COWBOYZ

We're currently all hanging out in the band house after the show - it's 4:15 am... The night has been filled with a great show and LOTS AND LOTS of hilarity. We're currently waiting on the sheets to dry so we can put them on our beds and go to sleep!!! It has been one loooong night, day, and night all over again.

We had to drive through almost all of last night and most of the day today.

Last night (this morning...) I actually had to pay full price at a hotel for us to sleep a total of 3 hours. Wooo hoooo!!!

Cowboyz is great. It is this awesome club right across from the beach in Ocean City, Maryland. They are open for dinner and then party the night away. :)

I have to say thank you to CAT Country 97.5 and 105.9 for having me on the show today. They gave away Kenny Chesney tickets during my interview to help promote MY show. (Thanks, Kenny... I appreciate it) ; )

Johnny, the owner and DJ of Cowboyz modeled my shirt all night long. I love it!



James' mother and step-dad came down from New York today to see the show!!! The band, Tamara, and I went to eat at Denny's after the show.... and this Denny's DEFINITELY used to be an indoor pool. The meal consisted of lots of laughing, I was crying at one point I was laughing so hard. I love those nights.


Stanley and Donna!!! They read about the show in the paper (I talked to a lot of people who came out from reading about the show... YAY!), and stayed the whole night. Stanley is a huge fan of the fiddle, and knew quite a bit about Columbia, Tennessee. He knew Sterling Marlin grew up there and was impressed that my Mamma cleaned his teeth before :) I dedicated a fiddle song in the first set and we opened the second set with Tn Waltz just for him :) I've never done that before at a show, but it was really awesome!



Other awesome folks from the night!






We do it all over again tomorrow!

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Audio Technica, Princess Bride, Sopranos, and iHop

Rain Rain Rain!!! Whew. Makes for some very slow and careful driving :)

We had a little bit of moisture in the trailer last night when we were unloading. Makes us all nervous about our gear.... we were hoping to seal up the trailer better today, but it was still raining.... we'll have to wait until it is dry to do anything about it. So we stopped at a gas station and wrapped a bunch of our stuff up for a little extra protection. :) We were a sight at Love's today standing in the pouring rain wrapping up instruments and amps in garbage bags. Do what you gotta do, though!

Aunt Carol took us to bruch today at Denny's :) She's just the most wonderful lady. We always have a good time hanging out with her! It is the best when family comes to shows.

Sat in traffic for a good while today outside of Chicago. That looks like such a fun city. I have been a few times but it's always for a very quick trip... Never gotten to spend any time there. I hope to soon!

So I've been holding back on sharing something :) I didn't want to say anything until I had a chance to test it out at least once!

Audio Technica sent me a couple of vocal microphones to try out on the road!!! I am REALLY excited. For years I have been using the same ole mics, and I am ready to find something I really like. They are a great company and they have been so wonderful to work with. They have supplied ALL the mics on the Grammy's for the last 12 years. So you KNOW they're good!

I used one of the mics in the show last night in Janesville. And Hootie used the other one. We'll switch for the next show. :) It'll be hard to tell which is my favorite on the road because of ALL the factors that go into playing in a different room and a different sound system every night.

I am very much looking forward to sitting down with my sound system and playing with them. :) I KNOW my own system very well, and it will be the best way for me to gauge how each mic sounds with my voice.... Kinda like when I am looking at fiddles. I don't want to JUST play the fiddle anymore. I want to hear it through MY amp :) It's the best way to know what I will be the most happy with!

I actually got the Audio Technica mics on my birthday. We had them send the box to Aunt Deana's because we knew we'd be stopping there. It was a GREAT birthday present! Plus they sent the guys and me some SWAG. I am wearing the cute t-shirt they sent right now : )


We watched the Princess Bride in the car today. Miguel had never seen it :) What a GREAT movie. And then we went back to the Sopranos. We're already on Season 3 and we just started watching them on this trip! It's pretty addictive. It is such a well-written show. We made it to just a little past Toledo, Ohio. And y'all... we ended up at a very entertaining iHop tonight for dinner. There was NOTHING for hundreds of miles except fast food which we try to avoid. But this iHop... man.... crazy customers. One table sent 3 different things back! I felt bad for our waitress... Not quite as fun as the iHop in Jackson Tn with the bluegrass jams twice a week... THAT was the best iHop ever. Did NOT see that one coming when we walked in :)

Wonder where we'll be tomorrow night? One can never tell...

Peace, Love, Fiddle,
~natalie

University of Findlay

I didn't turn the light out until 6am last night (or this morning? ummm... whatever....) I was falling asleep trying to proof read my blog... I felt like I was back in high school studying for some crazy test... :)

Needless to say, we slept in as long as we could. We were only 3.5 hrs away from Findlay, so we were able to get a late check out. We were all dragging a little bit getting ready this morning and no one bothered to open the curtains in our room... I remember us all laughing and talking on the elevator as we were heading down to check out. As we turned the corner into the lobby... BAM!! Blizzard. The room fell silent. Now, we were leaving with 2 extra hours... but with snow we were gonna need every bit of those 2 hours! It was a crazy drive. I've never seen this before: We would drive for a while and the snow would be thick enough it would make it hard to see.... then, all of a sudden, we'd drive out of it and it was pouring rain.... then we'd drive right back into snow. Did that quite a few times! SO strange.

Needless to say, we were VERY happy to get there. And the icing on the cake?? There were tons of students waiting on us when we arrived. I don't talk about this often, but this school sets a GREAT example. The students there were so helpful we barely had to unload. James and Joe would take stuff out of the trailer, lift it onto the platform, and then the students would take it inside faster than we could unpack it.

I can't tell you what a big difference that makes for us. We load and unload that trailer EVERY DAY. So to have any help is a big deal... And when you get a LOT of help, it just makes everything so much nicer.

We don't expect it, nor is it necessary, but it is VERY MUCH appreciated.

These students were really on their game. They did tons of promotion and had fliers up all over school for the show. They made sure our videos were played on the school's tv station and they even took the time to decorate our Green Room with "Welcome" and "Good Luck" messages. We even had a "Break a leg (not literally)" sign... I love it!!

Campus Programming Board

Hootie = "The Thinker" aka Dobie Gillis

Sharinda, the lady who brought us here, thought that James looks just like Ben Roethlisberger :) Ben grew up in Findlay and she said that James looks and acts so much like him!!! How funny is that? She said when he had his hat on especially - he was just like "Big Ben" :)

My husband: Quarterback by day.      Drummer by night.
       

We were playing in the Winebrenner Theological Seminary which was a really beautiful auditorium. We played 2, 1 hour sets, so it was another show where I really had time to have great dialogue with the audience. I really love that...

This guy. Wow. One of my favorite people ever and I just met him tonight. From the first note, he was SOOO into it. He was whoopin and hollerin and giving us so much love the WHOLE show. He had such kind words for us at the end of the night. Such a warm, crazy, fun person. I love all the people we get to meet doing this!

I think my favorite part was when we got to the chorus of "Purple Rain" and you just saw the light bulb come on. "PURPLE RAIN, BABY!!!!"
   

Students from 'round the world!! I was SO excited they came, and I admire anyone who is brave enough to go to a country where they don't speak the primary language fluently. I can't imagine - ESPECIALLY since I don't speak ANY other languages.
During intermission, I was told they had come in towards the end of the first set and started asking what kind of music it was... Someone told them that it was "country music". One of the kids said, "Oh. I like her music and her country." How awesome is that!!?? Natalie Stovall: bringing people together. ;)

Then came the part of the evening that I will affectionately refer to as: "Natalie is an idiot" time...

Let me disclaimer this first by saying: I was told these foreign exchange students didn't speak English fluently.

When they came up to talk to me after the show one of the guys asked "Picture?" and I said OF COURSE! And after we took the picture, I looked at the girl next to him and said fairly deliberately "Are you on facebook?" Hoping she would understand... The girl replied very casually "Oh yeah, I'm on facebook!" Making it quite apparent that she spoke English rather fluently...

Sooo yeah, I felt about 2 inches tall. I sure hope she didn't take offense, I felt SO stupid... I was told they would have trouble understanding me and I believed it... Burned... by life...

They were so much fun and were all rocking the "cell-phone lighters". That never gets old :)


These girls are both Equestrian Students!! How cool is it that you can go to college and study to train horses?? I think that is awesome. After the show they both ran back to their rooms to get money to buy cds! That's dedication. :)

Oh! And they knew every word to "Fancy", which makes them even cooler... :)


Hannah!!!
This sweet girl was sitting right up front. Her parents brought her out because she plays guitar AND piano. She was up WAY past her bedtime, but you would have never known it. She didn't miss a beat - she sang along, danced, and was right up in front with all the college students on "Sweet Child"! I love seeing kids with so much passion for music. Never give up on your dreams sweet girl!
Her Dad mentioned that she already writes her own songs. That's awesome... He said that, right now, her style is a bit like Phoebe from "Friends" :) I would love to hear her songs. You keep writing girl!


Kyle! LOVE that cowboy hat. I wanted to wear it :)


So thank you guys so much!!! We had yet another amazing show tonight. It's hard to believe... I feel like that's all I've been talking about lately, but the crazy thing is that it's been true. We've had such a great run of shows lately. It's been such a wonderful way to kickstart this tour and this year. I'm so happy to get to go home for a few days, but I don't want to stop cause I don't want to lose this great momentum we seem to have right now... Wow... I love it!

After all that, we ended up at Denny's for dinner around midnight, finally made it to the hotel, and now we are just praying some of this black ice will melt away so we can safely get back to Tennessee. We have a few days at home before we head out for another month. I can't WAIT to see Cinnamon!!! YAY!!! And now... take a wild guess... I'm going to bed y'all! Goodnight!

peace, love, fiddle, and breakfast for dinner,
~natalie