Project 365: Keep Calm, Summer Is Coming

"Keep Calm Cause summer is coming!"

Hey everyone!

Well we went into another deep freeze for a couple days, it got down to -7 here with a -40 wind chill! Thankfully it warmed up all the way to 11 today!! I was quite happy to see some icicles melting outside my window today :)

 I told you there would be a bunch of pictures coming for Emma's birthday and I didn't lie, so here are a few pictures from Emma's 13th birthday :

Also for all my fellow bluegrassers out there, be sure to watch out for our banjo player, she just got a set of Keith Tuners and is ready to take on the world with some new music! :) 

Now I have a confession, this passed week I hardly took any pictures on my camera... usually there are a couple phone pictures but this week it is almost all of them. BUT next week I'm hoping not to have any phone pictures to make up for these. I had QUITE the interesting week though as you will see :) 

soooo here is week FOUR of Project 365! Yes! I have completed an entire Months worth of pictures! :) 

Project 365 Week 4-

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23

25

26

27

^^^

this was a wishful thinking day, no sadly this picture is not recent its from back in July, I was REALLY missing the warm weather and couldn't help but use this picture. ;)

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I didn't realize just how many pictures have been black and white lately. But sometimes taking the color out of photos makes them more interesting. Especially people blowing out candles I've noticed, honestly I don't really have a good excuse other then I like black and white ;) 

Have an amazing day everyone! 

Stay warm!

Cross your Fingers

and pray for summer! 

Project 365 And a Very Happy 13th Birthday!

"If you're reading this, Congratulations you're alive! If that's not something to smile about, then I don't know what is." 

Hello again everyone! 

 How has your week been?

This is actually going to be two posts put in one,

Today is Emma's THIRTEENTH birthday!! 

When did she get so old!!!?! 

She's Quite around people

but when she does speak its always hilarious

she's Loud around family

When you can't find her she's hidden away in her room playing banjo

If you let her she will steal your instrument and out play you in less than a day

She's pretty cool

She's absolutely amazing

and she's my sister!

                      Happy birthday to the most amazing 13 year old banjo player anyone has ever met!
Now This is usually the time when I would post all those terrible funny pictures of her, and when she saw it her face would turn red and she would just shake her head and walk away. So since it is her birthday I'll be nice ;)

Happy birthday emma ! I hope you have an amazing day ;) Also I may or may not be licking the spoons from making your birthday cake as I type this ;)

_________________________________________________________________________________
Not gonna lie I'm pretty proud of myself for posting for the third week in a row!
This week I was bored with normal pictures, I wasn't all that creative when it came to the pictures themselves so I decided to go a little crazy when it came to the colors and editing :)

Project 365 Week 3-

Day 15

Day 16

Day 17

Day 18

Day 19

Day 20

Day 21

     I think I went somewhere every single day this passed week! We were super crazy busy and I loved every minute of it :)
    It'll be nice to slow down a little bit this week though:) I'm kind of loving watching all of this snow melt finally.    
     Northwest Indiana just got another huge snow storm and got another 21 inches of snow! Thankfully it missed Michigan City, so I'm starring at about 4 inches, which is perfectly fine with me :)
    My family also started working on new music for the group this week, we have a TON of new songs that we are learning and it is actually pretty exciting. We had been looking forward to putting the set list together for weeks and now we finally have and are excited to get to work learning and perfecting everything :)
    Alright, well that's really all I have to say for this week.
    I'll most likely end up posting about Emma's birthday, and a picture of this cake ;) it tastes pretty good so far :)

                                                 Have a Beautiful Day everyone!! :)

Keep Calm and Play Bluegrass Music

                                           "Keep Calm And Play Bluegrass Music"


Hey everybody!

Let me just warn you now, you are getting ready to be bombarded with pictures!!
How crazy has this summer been!? Now it is over and everyone is back in school and already loading up on the homework. My summer was absolutely amazing besides the incredible missions trip I was able to go on with my family, our lives have been completely crazy with music. We have been going to show after show and seeing all kinds of people. In fact, for over a month we were at a different bluegrass festival/concert every weekend and it was awesome getting to meet so many families and get to make friends with so many people. It actually kinda makes you feel special knowing that you got to sit and talk to a lot of the groups that most people can only listen to.

Adding to the adventures of this summer, this Labor day weekend my family went down to Kendallville Indiana for a 4 day bluegrass festival, and can I say that it was probably the BEST festival I have ever been to! I met so many new people and had such an awesome time getting to jam with some people my own age. We didn't go to bed before 4:30 every night and on the last night it was after 6 by the time I fell asleep :) It was amazing :)
     We stayed in our cute little camper and my cousin Ian came with us, he tends to tag along when we go to long festivals like this. Anyway the first day we went and saw a family band called the Stockdale Family Band, their show was awesome and we loved watching them. Later that night my dad said he had seen them jamming not too far from our camp sight, so we walked down there to watch them and before we knew it my dad had somehow convinced us to join their jam of super pickers. We ended up having a lot of fun, and after seeing their evening show the next day we ended up jamming with them until 5:30 in the morning! We all had so much laughing and singing songs, even if one of those songs may have lasted half an hour ;)

    We all loved getting to see old friends too, we got to play music with so many people. We were definitely exhausted by the time we got back home, which is probably why it has taken me so long to write about this. We roasted marshmallows:

                                      
                                                  

and rode bikes and watched concerts.
It was an insanely busy weekend, and I can't wait to do it again soon. :)

                                                 
                                                  Have an awesome day/night/evening everyone!

RNC 1st Album Adventure Part 2

Hello again everyone

I feel extremely accomplished for about a million different reasons right now, starting with the fact that I have blogged three days in a row, that is an absolute record for me! 

   Today was our second and final day of recording in the studio. We started the morning off even more tired than we were the first day. None of us wanted to wake up and it took some coaxing from our mother to convince us to get out of bed. After eating the hotel breakfast (which frankly wasn't all that good) we made sure all of our things were packed up and loaded into the car. Now that we were "seasoned pros" of a whole day we knew what to expect when we got there. We knew that we would start with the instrument tracks and we knew what order everyone would need to go into the booth.

   Now it could just be me but I think all of the easy songs we saved for the last day, and even though I made the song order list I didn't expect the second day to go so smoothly. I really wish I could tell you more about each song, about the song that Maggie played perfectly the first time through and about the kick-off that Emma played without even thinking about it, but I don't want to give away anything about the songs on the CD. We got done right when we thought we would and everything went right as planned.I am so proud of all of us, we all did a great job on all of our parts and had a great time doing it. 

   


I have to say my favorite part was being inside the booth, its a little room almost like a broom closet covered in foam to keep the sound  in and its in a corner so no one can even see you while you sing. So since I was practically all in my own little world with just me and the voices in my head (the headphones with the harmony) I was dancing all around snapping, clapping having my own little party in there, and honestly if anyone saw me and video taped that I would have been so embarrassed. Standing in there all by myself made me hyper enough I sure hope none of that was recorded because I was saying some crazy weird things.

   The last song that we did was so exciting. As the song got closer and closer to coming to an end I got more and more excited, and the second I finished singing and he had shut the recording off I started yelling. GUESS WHAT?!?!! WE MADE A CD!!!! I was and still am so incredibly excited about all of this that its crazy!
   I ran and got all the kids and told them and then made sure we took group pictures so we will be sure to remember this forever no matter what.
 









 I could go on and on and on talking about all of the things that happened all of the funny stories about what we heard in the first recordings that DEFINITELY shouldn't have been there such as snapping and clapping from a certain someone in the booth all by herself *cough cough* we would just laugh at it all.

   I can't wait to hear the finished mixed and mastered product, and I'm so eager to share it with everyone, I just hope I still think that it sounds good when we hear it again next week :).
   We should have a finished product CD, Album, whatever you want to call it by the end of the month. Artwork done and everything..
   Artwork is a whole 'nother story all in itself which I am also excited to show you guys, its all going to be such a surprise when it all comes together and we get to see it.

   Man I am just too EXCITED about all of it, so I will go and stop rambling using the word exciting every other sentence. I hope you guys have enjoyed the posts the last three days, I will let you all know when it is done, and I'm sure you can be expecting another excited post from yours truly :)
   Thanks for putting up with all of my randomness and rambling about a day that consisted of instruments and a padded room. ;)

Thank you all so much for everything all the encouraging messages and prayers as we have worked so hard for this, thank you to those who have helped us so much and given so much advice and supported you guys are amazing :)


Our website: rustynailcrossing.com
                                                 
                                                             Enjoy the Beautiful days Guys :)