So today, we had another church gig, donated, of course to the cause. The children’s youth director, Sue Carpenter, has decided to retire, and we threw a big party for her, and Cyndi volunteered us for a portion of the entertainment. On top of that, Aaron and I volunteered to accompany the small kids(Arianna’s age) for the in-church prelude:”We are One in the Spirit”.
   One complication was that this week, the boys went on their respective end-of-year school road trips(Adam went white water rafting in West Virginia, Aaron went to Washington, DC; more on that later), so we did not have much time to practice.
   Aaron got back Wednesday late, and Adam got back Thursday. We rehearsed Friday and Saturday the same songs that we performed for the Fish Fry earlier this year, and added a new one: “One Note Samba.” Although we did not perform it, Aaron and Adam sound awesome on it. On my long list of stuff to do is record us and post it here.
   Anyway, we had to go to 8am service in order to set up in the parish hall. When 8am service ended, Aaron and I set up for the prelude, and rehearsed with the little kids, then did it for the 10am service. We make a good duet, him on bass, and me on acoustic guitar. In fact, Aaron started to ad lib on bass during the service, at one point, playing a few words of the melody with the kids. I need to get in touch with the guy who was videotaping it, because it was really special. Afterwards, Aaron and I talked about it, this gift that he has, and I was pleased to figure out that Aaron is really having a good time doing this sort of thing, creating in this medium, and yes, he thinks its cool to be this good at it.
   When service was over, we hustled to move the bass equipment into the parish hall and played “Do Nothing ‘Till You Hear From Me” while the crowd was getting settled. We added a fourth to our trio, Kevin Carpenter, who is the youth director’s son, on trombone. He got an ovation for his solo, and we got an ovation for the song. Adam impressed me with his ability to play different grooves for each chorus; he is learning how to phrase and color the song to add variety. Then the kids sang another song with our choir director on  piano, and Adam played drums for it. Then we had the presentation, speeches, and so on, and when it was over, we played more songs while they crowd cleaned up the parish hall. The boys got lots of compliments again, and I was very proud. Did I mention I am really enjoying this?
   Here’s some pics of us getting ready to play, and one of us playing. That’s Kevin on trombone:


PS: Notice the difference between Aaron’s and Adam’s attire. Can you pick out the near-high-schooler and the skateboarder?