Well friends, it’s been far too long.
Since we last blogged our world has changed quite a bit.
We are currently staying in Silver Spring, Maryland, right outside Washington D.C.
We celebrated America’s birthday in the Nations Capital, by watching some Americans blow up the sky in front of the Washington monument with a ridiculous amount of fireworks.
Yet, even something as epic as July 4th in D.C. can seem relatively unimpressive in my memory when I hold it alongside some of our other recent exploits.
Let’s see… since we’ve last posted, this is what we’ve been busy with:
- Drew, Brady, and Steve ended Drew’s birthday by jumping into a lake at around midnight.
- Carrie Lynch and her band graciously entertained us with a private bonfire concert (again part of Drew’s birthday. To see footage of parts of Drew’s B-day fun, check our facebook vids)
- Stayed with the Deprez in Grand Rapids Michigan. Swing dancing a couple of times, a sweet new photo shoot, and we got the infamous ‘Beard Shirts’ in our possession (for sale this tour)!
- We spent a week at Cedar Springs camp in Iowa with some amazing new friends.
(Shout out to the OKWU team). Lots of Ultimate Frisbee, dance parties, tubing, and lightning storms. (oh, and also I saw ‘Avatar’ for the first time… not a big fan).
-Bash on the farm in Garner Iowa. It was literally what the name impies, we were on a farm making music, and it was sweet. Remedy Drive closed off the festivities, but not before they converted me into a big fan while at the same time inspiring Josh with some new prospective facial hair styles.
-Spent an evening worshipping with the fine folks at Heritage church in Rock Island Illinois. (Met the soon-to-be: ‘Statik-Black Team’ of NTS)
- Another week of camp with the Orchard Grove Youth at Camp Nissokone, in Oscoda Michigan. Our friend Trevor joined us to tear up the skate park and drop some fat beatboxing-harmonica-fusion on the students at camp. We also played some disgusting games that had me hiding behind my camera so as to not be forced to participate (pics on my facebook)
- I turned 24 on June 27th and celebrated with some bearded men at a Dairy Queen in Bourbonnais Illinois. Made my 24 resolutions for the year ahead… so far I’ve already been much nicer to insects, so we’re off to a good start (if that’s confusing…just ignore it, or else check my facebook for my 24resolutions)
- Drew has been playing a ton of chess. (Challenge him. He loves it)
- Epic times at ‘Never The Same’ camp in Illinois. We had the incredible privilege of being the worship band for the first time ‘Never the Same’ conference was in Illinois. We had a blast participating in the day-to-day extreme activities with the visiting youth groups out at Olivet Nazarene University. (If you’ve never heard of NTS, check it out, it’s amazing). Most amazing Team Competitions I’ve ever seen in my life. And the drum stage was over 10 Feet above where the students were!!! I felt pretty lonely up on my perch, but it was definitely an epic looking stage.
- We pulled an all-night drive to join Trinity Assembly of God for a sweet night of worship out in Maryland, and then headed up to our current location of Silver Spring where we’ve been enjoying the hospitality of an old friend, Mike Barnes, before he heads off to do some international missions work somewhere in distant lands.
- The Smithsonian Museum, a day at the National Zoo, the heat wave that makes outside feel hotter than the surface of the sun, Toy Story 3 (in a lovely air conditioned theatre), and a dingy diner with some visiting friends are some of the most recent memories from the past two days.
Wow…
Ok… so here’s the deal.
I don’t want to have to write such long blog posts all the time. So I’m going to try and keep them shorter by being more faithful. It’s my intent to keep this blog updated far more often. If I do it frequent enough we may have hope of avoiding lengthy lists like the one above.
That being said, we’ve had an amazing time spent meeting amazing people over the past few weeks. To any of you we’ve met along our journey, Thank you for the ways you’ve blessed us by letting us be part of your lives. It’s truly been a blessing meeting people over the past month or so that I’ve been with Atlantic.
The list above is potentially uninformative for those viewing it from distant places, but for me it’s a quick summary of all the incredible opportunities I’ve been able to be apart of, and a monument to the memory of the wonderful people we’ve been able to share life with these past few weeks.
I’m excited about the many opportunities ahead.
Look out Jersey. Atlantic’s coming…
Peace & Love,
-Brady
