Road Life Comedy {Part One}

(photography credit StyleLife Photography)

Most of you already know this, but for those of you who don't, I am somewhat of a "transplant". Half of the year I live on a farm with my family. The other half of the year I travel the world, quite literally. Each lifestyle is full of action and I really do love them both, most of the time.
But the road life in particular seems to lend itself to some hilarious moments.
I think it's because we meet so so SO many different people, and whenever you meet that many different people, you are bound to have some, ahem, "different" situations crop up.
Now, we do have an unwritten rule that "what happens on the bus stays on the bus", meaning that there are just certain things that happen on the road that I won't ever be sharing with the general public. But, some things are appropriate to share, and since people are constantly asking me about life on the road, I thought y'all might enjoy a little "inside scoop" of sorts on some of the funny things that happen every now and then.

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*Little boy who was talking to me at our product table after a concert,
Him: "So are any of you orphans?" (I think he meant to say "adopted"=))

*Little girl, also at the product table, a different time,
Her: "So how old are you?"
Me: "I'm twenty-four."
Her: "Wow...twenty-four and NOT MARRIED?" (in an "I can't believe my ears" tone)
Me: (trying not to laugh) "Yes, dear child, it is possible."

*Picking at a hang nail that starts bleeding profusely, and the next song up is a piano song that I am supposed to play on. I do my best to play but its hard when my finger is bleeding and blood is going all over the keyboard keys. I end up with a bloody keyboard.

*Very accidentally meeting the pastor of a particular church in my PJ's one memorable night. One of my most humbling experiences to date.
(this is what comes from deciding to set up a church at 11pm one night. We were all in our PJs but no one was "supposed" to be there so who cares, right? As we were in the middle of singing all of the crazy tunes that we sing when no one else is around, possibly complete with several crazy dance moves, all whilst setting up...in walks the pastor. I agree-what is a pastor doing in his church at 11 o'clock at night?! There was nothing to be done but introduce ourselves, PJs and wild pew dance and all.

*Getting hiccups in the middle of a song. #worstfeelingever

*Eating peanut m&m's right before going on stage and feeling bits and pieces still sticking to the inside of my mouth and corners of my lips...fifteen minutes later.

*Finally switching my purity ring from my left hand to my right hand because it was just getting really ridiculous how many people were wanting to start a conversation about my engagement. #goodgrief

*The friend that calls and tells you that they are "sending" a special "someone" to your concert. Whereupon you resolve to call in sick that night....and your family protests loudly for more reasons than one.

*Being served sloppy joes three meals in a row. it was yummy! But it was just funny too.

*Times when an anonymous Bontrager writes out the concert song list and adds different words to make us laugh, but we don't realize the change until we are in the middle of the concert.
example: "Goodnight Smooch" instead of "Goodnight Kiss".
Also there are quite a few of us right now that are more or less in "that time of life",  so recently someone wrote on the songlist "Someone You Can MEET" instead of "Someone You Can Reach"
Just for a joke. =)

*A certain individual getting so involved in their book on the front row that they don't realize it is time for their solo until another sibling comes to the mic and calls them up in front of everyone
#embarrassingforthem #funnyforus

*Backing up on stage to move out of someone's way and backing right into a mic stand that was left out. This is followed by what seemed like an agonizingly long time of arms, instrument, and legs flailing as I try to regain my balance. Thank-goodness this ended in me still being upright.
(although barely)

*A guy comes up to the cd table and says "So what's the purpose of that thing on your head?"
 (boho styled headband)
In my mind I said "Excuse me, sir? Is this still the land of the free or not?"
But in reality I was sweet and said, "Well, it's for decoration."

*I am sitting on the front row of a church. It is literally one minute before the concert is going to start and I suddenly FREAK OUT because I realize I forgot to remove my week-old red nail polish remnants! How could I have forgotten? At this stage in time my nails look like I'm still in that three yr old stage when they just let the polish wear off and don't care how bad it looks. I mentally resolve NEVER to paint my fingernails again...it's just too much upkeep.

*But then whats even worse...is we did the concert, (me with bad nails and all) and after the concert I totally forget about my nails. Until the next night when I am at a different church and on the front row once again, one minute before the concert, and I catch a glimpse of my horrible nails and barely manage to suppress a shriek, realizing that I once again forgot to remove the polish! And although I didn't think it possible last night, in reality, tonight the nails look even worse.
Brother to the rescue loaned me his pocket knife and I FRANTICALLY begin scraping those nails. I wasn't able to get it all off in the one minute I had but all through the concert, every spare minute, I was trying to pick off nail polish remnants. Never again.

*Out and about one day, at Subway, and the lady behind the counter begins a conversation with me as I'm digging in my purse trying to locate the correct amount of change.
Her: "Are you Italian?"
Me: "No."
Her: "Are you Greek?"
Me: "No."
Her:"Well then, what are you?"
Me: (counting out my change and not thinking) "Um, I'm part German. And part Indian. And...uh, part regular?"
Whereupon we all laughed-me, the lady, and the guy making my sub.
Regular? Where did that come from? No idea...

*Having an eyelash stuck inside my eyelid for the entire concert, and being unable to do anything about it. #painful

*Thinking about something else entirely, and skipping to the ending of the song while siblings continue singing the correct part...and then we all stop and laugh and I try to recollect what song we were even singing because I was seriously in another world. The audience is sitting there obviously not getting the joke and we are all just DYING laughing although trying to pull ourselves together. I tried to explain to the audience what happened but obviously it isn't possible to communicate correctly so finally I just manage to squeak out, "I think we will just move to the next song" and you do just that, while your parents are in the front row dying of mortification at their scatterbrained daughter. (Unfortunately this scenario has happened to us more than once. And I'm not always the one at fault either...)

*Thinking if I had a dollar for every grandma who told me that I needed to meet her grandson...I'd be one rich lady! (hehe)

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Ha, I'm laughing again as I finish up this post, re-living some of these moments!

By the way, I threw in "part one" with my title, thinking that I might have to do another post like this after I collect a number of stories again... 

Please leave a comment and let me know if you liked the post and would like to see more like this!

-Chels

Life Lessons From the Calf Pen

You wouldn't think it maybe, but I am pretty sure that some of life's greatest lessons can be learned living on a farm. Its a simple country life...but there are such rich truths that come out in just the everyday nitty gritty of living on a farm + working with animals.

One of my first farm chores as a child was feeding our baby calves with my younger brother. We were just big enough to manage the bottles and I remember such feelings of satisfaction knowing that because of our work, those little calves had full tummies. At the tender ages of seven and six, we had such a sense of accomplishment and achievement knowing that we were doing our part to make this farm run.

In the recent years, I haven't been involved as much with the animals on our farm. But I still love filling in for my brothers occasionally with the calf chores. Last fall I took over for a month so they could spend every possible minute preparing for the national Bible Bee. It was such fun to do again...I loved it. 

It just so happened that over this time we had quite a few new baby calves that were born. For those of you farmers reading this, you know about this!

But for everyone else I will explain. 

Getting a newborn baby calf to latch on to the bottle can be a pretty difficult job. Every calf is different, some more stubborn than others, but most will fight this new thing that is being forced into their little mouths. 

There was one particular morning that I was dealing with an exceptionally stubborn baby calf. Try as I might, I could just not convince this calf to take the bottle. It just wanted nothing to do with me or the bottle. 

Now, I knew it was starving hungry, and that it both needed and wanted the milk. The problem was, it didn't realize that the source for its comfort was in this strange contraption I was trying to force into its mouth.

I took the nipple and squirted some warm milk towards the calf's mouth. The poor little baby about went crazy---jerking its head this way and that, trying to find the source of that delicious nourishment. But every time i would bring the nipple up to its mouth, it would shove away, as if determined to find the milk source on its own.

We had a full-fledged battle, baby calf + I. You would think I would have been the easy winner, but this little calf was fully as stubborn as I was and bent on doing everything BUT what I was trying to make it do---drink that milk!

After quite the little battle, I was the winner and the calf finally latched on and started drinking. 

And this all made me think....

You know, I am such a baby calf sometimes. Sometimes I am just so sure that I know what I need to grow. I am the calf, and God is holding the "bottle" of my life. The bottle is that lesson, or character quality, or that something particular that He knows I need to learn in order to GROW. And the only way for me to grow + get the milk, is to latch on to His bottle! He knows that I need this milk in order to grow in life. He has my best interests at heart + He knows that learning this milk is vital to my spiritual growth.

And me? Oh yes, I am definitely wanting the milk. Absolutely! I want spiritual growth in my life. I want God's blessings + instruction. But too often I don't realize that the milk is coming from the bottle. I am so sure that I can find the source for the milk on my own. Even though He is so gently and surely trying to guide + show me, I resist, wanting to find the "milk" my way. 

And so I shove away, and try to make my own way, my own plan. 

And every single time, I just end up hungry, and frustrated, and unhappy, because my way wasn't best, after all, and His was. All along He was there waiting for me, and I was pushing + shoving trying to run my life how I thought it should be, instead of trusting that even though it didn't make sense, His way was the best choice.

What about you? Can you identify with this? Do you struggle too at times with living life like this baby calf?

Next time you + I are tempted to go with our own agenda, may we will remember this baby calf, and its little story of struggle, and be reminded that God's way is best, after all!

-Chels

Sisterhood Adventure || A Wisconsin Roadtip + Wedding

This wedding. This trip. Such special memories. So thankful we were able to experience it.
Even if it did take me half of a year to finally be posting about it!

First of all..the trip. Our friends Hannah + Amanda were the wedding photographers and since we are all from the same general area (within an hour of each other) we got to road trip up together, and stay together at the same hotel. We had a lovely trip. It was pretty short, only about four hours, and I spent quite a bit of it sleeping, believe it or not. =) We stopped for lunch at a sweet little spot about halfway there. (above)

Whilst in that town for lunch anyhow, of course we had to do a little shopping. Of course. Got some fun little deals at a unique boutique next door to the restaurant.

Back to the actual wedding. 

So the lovely bride to be was a very dear friend of my sister + I, and as soon as we got the news of her engagement we knew that this was one wedding we were not going to miss! We were enlisted to do the music for the ceremony, and also do hair + makeup for all of the bridal party ladies.

My sista is AMAZING at makeup. Seriously amazing. I feel so honored to just carry her gear around for her! She did all of the makeup and just knocked it out of the park. 

(confession time: when I want to look beautiful I ask her to do my makeup for me because she is just so good. truth)

Yours truly. My job was running the curling iron/wand, and occasionally helping with styling.

All done + gorgeous!

Alli + I with the four bridesmaids. These ladies were a joy to work with-we had such fun with them!

It was such an honor to do all of the music for the wedding ceremony. We have both played for multiple weddings but haven't had very many opportunities to do all of the music together, just the two of us. We did most of our own arrangements and worked with the bride on selections. 

And with being involved in the wedding anyway, of course we jumped on the opportunity to be part of the car decorating crew. OF COURSE. Most fun ever! Quite a challenge because it was super windy and we kept losing the gallons. But overall it was pretty successful.

So thankful to call these sweet people friends, and be able to be a part of their special day! They have such a beautiful story that God is just continuing to grow, as they now have a precious little one on the way!

Special thanks to Hannah for all of these pictures! Its definitely was a plus to have a friend as the wedding photographer, because then for once I actually had good pictures of us working during a wedding! We usually don't get that.

Also I wanted to mention that we are available (select dates, but we do have a few available!) to do music and/or bridal hair/makeup for weddings, so if you are a bride that is planning your wedding and need someone for these areas, we would be thrilled to talk with you! Feel free to send us an email, at     daughterofvision@gmail.com

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(remember to head on over and be following Hannah's posts this week as well!)

-Chels

Life Lately

{in all the glamorous glory of hotel spring cleaning. ahem}

Today...I send y'all hello's from the most beautiful place of all-my home sweetest home!

I can't tell you how wonderful it is to be here. On the farm, in the country, in the midwest, in IOWA. To some it is just a simple little state full of mostly hogs and cornfields. To me, those things equal HOME and are simply beautiful. I'm telling you-I'm crazy about the country. Not many girls would let down their car window on purpose while driving past a big hog barn. This one did, though. =) 

Ah, life lately. I will start with last Friday morning.  We arrived home in the morning. There were so many things to go around and see and do that it was almost noon before I finally made it to the shower. I was seriously headed there for almost two hours but kept running into things to do. When I finally made it...I may or may not have been in there for nearly half an hour. Friends, never take your showers for granted. They are lovely things. After three months of military-style showers (i.e. short showers involving very minimal water) I just can't tell you how fun it was to have no time or water limit. What a treat. =)

Honestly the day was just so packed with all the glories of home and farm and unpacking and somehow in the midst of that my regular little get ready routine didn't happen and I never put any makeup on. People came and went and I finally just gave in and let my pride go out the window...because who wants to spend any time at all putting on makeup anyway when there's just so much HOME to enjoy? My thoughts exactly. Thanks to sister dear for telling me I looked beautiful anyway. In my mind, sweats and tee shirt and ponytail and no makeup isn't exactly the definition of beautiful. But people you love see past the outside anyway-so grateful for that. =)

Saturday was more delicious homeness. And lots more laundry, and unpacking, and things of that nature.

Sunday. Can't even describe how my heart just swelled up so big to be back in my church again. Most wonderful feeling ever. Hugs from "my" kiddos and being back in the routine of helping get them ready for church-so wonderful. Sunday noon dinner with our whole big + lively family around our own dinner table. A wonderful service at church again that evening in which God spoke to my heart + I was so challenged. And afterwards...a long talk about life with one of my dearest friends. 

Monday + Tuesday was spring cleaning @ the hotel. (above picture)
We had a great time working together as siblings (six of us) and were excited to get all thirty rooms done in two days.

Last night-heading out to Debuque for the Annie Moses Band concert with my sister. Tickets were her early birthday present. We had such a marvelous time. Talked a mile a minute or listened to music on the way to and from, and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the concert while we were there.
I didn't get lost once which is definitely worth mentioning, since I am notorious for getting lost on our various road trips. It was especially surprising since at the last moment we couldn't find the GPS and had to use mapquest directions. Mapquest and I have never gotten along well at all so I was quite skeptical. But for once in its history, the directions actually got us to exactly the correct place with no detours or wrong turns. (miracle moment!) We had a very uneventful and safe trip in which we arrived early, met no sketchy people, didn't get lost at all, and had no catastrophes. Amazing.
The concert was phenomenal. Those siblings are honestly probably the most diverse + talented musicians I have ever seen in concert. Their talent was so stellar---blew us away! They ended their first set with an unbelievably brilliant arrangement of the Orange Blossom Special (watch a sample of it here) and when they finished and the applause had died away my sister leaned over and said to me very quietly, "I shall never pick up a violin again." I convinced her otherwise. =) My personal favorite of the night was their encore of America the Beautiful/Battle Hymn of the Republic. SO GOOD.

And thats a bit of life lately. Its been a full + rich week. So thankful for safety + adventure while out on tour the past three months, and so thankful for April at home!

I leave y'all with this quote today. I love quotes like this. I read them and find myself wanting to raise my hands and yell "amen"! Because it is so true.

"Stop waiting for Friday, for summer, for someone to fall in love with you, for life. 

Happiness is achieved when you stop waiting for it and 

make the most of the moment 

you are in NOW."

-unknown

 So much truth. Live like you believe that.

 Happy Weekend!

-Chels