This verse has been on my mind today; “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.”James 4:16-17

Pretty serious stuff. Can you imagine all the things that would get done if the Christians started doing what they ought to do?

I took some flower pictures on Saturday, and now I’m posting some edits from that day.

(Thank the Lord for white paper, digital cameras, and editing software. :-))



Rejoice in the LORD and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart! Psalm 32:11 NIV



James 1:2 NIV



My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him.
Psalm 62:1-3 NIV



But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you.
Psalm 5:10-12

Delving into the archives of our family I’m posting pictures from 1993 today along with some of my picks from youtube.com.

As you all may know the MacDonald Family Singers was a considerably smaller group 14 years ago. : ) We did not have a name, cd, bus, or groupies then. : P

Our debut was one Sunday morning singing a set of scripture songs, dad at the mixer and mom at the piano. It was probably a 5 minute or less program.

In this first picture you’ll see that Peter is missing. He was sitting in the back with dad and when dad turned his back to adjust the sound he ran up front to be a part of the action.





We sing at this church every year now on Homecoming Sunday.

Another picture from the same vintage you may enjoy…



Peter, Me, Vincent and Bonnie.

Speaking of memories…(I’m really nostalgic today…lol) we’ve been listening to tapes of our late maternal grandmomther for the past few weeks. Her voice was amazing.

I’ve been hearing so many neat voices on youtube recently, one of them - Beverly Sills. Hear her sing here..
Another neat clip of her when she was seven years old! Her talent sure was evident early on.

It is interesting to look up one song and hear all the different versions of it. (O Mio Babbino Caro or The Star Spangled Banner for example. ; ) ) So many people, so many versions of the same song!

God sure made everyone with different vocal colors; some dark but warm, some slight and sweet, others totally brilliant and clear. God has created us uniquely!

A few more videos before I go…

This is a father daughter team from Japan (?) playing a soothing little melody on oboe and violin, with piano accompaniment.

Hear Hilary Hahn, violin virtuoso extraordinaire, here!

Ok, I'm done for now. : )

This weekend was fun, busy, full and *yawn* tiring! : P

I left the camera home on Saturday (unintentionally) so I have nothing to post from that day. The sun was shinning and spring was certainly in the air. We arrived at a place called Thompson House in Vermont in plenty of time for the 2:00pm concert. Vincent thought he should do some push-ups while we were waiting, positioning his head directly over a patch of crocuses. Hmm. (A pic would be nice here.)

I wish I had the exact quote but while we were setting up I overheard a group of older ladies discussing how our DDX3216 (mixer) must be a typewriter. It looked that way to them at least!

The Kochers (Daniel and Abigail) arrived all the way from PA in time to hear us. Imagine bumping into them in Vermont. ; ) They set a new record for groupies, 6 hours one way. Thanks for coming! (Btw, we missed you Susanna!)

We went down to the music store in Brattleboro and saw the hairpin turn we got stuck on last time. Oh, what memories! *dramatic sigh* : P

The concert at night went fine. My throat felt really ‘small’ but everything came off fairly well. *phew* Even though the cold turned out very mild I’d been dizzy/slightly spacey on and off since Friday. (Please, don’t remind me I’m always spacey. Thank you.) Thankfully my throat was feeling REALLY good until after I started talking to folks afterward. :-P Over talking is not a good thing. But, how else are you suppose to deal with all of the 101 people who want to ask questions? I must admit, all this talking is giving me good practice at answering nosy questions diplomatically. : D (Right, Abigail? LOL)

After the evening service a farmer invited us over to his farm! They have 350 cows and get up at 3:00am in the morning to tend to them. They sent us home with milk and eggs! Yummy!

We said goodbye to our company Sunday afternoon…



(Sorry about all the shadows….)

Sunday afternoon we went to Troy, NH. We were so busy looking at Mt. Monadnock we passed right by the church. Haha.



The church did a really nice job advertising and we had a very good turn out! I got a lesson in playing spoons from Fran afterward. (Hi! If you’re reading this. : ) ) We met a lot of nice people and enjoyed fellowship over refreshments.

I was so tired and feel asleep on the way home. The joys of traveling in a bus with bunks!

Band stuffing tonight (AHHHHH!!!) and work this afternoon…hey, maybe tomorrow will be slower.

Have a nice week folks. : )

Have you ever felt like you were running in circles, never reaching the end of a huge maze? Or, perhaps swimming up stream and staying in one place seemingly forever? I can’t stand this feeling. I shouldn’t post when I’m like this… haha. Thankfully, feelings will not dictate our lives if we stop them.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Heb. 12:2-3 NIV

“….Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength."
Neh. 8:10 NIV

I’m suppose to tagging 5 people for the Thinking Blog Award.

*icon here* (Yes, I'll edit this later.)

How about I list one in each of the next five posts? Ok? Ok.

Patrick Kocher, can be found here. I would be witty like Bonnie and write a little something but nothing is coming that doesn’t sound corny. Not that his blog is corny, I’m just having a hard time not sounding corny. Anyway, go check out his blog, it’s worth the trip over there.

Yesterday we sang and I have just about no pictures. :-P What I need is a camera with a remote. That would be nice. I haven’t had the energy to go searching for a good deal on a camera. An SLR would be nice someday…..yeah. I should be taking more pictures but now I feel crippled knowing about bounce flash. Nothing looks good after playing with something nice. Spoiled? Um, yes.

On the brighter side the sun came out today! It felt very nice to get out and sweep all the ’winter’ off the porch, sidewalk, etc. (That means sand for all of you who don’t deal with snow.) It’s suppose to be nice all the rest of this week and the weekend. Which is nice since we’re singing three times between Saturday and Sunday.

And speaking of singing….I’ve been drinking apple cider vinegar and gargling salt water all day (not literally) but the beginnings of a sore throat are lingering. That should make for an interesting weekend. :-P I think I caught my employer’s cold. She’s had laryngitis for days now. Hmm. Let’s not think about this.

BTW, tomorrow is another day….. (just reminding myself here)

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matt 6:34 NIV

AMEN.

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
1 John 3:18-20 NIV

I’m in the website pic home stretch! I’ve only got mom and dad left to do.

You can go over to website to see the ones we used, these are the ones that aren’t making it on.

I’m sitting here listening to the MacDonald Family Singers sing and play “Come Thou Fount” for the third time. :D Oh yeah! Mr. W, studio engineer, sent us his mix down of the song tonight! This is the first time we’ve heard the studio mix. Ahhh. All the hard work starts to pay off when you hear a semi-finished project. :) Every Saturday we make an hour a trip (one way) and record. We’ve gone on weeks nights a few times, too. We’re looking at about 6-7 more songs to put down before we can stop recording for this album. Then the fun of mix down begins!

I sure haven’t done much updating since we’ve been home. :P Well, it’s been cold, that’s for sure. My previous post showed the lovely snow we got. We’re scheduled for more on Thursday!? But, I say it could be worse; it could be May and snowing. My dad pointed out May is only a few weeks away. Hmm.

I actually started a new quilting project! I know I shouldn’t be starting a new projects before I finish old (non-quilting) ones BUT the huge stack of fabrics I bought on this trip was calling out ‘Cut me! Sew me!” :-P I consoled myself with the fact I was working on my ’list of things I want to do in my lifetime’ by started this ‘big’ quilt. ; )



I have a white border, multi colored strip border and more white to add before I’m completely done with the top. Finished size is suppose to be a twin size. I learned some valuable lessons on this quilt. For instance, when you alternate light/dark squares in a nine patch you should stick with that combination. Otherwise you’ll end up with blocks sticking out. Uh huh. See the four blocks? :)

My laptop was delivered to Best Buy this evening. That is a good thing, I hope. Shortly after we returned home Bonnie and her entourage of tech friends started working on it. We were able to save everything off the hard drive! YAY! All my pictures are saved. :pleased: Today she got in touch with Sony inquiring about restore disks and they informed her they do not make restore disk. :-/ So, anyway, they thought it something that Best Buy needs to look at anyway. I guess we’ll find out!

I’ll close this out with some photos of the guys. We took these for the sorely outdated website bio pages. My sincere apologies to those with dial-up!

"I'm dreaming of a white....



April?"

One week tomorrow and we will have been home for one week. : ) Notice I’ve been awful about updating. : ) Oh, it’s so much fun to be home!!

We’ve been to the studio three times last week and knocked down three songs. : ) Yes! We have about 10 songs down now but nothing to show for it since the engineer has done about zero editing/mixing. I’m hoping as the songs are finished we’ll upload them to the website.

I’m now realizing the gigantic task of finding the correct programs to do the graphics for the cd! :-P And, of course, we need to take a picture for the front. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get 10 people in once place for a picture? *sigh* I guess it wouldn’t be so hard if we lived next door to the park I want to take it in. Haha.

Here is a picture of Mrs. W took of Garret and Mr. Wiebe Thursday night in the middle of a recording session.



Peter recording “No Not One”



Bonnie is looking serious?




And, I’m just looking silly here….



That’s it for now, over and out. : ) Hope you all have a great week!