Some Coles Christmas

Tyson is such a great big brother.

Grandma and Keely asleep on the couch.

More Keely

A kiss from her big brother.

Ready to go home.

Sleeping at home.

Awake time at home

KEELY"S HERE!!!

Here she is! So beautiful and so perfect. She arrived on December 17 at 1:21am central time and is 7 lbs 6 ounces, 19 1/2 inches long. Mom was amazing! It was a natural birth (That right. No pain killers.) and she only pushed for 7 minutes. WOW!

Merry Christmas from the Coles'!

Just click on the little link picture above.

Tis The Season

This Thanksgiving break has been so relaxing. First a birthday on Wednesday then a simple yet perfect Thanksgiving with just our little family and then today, decorating for Christmas and movie watching. Tyson has had a blast with "helping decorate." He won't let go of the horn. We borrowed the tree from a friend. It's weird to have a fake tree. I've been spoiled my whole life with beautiful Oregon Noble trees. I sure miss the sent of a fresh tree.

AVB

So this weekend was a pretty big deal for me. A group who I have grown up listening to asked me to do the vocal percussion for them. It was a reunion of sorts for the guys. They sang 3 songs at our church service this morning and I did perc. on 2 of them. We also did about 5 songs for the youth group off mic before service. What a blast! Not only was it fun to just be with these guys but to jam was so sweet. After we first got started Brishan Hatcher made the comment of, "So should we do 1 or 2 gigs a month." I'm hoping to post some video later, but for now here are some pics.



Thank you Jay, Max, Brian, Brishan, and Wes for this great time. Thank you to Paul and Russell for mixing us and for the new friendship. You were all such a blessing to me this weekend.

Missing Them So Much

Serena, Tyson, and of course Keely left for Canada on the 29th and won't get back till the 12th. I miss them so much! It's rough to eat by myself and to not be getting all the hugs and kisses I'm accustomed to. I look foward to their awesome smiles and love face to face again on Friday.

Holy Crazy Life Batman!

School and work and New Reign and family and..... yeah, life have been so crazy lately. This weekend for example was tough cookies. Thursday I went to my classes then ate dinner and went to scope out a painting job that needed to be done before Saturday. These folks called me and asked me if I could paint a couple of rooms for them before their moving truck arrived on Saturday. So being the poor man that I am, I accepted. Big mistake! Serena, Tyson, and I all went out there to see the work and Serena helped me mask off the two rooms. Of course these rooms have the most cabinets in them than any other rooms in the house. Thursday we got the masking done and after my morning classes I set off to start my painting at about 1pm. 16 hours later I'm rushing out the door to get home so I could get cleaned up for a New Reign concert in eastern Oklahoma. We departed at 6am so we could get there and soundcheck before our 10:30am concert. (which is a whole other ballgame) We arrived back home just after 4pm and then finally at 10pm I got to go to sleep. I was out! By the way. I still didn't get the painting done when I left so my awesome and loving wife had to go out there and finish for me. She dropped off Tyson with some family friends who offered to help us out anytime. (Praise God for the Brazle's) And 4 hours later, Serena was walking out their door just as the moving company was coming in. Hopefully we won't have to do this again.

So Close Yet 1887.2 Miles Too Far

The last couple of weeks have been so difficult when it comes to decision making. Only one decision needed to be made, but we were so torn. My prayers increased greatly and my confusion even more. Do we move back to Oregon or stay in Oklahoma? Before we left Oregon and on the way down we felt that we were going to move back to Oregon. Then while driving in Denver I received a call from my friend Wes McKinzie who happens to be the director of the acappella music recruiting group for my school. He asked if I would join. Doing this would increase my yearly scholarship $10,000. Thanks a lot Wes....Now we have an even tougher decision. More prayer and questioning happened, and finally this morning after talking to my Mom again, we decided to stay. (Which is amazing in itself since my Mom has the most bias opinion out of anyone.) It's going to be tough to not see the NW for at least 7 months. We can't travel for the winter holidays due to our baby girl, so we'll have to wait at least till spring break if not till the summer. There is a possibility that the group I'll be with will head up to the NW so I'll keep y'all updated on that. Please pray for our family as we work hard to balance family, school, work, and whatever comes our way. Finances are still really difficult and finding the time to work will be even more now that I'll be in the group. Praise God for His faithfulness to our family and for His constant blessings.

By the way. Our little girl is Keely Elizabeth.

MANY PICS FROM OUR OREGON TRIP

So I didn't stay up with our trip. Sorry about that. I'm just going to post lots of pics and make small comments.

This is Serena and Tyson at Peter and Lindsey's wedding. Such a beautiful winery.



Lake Shasta, CA



Tyson loved Sam. Sam has gotten so old, but Tyson still calls him puppy. Tyson became Sam's shadow.


Here is a early morning pic from the Columbia River Gorge


Some mountains in eastern Oregon.


Mountains in Utah.


Really cool lookin' rocks in Wyoming.


Here we are in Colorado. I thought the Rocky Mountains would be a lot rockier than this.



Tyson did so well on the very long trips both to Portland and then back down to OKC.

On The Road

Yesterday we left on our "big trip." Starting at 5:45am (Central Time) we started heading west on I-40 and kept on going. Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and then into California. We finished our traveling day at 7:45pm (Pacific Time) and we were so proud of how well Tyson did. There were a couple of "moments" of meltdown, but for a 2 year old boy who had a fever, he did so well. Day 2 (today) was only California. We left Needles, CA at 7:45am and arrived at Santa Rosa, CA about 5:45pm. Day 2 wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for the dumb drivers. Saturday is my friend Peter Wilson's wedding so we get to enjoy some time here in Cali with some great friends. A reunion of East County CofC family. Sunday we will leave for Portland and be there for about 1 1/2 weeks. I have a feeling that this trip will make it hard to go back to Oklahoma. I forgot how much I missed the mountains. Here are a couple of pics from the border of Arizona and California.

Fun With The Cousins

Tyson had a blast like he always does with his cousins. We headed down to my sisters place on Thursday evening and left on Sunday after lunch. Saturday I spent my day hanging out with the Acappella guys and enjoyed a great concert that night at the church where my sister attends. Here are a few pics of the kids playing in the $20 pool my sister bought for them. It was a great deal for all that was included. I love this last pic with Braden and Tyson holding hands.

ACAfest and Reunion

This last week was such a blast. I headed up to Nashville, TN on Tuesday with a couple of guys from Oklahoma and then got back on Sunday about midnight. Throughout the week I was busy mostly hanging out with Zach and other friends who live in Nashville, but I also was attending some classes of ACAfest. One night was a surprise when I ended up eating dinner with my Aunt and Uncle Joyce and Hugh. My Uncle James lives there in Nashville and Joyce and Hugh happened to pass through on the way to Indiana. It was nice to catch up with family. On Saturday night ACAfest was celebrated with a 25th Reunion Concert with Acappella. WOW! What a concert. There were some sound issues and for some reason I ended up running sound for the second half. The line-up consisted of the "Fab Four" (Wayburn Dean, George Pendergrass, Gary Moyers, Duane Adams) then Rodney Britt, Keith Lancaster, Gary Evans, and the current five members. Keith wanted to pay for everyone from the past to come, but the budget wouldn't allow it. He's hoping to have past members come back each year for the ACAfest concert. It would be a great event to attend consistantly. Here are a few pics from practice, and soundcheck. I'll try to post some video later.

Spoiled

Look at me! The spoiled child of God who gets cool toys. I've recently made the choice to start and do some recording. So with student discounts, I got a new computer and a Mbox 2. The Mbox came with Protools for recording which is a bit of a learning curve for me. I love my MacBook Pro. I'm not sure why I wasn't a Mac person before. After all this time, I'm not sure why I spent money money on other things in life when I could have invested more into the craft and art I love. Now I have a chance to enjoy this music in my head forever.


This photo is taken inside a practice room here at OC. The mic, stand, and headphones I've had for a long time, but I just got the computer and Mbox. Currently I'm recording a song for someone that was our neighbor here on campus. She is getting married in August and needs an acappella version of Butterfly Kisses. I'm curious how it will turn out, being the first song I'm doing.

Tyson's Party

So over the weekend we were blessed to have my family come into town to celebrate Tyson's birthday. The theme as you can see was CARS. Lightning McQueen made his presence as our cake (It was oh so good. White cake with bavarian cream filling.) and we were joined by friends from church and Serena's nanny family. Serena is so awesome. She puts such hard work into making things so wonderful. Her cakes are the bomb and she is such a servant. She also made a cake for my dad (his birthday was May 2) when they first flew in on Thursday. This cake was chocolate with the bavarian cream filling and topped with crushed Butterfingers. I beleive this was my favorite of all. It was so moist and had such great flavor.