Our Sojourn to Blanco, TX

::whew::

What a weekend! This past weekend was our first "out of Wedgwood experience" as a band... Or at least, as a partial band.

On Friday afternoon Michael, Steven and I left Michael's house in my giant white van packed up with music equipment and a few suitcases. We drove just over 4 hours and arrived in good 'ole Blanco (home of the fighting Panthers) in time for an amazing spaghetti dinner. Steven's mom was so sweet and she sat with us and got to know us while we ate.

Saturday was spent touring the town, complete with an amazing breakfast at the Bowling Ally (who knew?) and a trip to "Market Days" in the town square. We also go to visit Steven's mentor, Neil and his wife Kelly's GIANT ranch on the outskirts of Blanco. They have two kids and as a family they manage the ranch where they breed exotic animals from Europe and Africa. They also host retreats and functions there and allow people to hunt certain species of animals. We got the grand tour of the ranch and they served us lunch and had us tell them our life stories. They were so sweet and interested in us!

After we left the ranch and had a tour of the Young Life building they've started in town, we took a walk down to the river.

Then we had our practice time at the church because we were using a drummer and a bass player from Steven's old band to play for us on Sunday. Rob and Paul. We went through all the songs twice and they sounded great so we decided to call it a night. Steven's mom made us chicken fried steak and we rented a movie and just relaxed.

Sunday we were all pretty anxious, the church is a lot different from Wedgwood and even though we were playing in their "contemporary" service, the pastor is still not a fan of drums and things like that. But it went really well! We played six songs and there was a good crowd there and they really seemed to worship, despite our use of drums ;) It really was an amazing experience. Steven's mom, sister Jessica and nephew Blaine came to see us and took pictures. Neil, Kelly and the kids were there also. After the service, everyone was very sweet and encouraging and had so many nice things to say. The youth pastor even asked us to come down in October and play for a crowd of like 300 kids after a football game (Go Panthers!) Haha!

And obviously we made it back in one piece.
Tired... But in one piece.

It was really great, I'm so glad we did this. God really presented us with this opportunity and through this one weekend, I feel like we got a lot of experience and hopefully touched some people's lives. They certainly touched ours. I can't wait to go back :)

Blanco or Bust!!

Me and Steven on the drive down.


Sunset

The boys playing Sega.

Weird moose, reindeer animal.
He was HUGE.

Me and Michael petting "Precious"

Ryann, Steven, Michael and Precious.

The Jeep.

The boys.. Looking cool.

Me and Michael :)

We climbed a tree!!

The river.

BesFrans.

Michael.

All of us on Sunday morning before we left.

The Couple's Shot.

Leading worship.

And again...

One of the girls in the congregation drew my picture and gave it to me!!