Long time no talk!
I know we’ve been a little quiet recently. The year 2015 was such a crazy, awesome, and busy year for us and we want to share some of the highlights with you. Next week we will share some exciting news about where we're going.
Winter
A Season of Firsts
Shooting "We Can Be" in Taxco, Mexico
The beginning of 2015 brought several new things into our lives. I (Tammy) started seedlings for our first garden in January. For months, I had been saving seeds from fruits and vegetables we ate - 42 varieties in all, from grape tomatoes, to okra, to papaya and grapefruit. I celebrated my birthday with friends and Hattie B's famous "hot chicken" in February. We also shot a music video in Taxco, Mexico for the first time. Taxco holds a special place in our hearts. When we first met, one of our first trips was to Taxco, a beautiful silver mining town with steep cobblestone streets. This time around, we stayed at the same place, and the same balcony where Joseph first gave me a fake proposal, or should I say, faux-proposal. (You can see the music video and story behind it on our Facebook page here.)
The new year brought another first: my first real guitar, a 1939 Gretsch that we had been in search of for over a year. On a sad note, I lost my sweet Grandpa Howie. He's the only grandpa that I've ever known and I am so grateful to be his granddaughter. He was an amazing man and he lived such a long, beautiful and full life. The video below shows one of my last and sweetest memories with him— singing “You Are My Sunshine” together.
Spring
A Season of Growth
Easter Shenanigans!
Oh, spring. We were SO busy these few months. We started off the month of April by hosting an outdoor Easter gathering with friends and finished the month by playing the Country Music Marathon. May came and we performed songs from our newest kid's project, Let The Sun Shine In, at Nashville's Musicians Corner. We finally got the mixing and producing wrapped up for the album, too...and sent out all the Kickstarter rewards...and moved out of our house on the very same day that we left for our Europe tour. To say we were sleep-deprived would be a grand understatement! It was worth it 🙂
Summer
A Season of Harvest
Playing at Autostadt's 15th Anniversary
Summer was a wonderful whirlwind of shows, workshops, seeing friends and exploring new places. Our Chasing Summer European Tour consisted of performing at 22 different venues. We had the honor of playing at the 15th Anniversary of Volkswagen's Autostadt in Wolfsburg, Germany (a kind of theme park for car lovers) as well as visiting the World's Fair in Milan, Italy. Fun fact: I began my musical career playing at the 2000 World's Fair in Germany, so when we saw that we could go, we jumped at the chance.
Cirque du Soleil at the World's Fair in Milan
We had such a great time leading music, art and recording workshops in Germany: one in Dresden, one in Bärenwalde, and one at the Ronald McDonald House in Bonn. This was the first time that we collaborated with the kids to write songs about the art they made in the workshops! This spontaneous songwriting with the kids went so well that we recorded the song "My Sunny Day" together on the spot and made a video for them. You can hear the song below.
My Sunny Day 🙂
Autumn
A Season of Pruning
Aloha!
After our European Tour, we made it back to the States in time for my mom's 60th birthday. We had told her the whole time that we wouldn't make it and then my sister's and I threw her a surprise luau! It was a great way to spend our first days home with family. Once we were back in Nashville we spent a few days marinating in great music at the Americana Music Festival (Glen Hansard was incredible, of course) and we caught up with some of our Canadian and British friends there.
And yet, sometimes different seasons are more poignant than others. We felt some discouragement in these months; we felt like our striving wasn't bearing fruit. This seemed largely personified in our garden, when a hail storm struck and tore all of our toil and labor into shreds to the backdrop of my tears. I didn't understand how I could put so much love, so much effort and energy, into something just for it to be destroyed out of the blue. But, just like our garden, life has a way of blooming more beautifully after it has weathered a storm. I've always been told that I had to prune my plants to make them grow better, and I never wanted to! But after that devastating hail, the plants began rising upwards toward the sun, healthier and stronger than ever.
Life is a lot like a garden.
That catches you up to date for the year! We have so much in store for 2016, and we can't wait for you to come alongside us in the next steps of this journey.