Everything's bigger in Texas

Here we are in Austin, Texas, day 1. I have never been to Texas before, just flown through it in a mad run on my way home from Italy one time, so it was definitely nice to sit back and enjoy some scenery while we were there. A group of us from church went for the National Worship Leaders Conference the week of July 21st-25th. Me, Preston, Brian, Kim, and Leon all got there Sunday night, so we spend some time at a good barbeque place and decided to check out the capital Monday morning before the first night of worship at the confernce. Here are a few details from the trip to the capital building.

The infamous self-pic while riding in the car.

A lovely little Catholic church on our walk up to the capital.

And there it is, the capital building, located in Austin, Texas. Since Leon is a native of the big state, he decided to show us around a little bit. What a nice guy.

There is an 8 foot star located at the top of the inside of the building. It looks super small from 217 feet where we are standing below it. Afterall, Texas is the Lone Star State.

And this is the middle of the circle inside the capital. There is a crack in the floor, and Kim said it was from a man falling to his death while working on the building way back in the day. Kinda cool, kinda sad, and creepy.

I was trying to catch a good shot of the "roundness" of the inside with the staircase above. I couldn't quite get the angle though

Just outside the building there are these old, I mean super old, oak trees that grow sideways. The are really cool looking.

Well that was is for the first afternoon of the trip, stay tuned for more coming soon of the conference and the biggest rib you have ever seen!

Don't mess

This weekend I am heading to this place...

for the National Worship Leader Conference.

I am excited to learn and see what God has in store at this little adventure in hot, sweaty Austin.
It will be my first time attending something like this, and I am really eager to experience all the different types of worhsip styles that will be presented, as well as listen to the speakers and engage in workshops that have to do with making your worship more meaningful.

Some of the speakers and leaders include:
Matt Redman
Paul Baloche
Tommy Walker
Lincoln Brewster
Leeland

I am excited to see some of the leaders play, and I hope to come home with lots of action pictures and stories to share when I get back!

Almost famous

This is the square in downtown Knoxville where we hung out the first day we were there. There are tons of little shops and old antique places around to look at.

This was in one of the biggest candy stores I have seen, with barrels full of all different kinds of old fashioned candy.Yum Yum!

Of course we had to stop and get some gluten free ice cream in the square downtown. The Marble Slab is now one of my favorite places to get ice cream.

We all decided to run in the 5k put on at the University of Tennessee Thursday night. I didn't get a personal best, but it definitely was a nice night for running. This was at the finish line with Chas and his parents. And no, it did not take us an hour to finish 3 miles :)

We are only pretending to be track stars.

The big day! So this is the visitor's center in downtown Knoxville where the WDVX radio station is at.You can see the Blue Plates in the background of some of the more famous people who have performed there before.

Behold the wall of fame....

Yep, we are on the air.

Of course I had to get a shot with the voice of the radio show...her name is Red. She has an awesome Knoxville tattoo on her arm.

We went to the fireworks at the park Friday night, so I got a couple of shots of some of the fireworks that I thought were cool.

Hanging out waiting for the fireworks to start.

This is the view from the cabin in the Smokies, what a great shot to wake up to. We were going to go on a morning bike ride, but it was raining, so we held out and went to Cade's Cove instead.

They call em the Smokies because the clouds rise up in the morning so it makes it look like the mountains are on fire.

This was on Sunday after church. We wen to lunch with Chas' parents and his sister and family at this place right on the Tennessee river. We went and fed the fish after and walked on the dock for a while. This is Chas' niece and her dad feeding some of the fish.

Chas was trying to get one of the ducks to goose Lynn on the bum, but he didn't quite get there before Lynn turned around.

So that is the rundown of the trip, the show went really well, and we got a lot of positive feedback from the crowd. It was a great experience to get out and play somewhere outside of Utah, even though we aren't Bluegrass :) And our pastor was there, Roy Gruber!! His wife's family is from Knoxville and he happened to be there on the 4th of July weekend. It was really cool to get to see someone from home be there and get to watch us. It's a God thing, I think.

One state, one show tour

I leave tomorrow for TN, and will be gone for 5 days.

Man, I never thought I would be singing live on the radio. It's gonna be awesome. In a freakishly scary kind of way.

Anyway, the broadcast is live, and you can listen to it online. Check things out here...

http://www.wdvx.com/programs/blueplate.html

Chas and I are listed on July 4th as Just a Vapor. I believe we will be performing at 12:00 Tenessee time, which is 10:00 Utah time.

Feel free to check it out if you happen to be around the internet on good ol' Independence Day.