Johno goes to Tucson (continued)

It was really great having Johno visit us in Tucson. It gave us a great reason to slow our pace of life down and just enjoy where we live.

We drove up to Mt. Lemmon for a picnic. We passed many pull-offs before we decided on "the one" to hike up and eat our lunch. And, we just so happened to choose "the one" that had been totally destroyed by the fire without a view in sight.


So, we made many more stops on the way down...






Sonoran Hot Dogs at El Guero Canelo, a must when in Tucson!


Coffee and ice cream down by the University...


Breakfast at Little Poca Cosa with the G's!


We drove from Tucson to L.A. yesterday so Johno could meet back up with his sister.


Today we'll continue up the coast to San Francisco to meet up with our friends Analisa and Natalie where the tour will begin!

Attention Tucson!

We are in California today, and though I love it here, I really wish I could be in Tucson today for a Health Care Rally that is taking place in Tucson. As I'm sure many of you have heard me talk about, health care is a continuous headache for us being that we are self-employed and pay for it out of pocket. We pay $700/month but are still not covered for any of the things we most need to be covered for because they are considered "pre-existing conditions"...therefore literally costing us thousands of dollars more a year in health care expenses.

If you are in Tucson and feel so inclined please go to the Health Care Rally happening downtown today! (sorry for the late notice)...

Where: SW Corner of Congress & Church St walking to McCain's office at the SW corner of Congress & Granada (in Tucson)

When: Thursday, Jul. 9, 2009, at 11:30 AM

What: Key Senate votes on health care are coming next week. So we're rallying at Senator John McCain's office to urge him to fight for a strong public health insurance option. We'll hear from speakers with firsthand stories about the health care crisis and deliver a massive petition to the senator's staff.

Stars and sunsets...

A proper saguaro welcome to Tucson Johno!

Yesterday we spent the day at the Hilton El Conquistador for their annual 4th of July music/fireworks show. As opposed to the 114 degree weather 2 years ago, it was a cool 100 degrees plus shade...a lovely evening to be outdoors in the desert!

Rockstar Dominic!

And a gorgeous sunset to make way for the fireworks!

Coming to America...

Coinciding with the 4th of July, last night we celebrated our Congolese friends 1 year anniversary for coming to the United States!
A pool party was in order, as from previous parties, we know how much they love swimming. This year there was no diving board for fancy trickeries, but rather a volleyball net...and Ryan broke the rule, and played even though he has written off volleyball due to the broken finger incident in January.

The men in the pool(s)...


The ladies on the side...


(there was no particular reason why the ladies weren't in the pool...just the way the evening worked out)

And, what better event to have the classic red, white and blue cake at? Cake complements of Melissa...


It was a nice evening of realizing (again) how much love we have for these friends, and how blessed we feel to have them in our lives. Our friends from Congo who have taught us so much about JOY and community. And, our friends from Tucson who are so eager to share in each others lives and care for others in our community. And, our friend from Ireland, Johno, who arrived in town only a few hours before the party and is always up for just going with the flow and making new friends along the way.

Bring on the rain!

Monsoon season has arrived, and I don't think it could have found a better audience than Tucson where everyone loves a cloudy evening with rain!
And, with monsoon season comes indoor baking (since it isn't too hot to have the oven on)...The tart was made for Grammie and Papa Bill.



Upcycling games from childhood...from Uno to Crazy Uno, we are now hooked on this game again! And Toblerone is always a crowd pleaser (knife in photo is for cutting our frozen toblerone :)


And, of course the beautiful rainbows the follow the rain...

girly girl?

I found this super cute free pattern for a purse online, and decided to give it a whirl. As they said, it was easy peasy lemon squeezy! And, I was able to use scrap fabric that I had lying around so it was totally free to make.



For those of you thinking, "I've never seen Abby where a purse that just goes over the shoulder and has a bit of a feminine edge to it..has she changed?" Fear not, I'm still wearing the Tevas I got in 11th grade as my summer sandal of choice...

Praise!

You may remember me blogging to you about our friend Trish Ryan last spring after her book He Loves Me He Loves Me Not came out. Part of her story involves fasting and praying for a husband (whom she has met and now been happily married to for 5 years). Last year and now again this year, she has created a blog community for people to experiment with this idea of fasting from something in prayer of something. Wanting something soo much that you are willing to give up something else for it, and most importantly, look to God to see how He is going to provide. I decided to join her this year in fasting from the computer (I have limited myself to 1 hour per day) in prayer of our finances since it has been rather tight. And by that I mean, really tight.
We usually rent our house out in the winter months when we are on the road for an extended period of time, and Tucson is a desirable place to be. However, we have NEVER gotten a call in the summer. This week we received not one, but FIVE phone calls about renting out our house! Two of those calls were for renting it this summer yet, and 3 for the winter. One of the summer rentals isn't going to work out, but the other is. At first I questioned them coming to Tucson in the summer (who'd come to where it's 110 degrees!?!), sure that they were going to pack up our whole house and get out of town before we knew it and we'd be left with nothing. But then I thought, I'd rather choose that this is a gift from God from this fast. And, with that, I've felt at peace about it. In fact, we learned that it's actually a pastor from Connecticut coming out to rent the house. And, on top of that I got a dog/house sitting job for that same time period, so we'll be paid to rent our home and paid to stay in someone else's home to live in while ours is being rented. And, January through March are already rented for next Winter while we'll be out on the road touring!

sew sew sew

After being at the Refugee Festival, I was inspired to sew another skirt using more fabric I got in Africa. I used the same book to draw out a pattern, and even sewed in a zipper (successfully!) for the first time.

Happy Father's Day!!

I hope you have a wonderful Father's Day dad! We look forward to seeing you next month!

(photo from last year's Brown's Clearing Survivor Games)

Tucson Refugee Festival!

This evening was the Tucson Refugee Festival! Tucson is the 7th largest resettlement city in the US, with over 10,000 refugees living here. The festival was a beautiful display of the rich culture and traditions that they bring to our city...I wish everyone in Tucson could have been there to see it and appreciate them. From knitted bags, woven rugs and African clothing to poetry, dance, and music...it was a magical night for me. I had just told Ryan a few days ago how much I missed Africa and how badly I want to go back, and he again reminded me of the unique African community we get to be apart of here in Tucson, and sure enough...I experienced this again tonight. I went to the festival with my friend Rache whom I met while living in Boston...she currently lives in Reno, but is in Tucson for job training right now.

We saw many of our refugee friends there, including Joseph...

James performed in a portion of a play that will be completed next year, as well as recited poetry he had written...

About a month ago Ryan took Bievenue driving to help teach him how to drive before getting his drivers license...

And today Bienvenue proudly showed me his new car, complete with his drivers license!

Chocolate Surprise!

Our friend Ben threw his wife, Mackenzie, a big 30th surprise party yesterday! The first surprise was a girls night out chocolate party at "Chocolat" where we molded our own chocolates and made chocolate covered popcorn. Mackenzie thought she was going out to dinner with a friend, and the friend had to make a quick stop at Chocolat to pick up something for her mom...when SURPRISE! :)
Mackenzie is in the middle...

My goodies to take home...
a dark chocolate "pizza" with almonds...a white chocolate mushroom and dark chocolate chiles!

The chocolate queen of our group, Kristin...

Kristin's goodies to take home...

We told Mackenzie that we were all going to go back to her house for a continuation of girls night to watch movies and eat pizza...little did she know about 100 people were there hiding in her home for another surprise! The surprise went off without a hitch...soo fun! Happy Birthday Kenz!

Mama Lori

This past Thursday Ryanhood played at the Tucson Botanical Gardens (where I had worked at the cafe earlier this year). It was part of a summer music series called Twilight Thursdays; they keep the gardens open late, serve dinner, and have live music. On the way there we realized we hadn't really told anyone about it (they provide their own audience to where we don't have to advertise), but we thought that Ryan's mom might be interested, so we texted her. Sure enough, she came! AND, today she and a friend drove to LA to watch them play there tonight! Thanks Lori!

(I on the other hand opted out of going to this weekend's Cali shows because they are traveling with a full band, and well I do love sleep over parties, I'm not really into being the 5th person in a hotel room....plus, Murphy needs me. :)

Will sew for music!

Last night we went and saw Bela Fleck play with Toumani Diabate at the Rialto Theatre in Tucson. AMAZING! For those of you not familiar with Bela Fleck he's a virtuoso on the banjo, he along with Chris Thile are probably two of Ryan's largest influences. Toumani Diabate is a Milian (west African) kora player...also a virtuoso! He is the 71st generation of his family to play the kora. Bela was in Africa a few years ago which musically inspired his latest cd, "Throw Down Your Heart", and this is his tour for that album.

So, naturally I had to sew a new skirt using my African fabric to commemorate our African music night!
I used this book to create my own pattern...


...and voila!

My sweet little guy...

Dominic and I have been having some fun quality time together since we returned home! He has started smiling and laughing...love it...love him! Here's a photo for all of you who have been asking for an updated one...

Hard to resist...

I don't even really like Oreos. But, when you have a jar sitting on the counter like this:

...how can you resist? Yup, I'll be having to re-stock this place before I move out on Sunday when Murphy's parents return home.

Got Worms?

On Sunday after Murphy went "#2" in the backyard, he started scooting his little tush across the pavement, to which I thought, "how cute, he even wipes his butt!" So, of course as the proud "mom" of Murphy I relay this story at the dogpark, only to get shaking heads and worried looks that make me think, "hmmm...maybe this wasn't such a cute trick..." It's then that I'm told all dogs do this when their glands are swollen, or they have worms, etc...it means they need a trip to the vet. Oops! Poor Murphy.

Doggy Day!

Three of the blogs I read today all posted about their dogs. So, in following suit, I decided to post about "my dog" for the next 10 days.

Meet Murphy...


Murphy doesn't swim, but he said I can use "his" pool...


If you don't hear from me for the next several days...know I'm enjoying the view. :)

Quick Crafting!

I spent yesterday afternoon crafting to my little heart's content...actually that's not totally true...I had more crafting in me, but it was time to stop for dinner. :)

The pattern are all from various blogs...each project was super quick and easy to do and just took scraps to make!

Plastic grocery bag holder...I know the usage for this will soon be obsolete as we are into reusable bags, but I've always wanted one...so I had to make it before it was totally useless. :)
Click here for the pattern.


Next up, a trash container for the car. Our car is in the shop right now, so I had to model it on our dining room table chair. It is supposed to velcro around the headrest. Click here for the pattern.


And finally, a reversible cloth headband. I had a little trouble figuring out how to tuck my ends in before sewing the elastic...better next time. Click here for pattern, it's 1/2 way down the page.

Prayer

One of our friends (James) from Congo lost his mom (Josephine) in a severe car accident on Wednesday. She was in a van with 16 other refugees that were going to Willcox, AZ to seek employment. It's unclear what happened, but the van rolled, killing 5 of the passengers and injuring the other 12. No other cars were involved in the accident. Losing a loved one is always a difficult time. Losing a loved one in a culture yet foreign, seems especially hard to navigate. Please keep them in your prayers.

Livin' the 'Lanta Life!

This is my first time in Atlanta, and I have to say I'm a fan!
As I mentioned in my last blog post, we were extras in a film starring Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw on Wednesday night! We were quite naive in going, which only adds to the humor of the night. We thought that we'd show up, they'd feed us our free food, and then have us walk across a street a few times, and we'd be out of there within a couple of hours. Well, at about 11pm the person sitting next to us made a comment about how she was there filming the night before until 7am!! What!?! This is not what we signed up for! Then, we also found out that everyone around us was getting paid to be extras...and that we had somehow wondered into an area where we likely were not supposed to be. BUT, the man in control of the whole thing had already placed us only 6 rows back from Sandra Bullock (whom we learned goes by Sandy) and Tim McGraw, and only 1 row behind another actor with a speaking part. And at this point, we'd already done several hours worth of filming. Not that our roles were too important, in fact we realized we are really bad actors. We had to pretend to be engaged in a high school football game. At about 1:30am, they excused us for "lunch" and fed us again... Finally at about 3:30am Dana wisely asked if they were going to be re-shooting any of the scenes we were in, or if we could leave...and leave we did. It was a fun experience seeing what the movie filming process is like...tedious!...and we got to hear "Sandy" say over and over again her line which was, "Hey crotchmouth why don't you zip it or I'll come back and zip it for you."...hmmm..not very attractive, and yes, I did laugh almost every time she said even though we were supposed to be straight faced. :)
Dana and Me on "the set"...

That's Sandra Bullock standing up about 6 rows in front of where the photo is being taken from...


Yesterday we spent the day at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center a few blocks from Dana's house. If you ever find yourself in Atlanta, you must go...we loved it! And, the whole thing is free! They have a great museum area for children as well, which even for us (as adults, or so we like to pretend to be) to go through was very inspiring! I've always been moved by Martin Luther King Jr's movement and non-violence approach and speeches...but I had no idea as to how much he (and his wife!) did. Lots of tears...both of sadness and joy...he truly changed our country.


Back at Dana's we had a fun evening of eating push-ups and playing euchre...you may take the girls out of Michigan, but you can't take the Michigan out of the girls. :)


Tonight we are doing a house concert at Dana's, and then tomorrow morning we are leaving for Shreveport, LA where we'll do another house concert tomorrow night!

Hotlanta here we come!

We're in the big green van driving through North Carolina on our way to Atlanta right now! We originally had 2 shows booked in NC, but when they fell through I called my friend (Dana Lee!) that we had planned on staying with in Atlanta on Friday night to see if we could come early, and in all of her southern hospitality, she told us to come right on over...it's the land of the south! I've never been to Atlanta before, so I'm very excited to have a few days off there! Tonight we are going with her to be extras in a movie with Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw at a school she works at in the summer. Should be fun...free food!

Well, we have had a wonderful week that I feel like I want to blog about, even if only in brief little snippets.

Last week we met up with some fans turned friends (The Millers) on the South Shore near Cape Cod. You may recall me talking about them last year after Ryanhood played "Gardens and the Graves" at their send-off party. The Millers first saw Ryanhood while they were street performing at Faneiul Hall in Boston. They watched for a while and then went home and downloaded the cd on iTunes. The song "Gardens and the Graves" struck them as being a their family's theme song. They have that deep desire to go and see what is out there to be experienced. Sometime last February they contacted us to see if they could use that song as their theme song on their website. Intrigued, we later found out that they were going to be taking their family of 6 biking/tent camping around the world for 1 year! They just returned, and saw we were going to be nearby and invited us to come hang out for a couple of days at the cottage they are renting/currently living in near the Cape. It was so encouraging to hear them share their stories and courage of just going after their dream and finding a way to make it work. It was fun to hear their kids excitedly ask Ryan to "play our theme song"! And, I of course cried as I heard all of their little voices singing every word along with him...
Here's the whole family (two of the kids are actually friends visiting...just 4 kids for them.)


After a hard afternoon of playing on the beach...


We were excited to find out that we were going to be in Boston while EarthFest was going on! When we lived in Boston, we both (before even meeting each other) loved to go to EarthFest to hear the bands playing and get lots of free samples. Our friends, Orla and Will, joined us on our adventure to EarthFest this year! It was super hot out (for Boston, that is) so we didn't want to sit in the sun too long and listen to bands, but we did venture around and get lots of free food samples, chapstick, and Burts Bees lotion samples! :)


We had our first house concert of the year in Cambridge! It was a super fun turn out of about 50 people!



After a wonderful trip to Boston, we headed south to NYC. Ryanhood played at a venue called The Living Room...it's a step-up in prestige for us there, but to be honest, we didn't like it as much as where we normally play...so I think we are going to stick with where our heart is and keep playing at The Underground Coffeehouse. We stayed with friends in the city though and had a great time. We stayed up until 4am (not typical of us whatsoever) playing a game called Loaded Questions...they are really fun group of friends...look forward to our next visit to NYC with them!

Next stop...PHILLY! We got to hang out with our friends Kathleen and Francisco that we met at the Cambridge Vineyard, but haven't seen in about 3 years. They too hosted a super fun house concert...and fed us LOTS of DELICIOUS food!


And from Philly we drove to Roanoke, VA where we played at an art space with 5 other bands. The cool part about the show, was that a high school kid organized the whole thing! Once we were all there, I heard him say under his breath, "this is way bigger than I had expected"...I'm glad he didn't realize that beforehand and went for it so that he was able to have the pride of accomplishing putting together his first show (which he also got to play at)!