Angels In Voice

I know it has been a very long time since we have written.  Everyone is doing very well.  Our health has been good the past couple of months and we haven't had any major sickness.  We truly thank God for that.  

This year has been a great year so far.  We are singing quite a bit.  We started lessons again at the beginning of January after a month break.  We're both working on solo repertoire for a couple of recitals our voice teacher Karen is planning for April and May.   We have had two bookings this year already.  We sang at Highlands Church in Scottsdale two weeks ago for their single's dinner meeting.  There was a speaker by the name of Jerry Traylor who has Cerebral Palsy.  He has quite an amazing testimony and is known nationally.  He jogged from the Golden gate bridge in CA to the Brooklyn bridge in NY on crutches.  He has jogged in over 35 full length marathons.  His story is inspirational and God has used him in many incredible ways.  He has a book out and both Candice and I have started reading it and it is excellent.  

Last Saturday we sang at Baptist Village retirement center for the third time for the residents.  We're blessed every time we minister there. The people are always uplifting and a real encouragement to us. 

We have some exciting things coming up.  We're looking forward to the HPS conference in NY mid March.  Our brother Sanjay and his fiance Becca are getting married on April 3rd.   We are also planning for the 11th annual benefit concert Friday April 16th.  We've already started working on new music for that.  We're praying it will be as successful this year as it has been the past several years.  We're thankful that we're staying busy this year with our singing.

 HPS 11th Annual Benefit Concert

Happy Fall everyone!!  It has been a while since we've updated, but everyone is doing well.  Our health is staying consistent, other than fighting allergies, asthma and sinus due to the change of the season.  We have really had a rough time with allergies this year.  The weather is finally getting cooler through the day, but this weekend it is supposed to get hot again.  Hopefully it will be the last of the heat.

Last month Candice dropped a floor fan on her right shin.  She put ice on it right away because it was starting to swell.  We have never seen a bruise this big before.  Her whole shin and ankle down to her foot were black and blue.  She never had any pain with it, just was real sensitive when walking on it.  She finally went to see the doctor three weeks later, as it looked like there might be infection in it because it was really red and hot.  The doctor put her on ten days of antibiotics and she finished taking it on Thursday.  It is looking so much better, still slightly red but I think that will take a while to completely go away.

Candice and I have been busy this past month with our singing.  The Lord has been opening doors for our ministry. We sang at the Logos Mission (Eastern Indian Church) for their 9th anniversary the first weekend in October.  Pastor Thomas and Sucheta invite us to sing each year.  We sang for the Friday and Sunday services and the theme this year was Discipleship, Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus.  It was a great theme and we sang five songs.  Reverend Leslie Stewart challenged us with a great message through out the weekend.It was great seeing old friends again and meeting new ones.  We enjoy our time with our Eastern Indian family and we always look forward to singing at the anniversary each year.

This past Saturday we sang at Baptist Village retirement home for the assisted living.  Candice and I sang there several years ago.  It's a beautiful place and the people were such an encouragement.  We did about 30 minutes of music and our mom gave our story half way through to give us a break. 

We have some fun things planned for the next couple of months.  Candice and I are going to stay a week in Cottonwood toward the end of this month to spend some time with our niece Danielle while her husband Mike is away hunting.  We are looking forward to our visit.

We have also spent the past month working on a song with Sue who also attends our church. Sue sang with us at the HPS benefit concert last April.  We sang our first trio together last Christmas and we're starting to develop quite a repertoire.  We've been working on a jazzy/ swing arrangement of "His Eye Is On the Sparrow" which we sang at church on Sunday morning. It went really well.  Many people have said we sound like the Andrew Sisters because of that 40s style and the tight harmony.  We enjoy singing with Sue and we have already started working on two new songs including "Do You Hear What I Hear."  

This week is the missions conference at church.  The theme this year is "Pray, Give and Go." We have missionaries to Mexico, the Philippines, and Australia.  Candice and I always look forward to the missions conference every year.  It's very interesting learning about the different countries and hearing about the way God is using them to bring souls to Christ.  The conference concludes tomorrow evening with a banquet.  

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Our summer is off to a wonderful start, except it's hot, hot, hot!!  It is hard to believe we're already in the middle of July.  We're both doing well, still fighting severe allergies which can be quite miserable.  Candice had to go on Prednisone a couple of weeks ago for a few days as her allergies started affecting her asthma.  We had an appointment with our Pulmonologist last Tuesday and she was telling us many of her patients are struggling with them right now.  We had our Pulmonary Function tests done and I'm happy to say that they are staying very consistent.  Mine were at 69-70% and Candice's are 65%.  We try to be dedicated to exercising four times a week and I think that along with the singing really does help.  Candice had her four month follow up at Mayo Clinic last Wednesday and received a wonderful report.  There were no new tumors!!  We had a good feeling that she would be clear as her weight is staying consistent and that is always a good sign.  Dr. Mulligan was ecstatic, he is just amazed at how well she is doing.  Her next follow up will be sometime in November and if she is still clear then she will be able to go six months between the next follow up.  It will be three years this November that she will be cancer free.  We are so happy and we thank God for working a miracle in her life.

This past weekend our family traveled up north to Cottonwood to visit family.  We really wanted to get out of the heat for a few days.  Our parents helped Rhonda and her husband David with some home projects.  Our brother Jody worked in the yard pulling weeds.  Candice and I stayed with our niece Danielle and our great nephew Austin.  Austin just turned one in April and he is so much fun to watch.  It was really great for us to spend some time with Danielle, and we really had a wonderful time.  The weekend flew by way too quickly.  Before heading back home we drove to Sedona to Tlaquepaque to shop.  It's a beautiful place. There were a lot of art museums, jewelry and Indian shops.  There were a couple of stores that had objects made of glass.  Our grandparents lived in Sedona for several years and we visited there quite often when we were younger.  Since our grandparents are no longer alive we haven't seen Sedona for almost ten years.  We drove by our grandparents trailer and it's amazing to see how different it was.  Seeing it brought back so many memories of the times we traveled up there for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and mini vacations.  It's hard to believe it was many years ago.  We would play the game hide and go seek, and frisbee, with our siblings.  We would also take long walks and our brothers loved playing in the ravines.  It was so much fun! 

When we arrived back home on Monday afternoon it was 116 degrees and miserable.  It was nice to escape the heat for a few days.  

This week Candice and I have started working on a home recording project.  We're recording a few of the songs we sang at the HPS benefit concert along with some songs in our repertoire that have not yet been recorded.  It's a fun process, but quite time consuming. 

We are scheduled to sing a couple of songs at our church tomorrow.  We're singing "The Prayer" with our choir director Paul and Candice and I are singing "I Bowed On My Knees and Cried Holy."  It is one of our favorite songs and one that has been requested by many people at our church.   We are looking forward to the Sunday services.  Hope you all have a wonderful Lord's day.

Psalm 100 NIV

¹ Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.

 ² Worship the LORD with gladness;
       come before him with joyful songs.

 ³ Know that the LORD is God.
       It is he who made us, and we are his ^[a] ;
       we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

 ⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving
       and his courts with praise;
       give thanks to him and praise his name.

 ⁵ For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
       his faithfulness continues through all generations.

I know it's been a long time since we've last updated.  We're both doing well, staying busy and looking forward to the summer.  I really can't believe it's already here.

After the benefit concert we took a break from singing for a couple weeks.  We had the opportunity to spend some time with friends that we had not seen in a while.  We're both doing well health wise other than dealing with allergies off and on.  Candice's allergies were so bad that it affected her asthma and she had to go on Prednisone for five days.  A week later I had the same thing, but mine turned into a sinus infection.  I did five days on the Z-pak and that seemed to clear it up.  We're both taking Allertec and it really does help.

Our sister Rhonda came down from Cottonwood to surprise our parents for Mother's day weekend.  She had told Candice and I, but we didn't tell our parents because we wanted them to be surprised.  The four of us spent the Friday before Mothers day shopping for mom.  We bought her a top and capris.  Rhonda helped mom pick out a nice purse for the summer.  We had a great visit with her.  We were all sad when she left to go back home.  

Our voice teacher Karen is putting together a recital in June for her students. and so we are working on our solo repertoire for that. 

This past Sunday we sang at the Salvation Army Phoenix Citadel.  We sang there about seven years ago, and Major and Mrs. Lacey invited us to come minister in their morning worship service.  We sang five songs including "God Bless America Medley."  We gave a brief testimony and our mom gave a greeting and shared about the trials we have gone through with our health challenges.  It was our first booking since the HPS benefit concert and it truly was a blessing.  We're so thankful the Lord is using us to spread HIS word.

We have some home projects we're currently working on.  Our parents are doing some remodeling in the kitchen.  Our dad added new cabinets and we are having new counter tops installed.  It will be awesome to have a nice new touch to our kitchen.  

Candice and I decided a couple of weeks ago, that it would be nice to have our own rooms.  Candice is staying in our room, and I am moving into the guest room.  We moved all my stuff over to my new room last week.  Our mom has decorated the room in spring colors with a garden theme and butterfly's.  We're also going to be using fairies and humming birds.   Candice's room is already decorated in the victorian era with angels and cherubs.  Her colors are burgandy and gold.  It's definitely keeping us busy and we're both enjoying having our own space as well.  

Romans 5:2-8 CEV

²Christ has also introduced us to God's undeserved kindness on which we take our stand. So we are happy, as we look forward to sharing in the glory of God. ³But that's not all! We gladly suffer, because we know that suffering helps us to endure. ⁴And endurance builds character, which gives us a hope ⁵that will never disappoint us. All of this happens because God has given us the Holy Spirit, who fills our hearts with his love. ⁶Christ died for us at a time when we were helpless and sinful. ⁷No one is really willing to die for an honest person, though someone might be willing to die for a truly good person. ⁸But God showed how much he loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful

We had our 10th annual HPS benefit concert last Friday evening and it was awesome!!   We had a pretty good turnout, and our voices held up relatively well.  We enjoyed seeing friends that we haven't seen in a while.  Candice and I sang seven duets and three trios. We started the concert with a praise and worship song called "Life of Praise" followed by "Jeruselam."  We also sang "The Blood Will Never Lose its Power.  Our parents have a recording of us singing "Jesus Loves Me" when we were two years old.  We sound like chipmunks.   After our dad played the recording, Candice and I sang an arrangement of "Jesus Loves Me" by the Gaithers.  We also sang "Thank You Jesus" after our aunt Judy shared our story.  Candice and I sang "Fairest Lord Jesus" accapella, it is one of our favoirte hymns.  We ended the concert with "The Prayer" and that has become a tradition as the words are so beautiful.  We had several guests perform as well.  Our long time friend John Edmonds sang several songs including a beautiful Easter song with his daughter Melanie.  Our friends Chuck Kinslow, Paul Nunez, Judy West, and Sue Jordin, vocalists from our church sang also.  Chuck performed his solo beautifully.  Candice and I sang a trio with Paul titled "If Anybody Knows."  It's a black spiritual and with really nice harmony.   We sang "Blue Skies" with Judy West and a trio with Sue Jordin "When God Whipers."  It's a jazzy swing style with a 40s feel to it and tight harmony.   Sue's husband Rick played "Chariots of Fire" and "The King is Coming" during the slide presentation and offertory.  Everyone did so amazing! I really think this year was one of the best concerts we've had.  So far as of Monday we have raised $1,531.62.  It's not as much as we raised last year, but that is understandable with the way the economy is right now.   Thank you to those who came out to support us at the concert, we so appreciate your love and support.  We had a wonderful time and we look forward to doing it again next year. 

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