New Furniture; Mari; Covlife Music Academy

Hello Blog Reading Friends! I think the next post will be no pictures, but this one will be mostly letting the pictures speak for themselves with a little help from the captions ...

Thanks to the generosity of a close family friend, we have a new dining room table. We are enjoying this new piece in our house.

Mari has been cooking amazing meals each night ... I hope to do a post at some point comparing Mari's food to Carmen's.

Transition ...

This past week I taught at the Covenant Life Music Academy's Summer Camp. I am teaching primarily the band (sneaking in some Junk Percussion, using my Roland electronic hand drum, and recording the students everyday w/ the ZOOM H2), but as you can see, I've had the opportunity to conduct the strings (the academy has the privilege of having the amazing Rachael Boer work with the strings throughout the week).

I hope you have a great week!

DCYO, CAS Arts Extravaganza, WAMS Vacation, Tommy + the RKO Swing Orchestra

Greetings and salutations from the world of the Christian Hand-drummers Kosher Cookbook. I hope this post finds you aware of God's grace. The following is a picture summary of last week.

I have been teaching with the DCYO on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings the past four weeks. It has been a lot of fun teaching classical percussion to students at varying levels.

CAS Arts Extravaganza

My friend Caleb drove down w/ Mari to check out the show.

The Junk Percussion Set-Up for 2010

My friend Jaime backstage getting ready to help w/ tech

Paige and I taught a class together and collaborated on a couple of different concepts. She ran sound for the show and choregraphed the Hip-Hop classes. Working w/ her was a highlight of the camp this year.

WAMS Vacation 2010

Dinner on Saturday night

Annie w/ Nate + Cara w/ Esme

The 'Leadership Committee' for the trip

Mari + Emma enjoying the post ice cream sun

The next morning Emma decided Mari should read her a book

Meg getting ready for the trip home

This is our minivan (we have no kids)

This is the Wilcox minivan (3 kids)

One aspect of the trip I thoroughly enjoyed was watching these three family's (Wilcox, Averill, + Marcantonio) care for and train their children. Parenting can seem like a daunting task (and it is), but having the opportunity to watch my friends raise their children to fear the Lord helps me have faith that God will also be with us.

(Jess, I'm not sure why I don't have a picture of you, but it's nothing personal.)

Tommy + The RKO Swing Orchestra

On Sunday evening we had the chance to see one of my favorite drummers perform. His name is Tom. We met while working together at Veneman music in 1997. He helped me become a professional percussionist by asking me to play w/ a band called Truth Groove which lead to several other gigs.

Tom is one of the few drummers I know that can play every single style w/ authenticity. He plays Big Band, Combo, Rock, Latin, and everything in between with passion and excitement. It was so much fun watching him play. The highlight of the night for me was, "Sing, Sing, Sing."

Per usual, if you have read this far, I thank you for your time and I hope you have a great day!

Happenings This Past Weekend And Coming Up

It was a fun weekend. Mari and I bought a new (for us, it's actually a 2005) car and I had the opportunity to play drums @ our Church Covenant Life.

I am now in my last week of Camp Arena Stage. After six Summers I still enjoy teaching at this fun arts camp. We are having our annual "Arts Extravaganza" on Thursday evening. I'm looking forward to seeing 2 of the young campers sing, "Everyone Is A Spitz-O-Matic."

Here are two pics of the weekend. One is very blurry, but it shows my set-up. I sincerely thank you for taking the time to read this post!

Today @ Camp Arena - Monday July 12, 2010

Two friends from the National Harbor junk percussion show came to jam today for the noontime show @ CAS. I still haven't figured out how to post audio by itself so I made this little video. You can ignore the pictures because they are old, but the audio is from today. Here is the instrumentation:

Jeff - Drumset
Zak - Congas
Me - Trumpet (yikes ... could have used more practice) + Electronic Drums

I hope you are having a great week.

Here is a pic of the 3 of us before we performed on Mon. 7/12.

My Summer Days Thus Far

Every weekday for the past two weeks, I have had the opportunity to teach @ Camp Arena Stage. I teach 4 classes: Beginning Guitar; Rock Band; Junk Percussion; and Colabo-Rock. It has been a great summer so far. Here are 2 pictures from Friday's (7/9) Junk Percussion Class.

DC Hip Hop Theater Festival

Last night I saw my friend and co-teacher @ Camp Arena Stage, Paige Hernandez, perform her one woman show: PAIGE IN FULL. Mari went with me and we both thoroughly enjoyed the production. If it happens again I hope you can check it out.

I am a Guest Blogger ...

Check out my guest post over at the Stage Banter Blog. I wrote a post about returning to Camp Arena Stage for a sixth consecutive summer. I wrote it 3 weeks ago but they posted it today. Let me know if you have any thoughts.

May - July 2010 = Carmen living in Montgomery Village

Yesterday we said goodbye to Carmen (Mari's Mom) after she stayed with us for three months. Her joy, servanthood, faith in God, work ethic, gardening skills, ability to make even a wall feel comfortable, and how we have grown as a family through the last three months makes me grateful for having her as my mother in law. I will miss her and am looking forward to having her (Lord willing) return in October to meet little baby Spitz-O-Matic.