Tag Archives: Contemporaries Music Tours

A Significant Hodgepodge

If it’s Wednesday it must be time for the Hodgepodge. Thank you, Joyce for the questions!

1. How did you meet your significant other? If you don’t have a significant other, tell us how you met your best friend. 

We met at a church where this Christian singing group was performing. Greg was in the group and my best friend became a part of the group. I went with my friend to her first performance with the group and met Greg there. Later when they needed to replace an alto in the group, I auditioned and became part of the group. We are on the far right in both of these photos while on tour in England. The sign that got chopped off in the photo above says Jesus is Alive Today. In England we sang in schools during their religious education classes. In the evening we would sing in a church or community center. Our relationship blossomed during our 70’s Christian Rock band tours of England.

Here I am being mobbed for my autograph by young girls at one of the schools we performed at.

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During our tours in England we’d have a holiday week after 3 weeks of singing at least 3 times a day across parts of England. This photo of Greg is from when we were on holiday at the end of our concert series.

2. It’s Department Store Day (October 16)…do you still shop in department stores? If not do you miss that kind of shopping experience? Do you have a favorite department store? Any fun memories of department store shopping when you were a child? 

Living in the country my department store experience is limited to Wal-Mart. I don’t have childhood memories in a department store. When we lived on the other side of the Cascade Mountain Range my favorite department store was Fred Meyer. I suppose Costco is a type of department store or at least it fits the definition. That is a store we always stop at when we travel south to Spokane.

3. Something you’re currently nuts about? 

I love Autumn/Fall. I’m enjoying the change in weather and all the fall color that is showing. I love soup weather.

4. What’s your favorite nut and is there a favorite recipe where this nut is used? 

I enjoy nuts and my favorite nut in recipes is the walnut. Our mom’s Russian Nut Roll (Roolyet) is my favorite.

Our Mom’s Roolyet (Russian Nut Roll)

 

5. On Wednesday we officially reach the ’70 days until Christmas’ mark. Have you purchased any gifts? If you don’t celebrate Christmas then how about Hanukkah presents? 

I have purchased a few things. While in Scotland, I bought a couple of new ornaments for the tree, too.

6. Insert your own random thought here.  

Me and my guy waiting for our charter flight to England in 1973.

My photo sharing site is giving me grief again so it might be a while before I can post more from our travels in Scotland. These kinds of problems are never easy for me to solve. OYE!

The Fragrance of Summer Hodgepodge

Summer is upon us and Joyce has come up with questions to get us ready for this season. Thank you, Joyce From This Side of the Pond.

1. Hello Summer! In the northern hemisphere anyway. What’s something on your summer bucket list? Do you have an actual summer bucket list? If not, use your hypothetical list.

I don’t have a summer bucket list but since we are traveling to Dallas for our youngest siblings birthday party (twins), I’ll be checking off going to Waco and walking about the Chip and Joanna dynasty. That’s been something on my radar to experience. My hypothetical list would include keeping cool.

2. What for you is the defining scent of summer?

Fresh mowed grass and throw in a campfire!

3. What’s a (music, food, wine, or flower) festival happening in your part of the country that you would like to attend if tickets/travel/timing was no object? 

Hands down the Lavender Festival in Sequim. We’ve gone in years past and it is worth the effort.

4. Apparently a military whistle blower claims the US has a UFO retrieval program. What say you? Do you believe aliens are out there? 

Only if you count Angels and Satan’s minions.

5. Besides your wedding day and the birthdays of any children you may have, what are three of your top experiences in life? 

  1. Summer Camps in my teens. God was drawing me/calling me to himself and this time the Gospel became clearer to me and with the help of the Holy Spirit, I repented and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. Hume Lake Christian Camp in King’s Canyon, Sierra Nevada mountains.

2. Singing on tour, bringing the Gospel to schools and churches across Great Britain the summer of 1973 and 1974. Not only did these tours add growth in our walk with Jesus but we got the UK travel bug. Dear and I are the singers on the right.

3. Grandchildren!! So thankful to God for letting us be close to our two, Addy and JJ. What a sweet cherry on top of our lives they are.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Speaking of lavender, when we were in England in July of 2014 we came across these lavender fields in Broadway (Cotswolds).

This coming up weekend all our kids will be here because our granddaughter is getting baptized on Sunday (that will deserve a whole post next week). We also have a candidate for our pastorate coming to preach. There are other events going on for us to get to know him and his wife and see if he will be the one who God has chosen to be our Shepherd. Exciting times and a very full weekend!

Engagement and Marriage

We started dating in the fall of 1972. The summer of 1973 we traveled to England with a Christian Rock Group on a concert tour at schools in England for their religious education classes. At night we’d have community concerts in churches or community halls. Dear’s niece Jenna was born while we were in England and we were able to meet here when we returned. We were officially engaged in September of 1973. Jenna is our oldest niece.

We had another tour in England in the summer of 1974. After being hosted by a few great English families we got to return the favor to some and show them around the Los Angeles area when they came for a visit. I have a post about our tours in England here.

Our wedding was in December of 1974.

Dear’s family upper left. Dear and me with my little maternal babushka. Lower left me and my sisters. Middle, my brothers. Lower right my parents.

Our honeymoon was a drive up the coast of California as far as San Francisco and home again.

Today is Saturday the 18th of March. Looks like our granddaughter is arriving sometime on the 20th of March, the first day of Spring. Sweet! We will keep you posted on the actual arrival time and we hope induced labor won’t go too long.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
 they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23 (ESV)

Where There’s A Will…

Our trips to England over the years have been planned around different interests and purposes. Dear traveled 4 summers in a row in the early seventies with a Christian music group that started at Biola College. This group soon warped into a Christian Rock Band. I joined the group in it’s Rock Band Stage for Dear’s last two summers in England with the band. These trips in the seventies had us traveling from school to school singing and sharing during the school’s religious education time slot. In the evenings we would sing in a public hall or church in the same area with many of the kids from the schools coming out to listen again. Usually we’d tack on a few days at the end of the tour to sight see in different areas of Great Britain.

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“Hymns give way to Jesus Rock in morning assembly at St. George’s Church of England School, in Meadow Road, Gravesend yesterday. The concert was given by the Contemporaries, 14 musicians from the United States who are in the middle of a world tour. They have already completed a number of successful “gigs” in Liverpool. They are all professional musicians but they are giving their services free”…

Dear and I are in the center of the photo on the bottom row. 1974 was the last summer tour Dear and I participated in.

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The next time we would travel to England was in February of 2003. Dear’s company was sold and before he moved on to another job we decided to take a trip to London. While based in London we took day trips out by train to Cambridge for a day and to Watford to attend a evening worship conference at Tim Hughes (Here I Am to Worship) church. We enjoyed the London Eye which opened in 2000. We also visited the National Gallery, Westminster, St. Paul’s, and other great landmarks. We enjoyed a Gilbert and Sullivan production of HMS Pinafore on Valentine’s day. On this trip we stayed in So. Kensington a short walk to the underground for our many trips around London. At our hotel in Kensington was where Dear watched the bartender make a Kensington Dream for me which became my signature celebration drink that Dear prepares for me.

In April of 2004 we planned a high school graduation gift trip for our daughter Katie centered around her favorite authors (Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Austen) and Monty Python.

eagle and childHere is a tiny photo of Dear and Katie outside The Eagle and Child (Bird and Baby) of C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Sayers (Inklings) fame. We enjoyed walks about Oxford that Tolkien and Lewis took together. We traveled to Bath to see some Jane Austen haunts. We drove around the Cotswolds where some Hobbit inspiration was gained. We traveled out to “Pemberly” (Chatsworth House) and to Bakewell of “Pride and Prejudice” fame and when in Scotland we traveled to Doune Castle and asked for coconuts to clip clop around the castle grounds where scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail were filmed.

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In 2006 we joined two couples who are our very good friends on a semi walking tour of some areas of Wales, the Lake District, Oban, Edinburgh, and York. The photo above is of the Derwent in the Lake District. For this trip we just had to show up as Jody masterfully booked all our lodgings for us in advance. The highlight of this trip for me was our time on the island of Iona.

That brings us to 2013 and the trip we planned with our oldest son Josh and our daughter in law, Laura. This trip needed to have something for both of them in mind. The main thing in our son Josh’s mind was to attend Premier League soccer matches so that’s where the title of this post comes to be. The first choice team to see was Manchester United in the famed Old Trafford stadium in Manchester, England. We would try to get tickets for Saturday September 14th the day after we arrived in England. Josh went online at the Manchester United official site and was shocked to see the tickets released and sold out within seconds. Oh boy…now what? We found a secondary resale sight for tickets and were pleased to find 4 tickets available. They were pricey but we hit the buy button knowing this was something that was important for our “England Experience” this time around. Now we had to contact our B&B and see if it was OK to have the tickets delivered there. We got the correct address and then started the “wondering game” in our heads. I wonder if the tickets will arrive in time? I wonder if the tickets are official?” I wonder, I wonder….

We arrived at the Bed and Breakfast Friday night and our host immediately said to us, “I have a parcel I think you’ll be pleased to see” Josh ripped it open and there were 4 official looking tickets for the game on Saturday. We sighed in relief and thanked the Lord.

Man U 021My next post will be about our experience at “Old Trafford”.

This is one of those posts to document history for me and my family. So many things are forgotten as time goes on.