The Time Has Come (and Past), and Come Again

I feel I need to apologize for the lack of posts to this blog in the past few months. The end of the school year was quite hectic, and right as summertime finally arrived, our faithful computer of five years finally bit the dust. We then went through a few more months of getting the computer repaired and back in our hands, so here at the end of the summer break (yes I have to go back on the 28th of this month, even though the kids don't return until the 25th of August; more on that in a moment) I felt the need to update our life.
So the end of the school year went well, and felt even better knowing that I would be employed at the same location when the next school year came around. In Karnes City we had a very warm spring-time, except for the one day in late April when the temperature dipped down into the 50s and the wind was blowing at around 25 mph. Needless to say this was the day we chose to have our concert, which wouldn't have been such as issue if we had not had it in the park! We also had the bright idea of making it the longest concert of the year with each group (HS concert band, JH concert band, 6th grade beginner band, 5th grade recorder ensemble, and the jazz band) all of which played around six pieces each. It was one of the most uncomfortable days I have spent in a performance situation. Hopefully next year will be neither too hot or too cold.
After the concert, the end of the year went well without too much drama. So we got to June and promptly sent our little one off to Houston to stay with her grandparents so Kayla and I could finally celebrate our 5 year anniversary almost when we're ready to celebrate our 6th year of marriage. We went to South Padre Island and had a wonderful time. We took a sand castle lesson and basically got an opportunity to reconnect with one another in a way that we haven't been able to in quite some time. Pictures of our excursion can be seen on Kayla's blog (http://www.meeplusthree.blogspot.com). One of the more memorable experiences we had was on our way home getting stopped in a border patrol checkpoint. The one question the officer asked us was "Are you citizens of the country?" of which we replied in the affirmative, and as we were driving away we found it odd that he didn't ask us which country we were citizens of. "Yes sir, we are citizens of the country, of course that country is Denmark, but whatever..."
We were also able to fill time in June through helping out in our local church by putting our musical expertise to the test in leading the music for Vuh-Vuh-VBS (for those that did the SBC version of Vacation Bible School, that's a little inside joke that I hope is humorous and brings back fond memories. I know it will for Kayla if no one else). We had a wonderful if exhausting week and it's always fun to interact with kids as they get to know Jesus through music. There's just something within most of us that draws us closer to God when we sing to Him than in most other forms of communication. I may be biased. The sad thing for me was that during the time leading up to VBS, we would have people come up to us either before or after church gatherings and tell me how glad they were that I was going to be leading the music for Vacation Bible School, when in all actuality it was my lovely wife who had volunteered and done all the leg work and taught a vast majority of the classes, but because of my position, people expected that it was me that was in charge. Fortunately after the week was completed my wife received some much needed "mad props" for all her hard work. UN-fortunately, our little one's schedule was thrown to heck through having both parents working in VBS and staying in the nursery each night. The first night was the worst. You can read more about that adventure again on my wife's blog mentioned above. Needless to say she did not get back on a normal sleep schedule until about the end of the first week of July, just in time for....

Over the River and Through the Woods...

So my child had just gotten back to a normal sleeping and daily schedule and we take her on the trip from Karnes City to Houston to Nashville to Epworth to Comer to Epworth again to Nashville again to Houston again to San Antonio to Karnes City in a whirlwind two weeks! We left our house in Karnes City on July 6th and will return on the 22nd in the early evening. And yes, we have spent time in each of the cities listed above. We drove from KC to Houston on the 6th and stayed with Kayla's parents until Tuesday morning, the whole while having our daughter running a 103 degree temperature daily, but we thought it started to go down when we left for the airport where we flew into Nashville because the tickets were $2oo cheaper than flying into the ATL. My parents picked us up and we drove to their house in Epworth. We spent time with them from the 8th until the 11th filling up our day with adventures to the local library, park, and neighbors house where we picked blueberries and apples right off the bush and tree. Now if that doesn't sound like a lazy country summer afternoon, I don't know what does. We left from my parents house on Saturday morning on what could possibly be our most fun and our saddest portion of our trip. We drove down to Athens to spend time with our wonderful friends the Neals and their new arrival, go to our home church (www.compasschurch.com), and spend time with our old small group. Along the way we saw my oldest friend from school, Kayla's horse guru, my grandparents, cousins and aunt and uncle, a few horses, and several of our favorite haunts in Athens.
I was also able to participate in one of the events I miss the most being so far away from Athens, the Compass Creative team meeting. This simple act of allowing myself to be creative in a church environment is one thing that I have sorely missed in our new surroundings. There are no real creative opportunities in the church setting we're in right now, other than possibly having a say in which hymn we sing and which verses we do. It was nice trying to figure out how to utilize video, painting, music, dance, and other creative expressions alongside title-ing upcoming series' for optimum impact as well as remaining biblically based.
Back to the trip. We spent what seemed like much too little time with Billy and Stephanie Neal and their new one Elijah with Kayla helping out Stephanie through reassurance and providing companionship as she is becoming a wonderful new mother, and I assisted Billy in becoming a new dad by sitting my child in front of a television while he and I played our way to saving the galaxy. Don't worry Kayla, it was only for one Curious George episode! We left today with much sadness. It is always very difficult to leave such good friends, especially when we don't have any as special to us where we are now. We can, however rest secure in knowing we are where God wants us to be. We have a few more days here with my parents followed by another trip to the Nashville airport back to Houston, then we go to San Antonio for lunch with Kayla's parents and aunt and uncle, then back to KC, where I will try to enjoy the last week of my summer vacation.
Starting on the 27th and 28th I get to attend the TBA (Texas Bandmaster's Association) convention in San Antonio, followed by a full month of band camp. To me, this seems excessive, but maybe that's how they do it in Texas. I certainly hope not; I don't think I can live with my summer so short. Anyways, now you're caught up and hopefully I will be more diligent in my blogging duties. I've said this before, and will say it again for those who have made it all the way to the end of these long blogs, please leave comments even if they are "I've read your blog." Just so I can know someone, anyone is reading this. To all those we were able to visit with during our travels, we were so happy we got to see you all and we dearly miss you (more than we will ever be able to put into words), and thank you all for your hospitality. I can't speak for the rest of my family, but you guys are what will always make Georgia home. Talk to you guys soon!

What a Week!

Let me start this blog by saying that I am thankfully on Spring Break this week, and so I survived this past week. For those that didn't know this past week was Concert Contest for my region. This is like the playoffs for band. If the playoffs didn't actually play against anyone but themselves, and had instruments, and were being conducted by someone, and were getting comments and being judged. Okay, so it's not exactky like playoffs, but it has the feeling of excited nervousness that comes when something big is about to happen. Anyways, my kids were fabulous on the week leading up to the performance. I had very few discipline problems and was able to get really focused. Unfortunately, that meant late nights where I couldn't get to sleep because I was thinking of things that needed to be fixed in the music, as well as still having to teach three other general music classes and two sixth grade classes of students who didn't participate. It also doesn't help to work with someone who gets really, really stressed out about two weeks before the performance event. So, like I said, life was a little rough this past week; but I survived and I was proud of my kids. They got an average rating, not any worse than they received last year and actually did a little better. The high school also did well. Anyway, I am taking a well-deserved break this week. We'll go to Kayla's parents house in the middle of this week and barring having to travel to San Antonio for the birth of our first niece, we should stay there through Easter. Should be fun. Hope everyone else is doing well!

Getting Ready

For those not from Texas, those letters stand for University Interscholastic League. To me it sounds like a superhero fighting team, but here it's the governing body for all things related to after-school and extra-curricular activities. As such, all I'm working on at work right now is getting my 7/8th graders ready to perform at the UIL contest where we will get a rating based on how well we play, and if it's a good judge, some constructive criticism. We have something equivalent to this in GA, but it's just called Festival. Anyways, UIL has a 19-page rulebook (FRONT AND BACK!-Sorry, had to slip in a Friends reference), for just this year's rule changes. Apparently, they change the rules each year in order to keep current. We have a concert next Sunday (3/9) as the final preparation for the UIL contest (3/10). Sorry there isn't any more exciting news to report. Hopefully all will go well, the kids will do well and feel good about their performance, and I won't have to worry about finding another job this next year.

One side note: I will be the first one to tell you that living here in TX is not as grand to me as everyone told me it was supposed to be, but to live in an area that is near a die-hard basketball town (San Antonio), and nothing else has left me longing for my two favorite sports: college football, and pro baseball. Fortunately, we live in a digital age, so I am able to keep up with the Braves and the Dawgs via the internet, but it makes me sad that I can't come home from church this summer, put on a baseball game that I care about the outcome and take a little nap. Probably just me, but it does make me sad. That's about all for now, as always, comments are appreciated!

The Big Bad Texas Convention

So, I just finished attending the Texas Music Educators Convention this past week in San Antonio. I really enjoyed listening to Tim Lautzenheiser speak (twice!). For those of you who aren't band dorks (and I'm guessing all of you are not), T.L. is the guy who wrote the band book my students use. He is an amazing motivational/reminder speaker and advocate for music education in this country. Did you know that 90% of all music students who go to college graduate? 90%!!! This in contrast to several universities who have sports programs trying to scrape by with 50%! Anyways, I also got to hear Sir James Galway speak and play (world-reknowned flute player, Kayla was very jealous!). The exhibition halls were quite large. They also included one college I didn't expect to be there. That's right, folks, the U of GA was there to recruit high school seniors. I immediately stopped by their booth, just to tell someone that I'm from Watkinsville and have them know where I'm talking about. It was pretty thrilling for me. In the halls, you had people selling instruments, fundraisers, music books, books on music, prizes, food, etc. Basically anything you could need to run a successful band program. Other than the exhibition halls being huge (these are two warehouse type rooms at the San Antonio Convention Center) and getting to hear Dr. Tim speak twice instead of once, it was basically the same experience I had last year at GMEA (Georgia). I did get to hear a wonderful rendition of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" performed by the Texas Tech orchestra. We were also able to stay with Kayla's brother and sister-in-law, and Brenna got to see her cousin. It was a good trip for all.

On the spiritual front, I've been studying the book of Romans since I heard Mark Driscoll give his thoughts on Predestination and used Ch. 9 to support most of his claims. I realized that I hadn't ever spent too much time in that book of the Bible, so I'm checking it out and God's opening my eyes about a lot of things.

Other than that, it's been a pretty quiet week. Just trying to survive through the concert contest season with a co-worker who feels her entire career lives or dies on the performance. If you know me, I've already talked to you about this and I don't need to expound any more than that. That's all for now. I've got to go get Brenna, I've left the Veggies to babysit for me while I catch up on much-needed blogging. I'm such a bad parent, please don't call DFACS! Thanks!

So Much I Don't Know

So there were two major events this week in the world that is Nathan's. Both happened within the space of a few hours, the first occured while listening to a podcast of Mark Driscoll out of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. He was talking about predestination. Now, I'm not one who believes in predestination, otherwise God wouldn't have given us, His creation, free will. However, Driscoll was making very valid points until he got to the main meat of his sermon and he started using the term "some". At this point, I stopped taking notes and went straight to my Bible to try and determine if anywhere in the translation I had did it say "some" in the passages he was using. I couldn't find any, but I haven't had a chance to search other translations, or the original text. My gut tells me, however, that it doesn't ever say "some." What I do know is that there is definitely so much I don't know about the topic. I'll get back to you guys on this.
The next event that goes with the title of this blog happened yesterday in Arlington, TX. I attened a conducting symposium and was reminded of several good habits to continue and other techniques that I had never thought of that need to be added to my repetoire. Again, though, there is so much I don't know about what I do. The good news is I learn so much everyday, that hopefully I will know a bit more than I do now. That's the goal of professional life anyway, right. Okay, read and discuss.
On a side note, it's Kayla's birthday today (2/10), and I've really enjoyed watching Brenna all day follow mom around and say "Happy! Happy!" which is the only word at the moment in the phrase "Happy Birthday" she can say. The really fun part will be next week when it's my birthday to look at the confusion that will surely be on her face as she tries to comprehend that my birthday is as close as it is to Kayla's. My fear is that the next week, she will try to assign a birthday to anything else, because Sundays must be birthdays! Anyway, that's the life of this Jones this week. Talk to you guys later!

Wake Me Up, When September (Oct., Nov., Dec., Jan.) Ends!

Wow,

I hadn't realized until I was on the phone the other day with a friend of mine that I hadn't updated this blog since last summer! Oops, I forgot one of the reasons people might want to read this is to keep in touch with what's been going on with the Jones family! I will try to do better than one post every five months! Bear in mind that this entry may be a little long due to the length between entries.

Since my last entry, I have been working as the assistant band director at Karnes City HS and as the head director at KC Junior High. We've already had several performances and I've had many successes and "learning experiences" as their teacher. The latest of these was solo and ensemble festival this past weekend. We travelled on a bus for an hour to get to the location and then I went in with the Jazz Band to play our selections to get our rating and comments. We went into the room with a woodwind ensemble from our school as well. When we got done and I had begun to help other students reach their room assignments on time, one of my jazz students came up to me and said, "Mr. Jones, did you see we got a III rating!" A freakin' III! Are you kidding me?! I don't think I was as upset at the fact that we received a III (which for you non-band dorks is an average with II being above and a I being superior), but that the woodwind ensemble that went before us got a II! I even asked some of the kids who were in both if they felt the ratings should have been reversed, and all said yes.

I digress...We're now working on getting ready for our Concert Band Contest, so I'll try and keep everyone up to date as far as the progress goes there.

On another note, we had TAKS testing last week, which is basically Texas standardized testing, so I was stuck in the gym for all but one day last week. This enabled me to listen to some really outstanding podcasts that I had been neglecting since my job got so hectic. It really makes me miss a church like Compass in Athens when I'm able to hear the podcast and hear some of the dangerous steps they're taking as a church this year. I also thoroughly enjoyed Mark Driscoll's take on God's sense of humor and Village Church's trip through the Gospel of Luke. It also reminded me of just how far I've drifted from God as far as quiet time with Him in study and prayer. I have begun this week to try and remedy that. Downside being that my new wake-up time is 5AM! At least it truly is "quiet time!"

Kayla and Brenna are doing well. They are a little (lot) bored here with no stay at home moms in the area really and no groups to participate in. In fact, the other day, Brenna was getting bored and asked to go to Wal-Mart (the only place to go around here) to quell her boredom. If you want to know more about their daily lives, check out Kayla's blog at: http://www.meeplusthree.blogspot.com/. It really is fun to watch our daughter grow. I think we will only be here in the great KC for a total of three years. It's a good time to have on the resume, I should be able to gauge what I've taught the kids I've had, and I will have had the opportunity to learn more tricks of the trade. It's not that we don't love the people here, or the kids, Lord knows they're fantastic (especially after last year), but there's just nothing here to truly plug Kayla, Brenna, and myself into this community.

Okay, I may have rambled for enough this time. My parting thought will be that it's the beginning of February, my birthday is coming up in 12 days (28 this year), it's 83 degrees outside (gotta love south-Texas weather), bring on the baseball season! Talk to ya'll later!