Jody's surgery went smoothly and he is doing well tonight. Praise God!! Thanks for your prayers and support. Please keep him, as well as our parents in your prayers as they try to care for him the best they can. We know God is in control and Jody is in His hands. Thanks so much for all your love and support for our family.
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
As we say goodbye to 2008, we have so many things to be thankful for this past year. Our health has stayed stable and the Lord opened doors for our ministry allowing us the opportunity to sing in many places. Ministering at the Twins Convention in August and meeting other sets of twins was one of the big highlights of this past year. It was an experience we will never forget. We had the opportunity to minister at several Ladies events as well. The laddies spring tea, we sang at in March was a such a blessing for our family. So many memorable moments to ponder about. The new CD "Thank You Jesus" was also an answer to prayer. God is so good! As we end another year and begin a new one, we pray that 2009 will be another year that we can continue to honor and glorify our Savior. We wish each and everyone a happy and healthy year!
We had a very nice Christmas. We spent it here at home with our family. Jody, Candice and I opened the gifts from our parents in the morning. Candice and I received some really nice things, including two new Christian novels, some clothes, jewelry, two beautiful Angels for our room, Mandisa's CD and Mario Kart for the Wii. It's a racing game and we've played it several times before with friends. We've had some practice playing the past couple days and we're on our way to becoming pros. 
Our friends Andy and Joanne gave us the Wii outdoor challenge and it looks like a lot of fun. We have not played it yet, but we plan to soon. Our parents baked a ham for our Christmas dinner and Anjeli, Jasmine, Sanjay, Aunt Judy and our cousin Barry as well as Chris, who is a dear friend of our family, spent the afternoon with us. Chris was our grandma's care giver when she was placed into a care home. Anjeli brought a smoked turkey and Aunt Judy brought a pot roast. We had all kinds of food. We had mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, veggies, cranberries and fruit salads as well as pumpkin pie and cherry pie, with vanilla ice cream. After dinner we played on the Wii. Anjeli had bought Jasmine the Wii Fitness for Christmas and so we tried it out and boy if you really want to get into shape that is the thing to do. It is most definitely a challenge. When everyone left, the five of us took a drive around the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights. That was one of our traditions as kids. We loved going out after the Christmas Eve service and looking at light displays. It's so fun!
Last week we enjoyed Christmas gatherings with family and friends. Candice is feeling a lot better, she had to go back on 40mg of Prednisone for five days as she was having difficulty breathing. We sang at church the Sunday before Christmas and she had to use oxygen that morning because she was really struggling and could not stop coughing. We were so thankful the Lord gave her the strength to get through both our duet and trio with Sue. It was really amazing. We had our family get together that afternoon in Cottonwood at our sister Rhonda's home. We had a wonderful time opening gifts and playing the white elephant gift game. There were 18 of us and it was exciting being there and seeing our great nephew Austin and great niece Leah again. Austin is 8 months now and crawling and Leah just turned 7 months yesterday. They are both so cute and getting big. It was fun to watch everyone open their gift from their secret santa. My secret santa was Austin and Candice's was Danielle. It was too funny!! We each got a cute pair of striped socks, a necklace and some really pretty earrings. The white elephant game is always a blast. There were some silly gifts as well as nice gifts. Each year someone gets "snowman poop" and this year our mom was the one the lucky one. HA! Aunt Judy got it last year and wrapped it again for this year. It's a big stocking filled with marshmallows. It usually comes with a little poem. Mom will have to wrap it up for next year. It's interesting to see who opens it yearly. We finished the evening with a round of Catch Phrase which has become our family game. It's a great one to play when you have a big group of people.
This Christmas season we've had several gatherings with friends. We invited some friends over for food, and fellowship a couple of weeks ago. We were also invited to the home of Celeste and Dr. Jain's for a gathering last Monday. They are an Eastern Indian couple whom we met at the Logos Mission Church. They are both so sweet and have our family over at least a couple times a year. Celeste also invited some other Indian families. She knows we are unable to eat spicy food, so she cooked us a chicken and rice dish which was delicious. We had a wonderful time of food and fellowship. Candice and I sang a couple of Christmas songs, and we all joined in for a Christmas carol sing along. It really put us in the Christmas spirit.
We trully enjoyed our time with friends and family during the month of December. As Christians our hope is in our Lord. HE is the reason we celebrate. Dad, Candice and I are going to Pastor Thomas and Suchetta's home this evening for dinner and a time of fellowship. Mom had surgery on her left eye yesterday. So, she is recovering right now. She had a horrible night and has been in more pain this time. If you could please remember her in prayer, we would greatly appreciate it. She said she would just like to get through these next few days. May the Lord bless you abundantly this New Year.
Check the Photos Page, click on Photos Christmas 2008 for slide show.
Merry Christmas from Angels In Voice Candice and Crystal, will update later.