and were just fine. 
I always love it when people are able to be self sufficient and withstand being less convenienced, still having fun and not allowing little things to bother them.  I myself am that kind of a person and I've slept in my car, washed my hair with a hose, and slept in many tents just to be able to play music at different festivals and campouts through the last few years.  It warms my heart when I see other people, my friends with the same passion and willing to do such things in order to play the music we love.  Those are some of my fondest memories roughing it like that and playing bluegrass these past few years.
I just wanted to get this all written down in my blog today before I went to bed, and now I realize that it's after midnight so this is going to post as the next day, but I'm glad that Sabra and I are back in touch and back in our friendship.  One thing I learned these past two days and that I never noticed before in Sabra; that is the gentle, kind, considerate person who she is and her kindness was once again evident as we played our music together and found a common ground in each of our styles.  I was very impressed with how good she is musically and we just plain old had a great time.
Oh as a side note.....she even got to see the baby deer Jasper, and hold him and love on him getting lot's of fun pictures of them together.  One thing I wanted to show them though and forgot was the beautiful pond we get to swim in down at Gail's place.  I hope they can come back again and have more time, then I'll remember to take them down there and show them it.  I guess I can post a picture of it on here too.






Life is always so good, and has so much fun around every corner we look.  These past two days were definitely great times!