The times, they are a’changin’ . . .

The Syzygy concert Friday was really great. A nice crowd showed up . . . maybe 25-30 people or more? I’m not good at guessing numbers. The coffee house has several rooms, and I only noticed the people that were in the area right around where the band set up. There may have been more than that. Anyway, I took lots of digital pics, and I also recruited a friend to videotape it. We didn’t have any videos of the band, so I’ll be glad to have it.

It was a good show. Luke played and sang half a dozen of his songs first. I think his voice just keeps improving all the time. It’s got a great quality to it. He played a vintage Gibson guitar that was already old when George bought it at about Luke’s age. Luke has been coveting that guitar for years! So George gave it to him for graduation. It’s a nice little instrument, and Luke is very happy to call it his.

Ryan played a few songs after Luke. He used George’s other guitar: a lovely Gallagher, hand-made in Tennessee. Then Luke and Ryan played an acoustic set together: some old Radiohead songs they worked up for this show. Sounded good! Made me wish they’d done more acoustic stuff together before.

Syzygy played longer than usual. The whole concert lasted more than two hours, and I enjoyed every minute of it. They played one relatively new song with a drum part that is knock-your-socks-off awesome. Luke’s arms were moving so fast they became a blur. Another interesting moment occurred when David went ballistic in his bass playing, falling onto the floor and spinning like a break dancer having a seizure. Something like that. Hard to describe really. But amusing. All in all, I can’t really think of any way to improve on the evening. Many of their most faithful fans were there–people who have been around since the band first started several years ago. I’m sorry Grace had to miss it.

Speaking of Grace, she is having an amazing time in Costa Rica. We are not hearing from her as much as we would like, but that’s because she is making the most of every moment. Among the cool things she has done, a group of students went to a mountain top jungle where a zip line extends through the rain forest canopy. You are harnessed onto it, and then you ride through the clouds and treetops. She said some of the time the clouds were so thick, all you could see was white around you. She also visited a live volcano. Those adventures were last weekend. I don’t know what she’s been doing this weekend, b/c we haven’t heard from her since we received a group e-mail Monday.

She’s also excited that her Spanish is improving by leaps and bounds. She already had a great foundation, and now she’s just soaking it all up like a sponge. Before this trip, she was shy about trying to converse with native speakers. No more. Which is very cool. She’s about half-way through her time down there.

Well, we leave this Thursday for a family reunion at a national park on the border of Virginia and Kentucky. This event involves the Macedonian side of George’s family. We don’t see many of these people except at the reunions every other summer. From there we drive straight to Chicago where we drop off Luke and all the stuff he’s taking to college. He’s going on a three-week wilderness experience for school credit. It ends when they return to Wheaton for orientation on August 21. So this is it. The next three days for him consist mostly of packing, organizing, and reading the assigned materials for the wilderness class. Then it’s time to blast off into whatever lies ahead in this fantastic adventure called Life!

For twenty-two years I’ve been raising kids. There’s a bend in the road ahead, and I’m not sad about that. Blessed. That’s how I feel. Thankful and blessed. And excited for all of us. The adventure doesn’t end this side of Eternity. Or on the other side either. It’s only another bend in the road.