Happy New Year !!!!!Wow, did that little break go fast. Kelli and I get less than two weeks off during the Christmas/New Year’s break to spend time as a family, and I am sitting at my desk writing this and wondering where those days went. Kaitlin and I didn’t even get to play our annual Monopoly game. Correction – I didn’t even get a chance to horribly beat Kaitlin in our annual Monopoly game. Haha.I know that what we do here at this ministry...

DECEMBER IS HERE!!!! This time of year is so much fun. People seem to be nicer, places are decorated, and Christmas music is playing everywhere. The only complaint that I have (and maybe it’s just in our house) is that it seems my wife watches nothing on TV except for the predictable, sappy, long, drawn out ……… Hallmark movies that use fake snow and seem to have made a lot of money making movies based off of three story lines. Do I need to...

I often wonder if anyone (other than my mom) actually reads these updates. In talking with a few people recently, I have been encouraged because they have commented about something I had posted on our updates. Some of these updates may not have much content in them - they are just a simple update, but we are very encouraged that this ministry still touches people’s lives, even when I don’t have a horn in my hands. Sometimes when I’m home, there...

For the past few weeks, I have been saying something in my concerts that some people have been joking with me about after the shows. I have been saying that I don’t consider myself a “trumpet player”, but I do consider myself a messenger of the Gospel and I use the trumpet as a tool to spread the Gospel. I feel that so many people these days want to be labeled or have a title. They want to have a "Dr." before their name, or be recognized for...

Where did this summer go? I like having a slower summer schedule so we can do more family things, but this summer has been crazy busy with so much that we have not had the “family summer” we wanted. I am definitely for education and for my kids to be in school, but with school starting in a few weeks, I get jealous of school because it sometimes feels like it takes my family time away. I guess we will just have to make the best of every minute...

I have done concerts in so many places - and I really do enjoy what I get to do, but there are some places we go that I just don’t understand why we are there. I had a recent experience at a church that I just don’t know why we were there. The concert was fine, they responded well, but no one really seemed to react to the challenge and invitation towards the end of the concert. We finished the concert, packed up and drove home. The whole drive...

I hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend and had the opportunity to go to a service that honored our fallen soldiers that gave it all so we can live in this awesome country. A lot of band and other ministries seem to get very busy during the summer months, but we are a little different. I can’t say we do it on purpose, but our summers are usually not full of tours but just long weekends and a 3-4 day trip here and there, but just not any...

One of the big challenges with this life is balancing the ministry and road life with home and family time. The first part of this year has been very busy with a lot of tours and being away from home, but the next four months, even though they are busy, will be much more home time. I am very excited that this month I will have the honor to play my trumpet before Congress. We also have an initiation to play for the House Of Representatives. I...