Click here to visit Reflect Hymn’s post on the Winton Concert!

Hope you had a blessed Independence Day!

We decided to learn some California history.

Rebecca visited this Mission when she was a little girl.

A lovely dinner with Mom Loomis, where Steven read us the Declaration of Independence.

Steven took us up to some hills surrounding our city. It was beautiful!

Fireworks!!

A face without freckles is like a night without stars. : )

Steven recently surprised me and a friend (who is staying with us for our weeklong Hymn Improvisation Workshop) with a tour of a lovely English Cottage. Enjoy some pictures!

We’ve been working over the last year on a new family project: Hymnwriting! It has been such a joy.

After a long ramp up time, ReflectHymn.com is now live!

Our first project, for the month of January was writing a new tune for the hymn, Faith of Our Fathers. Listen to the tune and download the free sheet music. Pass it around to your friends, and sing it in your church. And let us know if it is a blessing to you.

We plan to release one new hymn tune a month. Next up for February’s hymn: a new tune for a 1912 Psalter edition of Psalm 76, “God Is Known among His People”.

It works.

*Smile.*

Brothers.

Steven is so good to work with my little brothers and teach them things.

A special birthday breakfast with Daddy [a long standing tradition] and Steven. [A new tradition . . . he's taking the picture!]

Picking out our Christmas tree for the Hanging of the Greens.

My wonderful parents.

To see the view from the other lens, click here.

Photo courtesy of Sarah Joy.

What a treasured day; to spend my birthday with my husband and my family in Missouri. : )

One of our favorite places to go to celebrate our month-a-versaries, is the ocean! Rebecca grew up playing at the beach, and has nostalgic feelings every time she feels sand in her shoes. In addition, you have the health benefits of all those wonderful negative ions! With those two factors, how could one not want to visit the ocean as often as possible!?

God has been so good to give us eleven precious months together. Even with the challenges He’s brought, they have truly been the happiest months of our lives. We are so blessed.

Photographing the cliffs.

Being sweet and silly: something we do well together. : )

For many years, Steven has had a vision of encouraging music in the Body of Christ. One of the ways we are trying to implement his vision for our family is by hosting our church’s very first official psalm sing.

A psalm sing is a gathering of people of all levels of musical expertise who learn to sing a psalm in four part harmony.

That’s right folks. People who tell us at the beginning of the sing, “Well, just to warn you, I can’t really sing . . .” We smile. If they need it, we hand them this article. And then, we sing. Because it really is a lot easier than you might think; even when we start with a wonderfully fun and complicated one such as Psalm 98A!

By the end of the night, just as we suspected, we have an amazing blend of pure luscious four part harmony emanating from our music room. And a bunch of people on fire for praising God through song.

These wires route audio to the amp driving the kitchen speakers.

The doorway picture is there to show how all of my handiwork is invisible from down the hall, Especially after we finally get a door on the server closet.