CD Release Party

Well after over a year of recording "Who am I" and over five years of preparing my head and my heart for it, the record is done.  This Saturday (January 14th) is the CD Release Party at Mill's Hardware and I'm so excited to finally share these songs with friends and family.
I feel that these songs and stories really capture what is in my heart and my hope is that others will be encouraged by this album.
I have so many people to thank for helping me finish this project but I'll save that for a future post.
In the meantime, I hope to see you at Mills Hardware on Saturday in my home town of Hamilton.

New Hope Church

It was a very special time yesterday at New Hope Church in Hamilton.  My family and I really felt welcomed by the wonderfully warm and friendly environment.  I dug the casual (round table) set up and it's always nice to be encouraged to drink coffee in church.
One of my favorite parts about visiting this church as a part of my Who Am I tour was hearing how the community there has come around our new friends and neighbours "Mark and Jen" as they suffered a terrible loss one year ago.  It was humbling to be a part of the service.  
The kingdom is a beautiful thing and I love that I get opportunities to go and visit so many wonderful communities and share my songs and stories.
If you are in Hamilton and haven't found a Jesus community to call home, I would recommend the warm and welcoming group that meeting in the Perkins Centre on Sunday mornings at 10:30(ish).

Who Am I Tour

The tour has begun and our first show at Maitland Street church in London was amazing!
When you put so much of yourself into something and hope and pray that people will react in a positive way, it is very encouraging when they do.
I saw old friends with tears in their eyes at the intermission and it moved me to see that my songs and sharing could connect with others in this way.
This tour is powerful because it is very vulnerable and takes the audience to a place of vulnerability where they may not have expected to go through personal stories and videos that connect with the songs.  As we continue looking for places to take this tour in 2017, I would love it if you would help me get the word out and even consider bringing us to your church to share these songs and stories.

 Something very cool is happening through this tour.

House Concert

    Last night I had the opportunity to play a little house concert with Ian Randall Thornton from Virginia and Jesse Hill, also from Virginia but currently living in Hamilton.
It was really nice after a long stretch of not playing house concerts to do it again.  Ian is a very profound writer and has a super cool voice and heart.  His stories are very moving and it was great to hear him in the context of a house concert.
Jesse Hill is a new friend in Hamilton who has played guitar with me a few times but I didn't realize that he is also a great writer and a very thoughtful cat.
It was an intimate group and it was perfect!

The Summer of Bike

This Summer was our first without owning a vehicle.  We decided as a family to use bicycles as our primary mode of transportation and over the Summer we started on this journey.
It is actually quite exciting for us to see how much we can fit onto our bikes and how far we can ride.
Riding is an amazing culmination of exercise, being outdoors, hearing sounds, seeing sites and working together as a family.  We live in Hamilton, ON so we have had to learn how to ride safely as a family through a busy city and although it is challenging at times, we love that too.
For our vacation this Summer we did a 10 day Bicycle Music Tour covering around 325 kms and although it was challenging, our kids each told us how much they loved it and how they want to do a longer one next year.
I will do some longer blogs telling more about the tour itself in the next few weeks.
I highly recommend buying a bike and starting to use it as much as our life will allow you to.
We are a family of 5 and we didn't all own bikes a few years ago, but not we look forward to our time as a family using our bikes.  It's pretty awesome!

Let's Ride

In the morning we will be loading all of this gear onto our bikes and rolling out of our driveway for a 10 day adventure.  We are covering a fair bit of ground and stopping in some cool little towns along the way.  I will try to post some stuff on my blog in case you want to follow our journey.  And if you are in the area and feeling inspired, bring your bike and join us for part of the journey.

Notice the homemade panniers made out of recycled cat litter containers.

The View From My Bike

Over the past year or so we have been wrestling as a family between trying to be more 'Green' and trying to simplify life.  Early on in that year we started having van troubles and the maintenance bills were growing, stressing us out and leaving us to wonder, why are we keeping it?  So we got rid of it and bought bikes.  How we got rid of the van is another cool story but I will save that one for now.
For now, we got rid of our van and have been riding our bikes everywhere over the Summer.  I'm not going to lie, it is challenging at first, well, actually, it's just plain challenging.  But is awesome!
We've really grown together as a family and have learned to look out for one another.  Living in a city with busy roads and lots of cars moving very quickly, you really have to work together to keep each other safe.
Right now I am in the process of buying this green Yuba cargo bike which allows me to put lots of stuff on it and next week we will be leaving for our 10 day bicycle music tour using only our bikes and traveling close to 300 kms with our kids pedaling along.
In our journey of simplifying, we wanted to do a family vacation this year that incorporated, community, exercise, camping and music and I think our 10 day bike tour to St. Marys and back is going to achieve all of those goals.  For 10 days we will be riding as a family and with whomever else joins us along the way.  Each night we will set up camp and I will play music.  We have some stops already booked along the way but also wanted to leave it open incase opportunity to develop new community arises in towns like Tavestock and Ayr.  It should be hard work, but also tons of fun.
People that hear about our decision to go car free always ask us what we plan to do in the winter and the truth is we plan to dress warm and keep riding.  Thankfully we have good friends who use their bikes year round to learn from.  The VanderKwaaks and Carrolls families.  But really, we don't know what it will be like until it gets here.
We aren't committing to this for the rest of our lives, but so far we love it!  It's fun to try and be strategic with what kind of "stuff" we take with us.  If we can't fit it, we don't take it.
From the seat on my bike I see so much more.  I see my kids pushing themselves to try things that they may not have tried before.  I see it bringing our family closer together, I see it causing us to try and eat better, and exercise more.  I even see that as we reach our destinations, it gets easier and easier so that we can push ourselves further next time.  The view from my bike is pretty sweet indeed.