Summer 2015 | California

When my sister, Sarah, and I left Utah in March (see previous blog posts), our friends told us about how pretty Temple Square is at Christmas, and how we should come for the Vocal Point concerts in December, and how much fun we'd have skiing...to which we replied, "That would be great! But we can't afford it!" So we left, not knowing if or when we'd be back. We told our friends they should come to the beaches in Alabama and Florida this summer,

and they said they'd love to, so we were all hoping that would happen...maybe.

Fast forward one month to early April. We realized neither our schedules nor our Utah friends' would work out for any of them to come to the South for a visit...and at the same time, we realized that some very dear friends of ours would be celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary (!!!) in California in early August. We also had the thought that ReMix Vocal Academy would be going on right around that same time, and we just might be able to see our friends in California and go to the ReMix concerts all in the same week. (ReMix is a week-long acappella singing summer camp that Vocal Point helps put on every year.)

We quickly made phone calls and had FaceTime chats and looked up flight prices and next thing we knew, our summer travel plans were set!

(We were thinking there would be no way we could afford the airfare, but Southwest Airlines has some incredibly low prices and we booked the whole trip--all three legs of it--for $600! We are so thankful for the Lord's timing and provision!)

So, the last week in July, we found ourselves at the New Orleans airport. We were so happy to be flying again.

We recreated a photo we took in March. :)




We waved goodbye to NOLA...


...and, a few hours later, said hi to San Diego!


When we booked our flights, we were sad when we realized we wouldn't have a long enough stop in San Diego to see our dad's cousin Alice. But when we arrived in San Diego, we found out our next flight had been delayed an hour! So I called Cousin Alice and asked if she might by any chance be able to drive over to the airport! She said, "Yes! Give me 20 minutes and I'll be there!" We ended up having only about 5 minutes to see her but it was wonderful.


Soon, we were back in the air over the beautiful California coast.


I'm pretty sure that's the Santa Monica Pier. :)


We landed in San Jose and immediately decided it's one of the coolest airports ever.

Our dear friends in California are a precious couple who we call Uncle Dale and Aunt Gladys. Not sure why we call them our uncle and aunt since they're our grandparents' age! Uncle Dale was my parents' realtor when they bought their first house in Salinas, California years ago! He and Aunt Gladys and my parents became close friends during the time they lived there. They've treated Sarah and me like their own grandchildren ever since we were born, sending us birthday and Christmas presents every single year. We couldn't think of not going to California to celebrate their 70th anniversary with them!


They live in a dear little house that's full of love and memories and things that are special to them.


The weather was gorgeous.


Sarah and I were twinsies with our TOMS. :)


Can you believe they're 90?! I think the California weather keeps them looking young.


Here they are with their wedding cake topper!


The second day we were there, their son, Mr. Larry, and his wife, Mrs. Deb, took Sarah and me down the coast to Big Sur. We loved seeing it when we were there two years ago and were so glad to go there again.


The famous Bixby Bridge




"Let the lower lights be burning / send a gleam across the wave / some poor fainting, struggling seaman / you may rescue, you may save."


We had a scrumptious breakfast at the River Inn!




No, you're not seeing things. Those really are Adirondack chairs in the stream!




As we traveled back up Highway 1, the fog cleared and we were able to see more of the coastline. It's so beautiful!

(Come to think of it, this picture may have been taken on the way down there earlier that morning.)


Seeing road signs like these made it seem more real...places like this do exist, not just in pictures! :)


We asked Mr. Larry and Mrs. Deb if we could drive over to Monterey Bay, and they happily obliged.


Lover's Point/Asilomar Beach






We drove by the Monterey Bay Aquarium on our way back...we loved seeing it two years ago!


I love the architecture on Cannery Row.


The Salinas Valley truly is America's salad bowl. Fresh vegetables and fruit (mostly lettuce and strawberries) are grown all over.


Aunt Gladys painted these! That's the Lone Cyprus at Pebble Beach.

Here we are! It was a short but wonderful two days with them. How thankful we are to have them in our lives!

Next stop: Utah!

Stories & Songs: Summer 2014

 Happy August, friends!

I had the thought to start a series of blog posts with "summer" music...a while back...in July...but then we went out of town for a couple weeks and I never did get around to it. But, seeing as to the fact that it's still very much summer here in South Mississippi, and it will be summer until around the end of September...I decided to go on ahead and put all these songs into one blog post!

Every summer I end up with a handful of songs that I listen to over and over, and when I listen to them later in the year, they remind me of that summer. There are songs I listened to 3 years ago that still remind me of the summer of 2011! The following songs are from the past couple of years, and are generally upbeat, happy tunes that remind me of my favorite season ever.

P.S....there are 15 songs in this post. You might wanna bookmark this post and come back to it so you can listen to all of them...because it's going to take a while. :)

Enjoy!

Keith Urban - Til Summer Comes Around

This will probably forever be my favorite summer song. It's a little on the sad side, yes, but for some reason I just really love it. It tells the story of an amusement park that closes down in the winter and a guy who stays "frozen in this town / til summer comes around", waiting for the girl he loves to come back. (Read the story behind the song here.) The music video is beautiful; it was filmed at the Santa Monica Pier in California and is the cause of my obsession with that place. We drove by the pier last summer and weren't able to see it...but it's on my bucket list!

Charlie Worsham - Mississippi in July

Charlie is a native of Grenada, Mississippi and won the Junior National Banjo Competition when he was 12. He's every bit as talented and hard-working as Hunter Hayes...just not as high-energy! When I first heard about Charlie last year, I picked this song as the first of his that I wanted to listen to. I was immediately impressed. Charlie's talent as a songwriter really shows through in this story set to music. (Listen to him tell the story behind the song here.)

Eric Church - Springsteen

I can't say I've ever intentionally listened to any of Bruce Springsteen's music (though I've probably heard it in a store or some place before), and the same could be said for many of the people listening to this song. It simply tells the story of a guy who wonders if the girl he once knew remembers him when she hears the music they listened to together. One of my favorite lyrics is "Funny how a melody sounds like a memory / like a soundtrack to a July Saturday night / Springsteen".

Ben Rector - Thank God for the Summertime

Ben is honestly one of the funniest people I follow on Twitter (next to Dave Barnes, of course, and if you read their conversations back and forth you'll be in stitches). Thus, many of his songs are fun to listen to! This lighthearted song captures the essence of summer perfectly: "And if it's late, we'll sleep in / cause every day is like the weekend / thank God for the months after May!"

Brad Paisley - Beat This Summer

My sister, Sarah, discovered this song over a year ago and it was one of a few dozen that we bought on iTunes before embarking on The Grand Trip Out West last year. "As long as I live, whatever I do / as great as it is, you know what's a bummer / I ain't ever gonna beat this summer with you."

We'll certainly never top the once-in-a-lifetime trip to California and back!

Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors - Live Forever

I've blogged about this song before, but since the music video screams summer, here it is again. :)

Jason Gray - Good to Be Alive

I bought this song before my family took our camper up to the mountains in North Carolina 2 years ago and listened to it a lot back then. It always reminds me of sitting in the camper, listening to the afternoon rains fall and the mountain stream rush by. "I wanna live like there's no tomorrow / love like I'm on borrowed time / it's good to be alive".

Jillian Edwards - No Other Plans

Whenever I hear Jilly's sweet voice singing this song, I think of our trip to Texas 2 years ago. She has a talent for writing beautiful lyrics and melodies, that's for sure. "I've got no other plans that are written or stacked in my head / I've got thousands of things I could just leave unsaid / we can move along, a chorus needs a song..."

Keith Urban - Days Go By

Another one of my favorite Keith songs. "The days go by / I can feel 'em flyin' like a hand out the window as the cars go by / it's all we've been given, so you better start livin' / you better start livin' right now!"

Hunter Hayes - Better Than This

When Hunter released (ENCORE), the deluxe edition of his debut record, we were in the middle of California in June last year. This song is still one of my favorites. It tells the story of every singer, songwriter, or musician who dreams of "making it" one day in Nashville. "Could be a dead end road / I could be chasin' down a broken dream / but I don't even know / just where this road is gonna lead / it's a mystery / oh, ain't life a trip, no, it don't get better than this."

MercyMe - This Life

Another song I've blogged about before - "Hold your heads up high, this is the moment to rise / we were meant to shine, not just survive!"

Steven Curtis Chapman - Live Out Loud

Driving around in a VW van and handing everybody speakers? "Wake the neighbors, get the word out / come on, crank up the music / climb a mountain and shout / this is life we've been given, meant to be lived out / so la-la-la-la-live out loud!" Gotta love SCC.

Owl City - Fireflies

A couple years ago, during the trials for Olympic gymnastics, someone made a really sweet montage video for Nastia Liukin after she didn't qualify for the US team. They used this music in the video, and ever since then, it's reminded me of that summer. Besides, it's just a fun song to listen to!

Chris Rice - Life Means So Much

"Teach us to count the days / teach us to make the days count / lead us in the narrow way / somehow our souls forgot / life means so much."

A beautiful song from a gifted songwriter.

BYU Vocal Point - Good Time

Last but not least....my latest musical obsession: Vocal Point from BYU! If you've read this blog before, you know how much I love a capella music...and I was thrilled to discover just how unbelievably talented this group is. I'm going to put together a separate blog post with some of my favorite songs/performances of theirs soon, but for now, enjoy this cover of the Owl Ciy + Carly Rae Jepsen hit from the summer of 2012...complete with backflips mid-performance. :)

For the love of music,

Rebekah