Hearty

Friday night, we were all packed and ready to go to Silver Dollar City for the Youth in Bluegrass Competition and then Daniel had to go to the emergency room. He had appendicitis. It was his first time to go to a doctor, and it was something major! So yesterday morning I (Anna) cancelled our motel reservations, etc. while Dan had his surgery in Little Rock. He was able to come home today. Everything went fine, but we're still in a daze.

The Hope Bluegrass Festival on Saturday, May 9th went on through a tornado warning and heavy rain . . . a lot of people were blaming us for bringing it down there to them, but we had nothing to do with it! :) Saturday was also birthday-girl time. I turned 20 and Abby turned 14. Mom no longer has five teenagers! We passed out over a hundred birthday brownies (thanks, Mom!) and some of the cake our Aunt Susan made and brought over. (You can see it in the picture.) Alan Munde's group did a great job playing, as did the Hempstead Cty Melody Boys, High Mountain Grass, and Ray Wingfield's current lineup! The small picture below right (or is it left? You'll have to guess from the picture--I'm directionally challenged!) is of Alan Munde's band . . . not sure what happened to the pictures of the other bands! News on the CD: The title of it will be  A MILLION THING S, and right now it's off being mastered by Eric Uglum, who has also mastered some great projects like Sierr...