Hanging With the SeaBees!

Happy Birthday Stephanie!!! It's my sister's birthday today. And I didn't call her. :( I'm fired. I thought about her all day and was planning on calling at night. But why would I make that my plan? I know better than that on "show" days. We get so busy between getting there, unloading, sound check, me primping, playing, and loading back up... that it is always so late when we get done.

BUT I LOVE YOU STEPH!!! And we'll talk tomorrow :) Here's a great photo of Steph, Mamma, and me. I just put this up as my profile pic on facebook.


We played in Gulfport Mississippi today at the NCBC Base! Back with our Seabees!!! We played here last May, too. Oh what a difference a month makes! By May, it will be sweltering down here. But by the time the sun went down today, it was perfect. Still humid! But that is Southern Mississippi for ya! :) We had a great show. Lovin the new in ear monitors and sound system!

It was awesome as we were driving in. Battalion 74 came home YESTERDAY from Afghanistan. And there are rows and rows of homemade signs welcoming them home as you drive through the base. It was quite a sight.

We had so many soldiers that will be deployed in a month or two at the show. It is always so crazy to talk to men and women younger than me who are getting ready to go to Afghanistan. But they were all in very high spirits tonight and made this civilian feel nothin but LOVE! Thank you so much for having us and ALL you do for this country!







I actually signed one guy's "demerit"... not sure what the official name would be. But it was basically a military demerit. I should have asked him what he did... But we couldn't take a picture because he doesn't want his CO to see that he made something fun out of it!

And look at my coin!!! I LOVE when we get coins on each base :) They are so awesome. I'm gonna have to get a huge display case soon. :)



Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Kentucky ---> Iowa

We drove from Kentucky to Iowa today :) We made it just past the Mississippi River, but stopped right outside of Davenport to sleep. We play in Indianola tomorrow. We watched a LOT of West Wing today :) I LOVE LOVE LOVE that show. It's even better re-watching it than it was the first couple of times around.

Today we saw a little Cinnamon Min Pin with a tail and a wiener today as we left the hotel. I've never seen a Min Pin with a full tail!!! I wish they hadn't chopped Cinnamon's off. I hate that for little puppies. But that's how she came, and her nub is quite adorable. :) And I get to spend so much time with her SOOOOO soon. I am so excited. It's going to be so great to see her and not have to immediately leave her again.

Night night.

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Santa Needs a Swimsuit

It's been a LOOOONG day of driving. And I think I drove a stretch of interstate I've never driven before! We drove through Chattanooga and up to Knoxville. When you're coming from Nashville to get somewhere - you either go through one or the other... you never go through BOTH. It was weird.

But we got to stop at our favorite exit of the last 6 months - Hattiesburg Mississippi - for lunch! We have eaten in Hattiesburg way more times than we've eaten lunch at home since the summer!!! And we've never even played a show there! It's so funny how sometimes we get routed in ways where we keep stopping at the same place around the same time of day. McCallister's is usually our restaurant of choice. :) Some of the locations still have chocolate spoon cake!!!! MMMMmmmmm.

You something that's funny?? We were sitting in Red Robin (mmm Red Robin) tonight and Christmas songs were playing. I had this realization that I bet Christmas songs in America sound really funny to Miguel. It's summertime in Chile right now! He said that he always feels sorry for Santa Clause - when he has to make appearances outside... that red suit get HOT.

Snow, sitting by the fire, hot chocolate, bundling up - American Christmas songs all have SO much of that in them! And for Miguel, well... it's going swimming and suntan lotion and short sleeves.

It's all about perspective. :)

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

I Got To Go Home Today! For 30 Minutes!!!

I AM SO TIRED OF BEING IN THE CAR.

Yesterday morning we were in Laurel, Mississippi. We left that morning and drove 6 hours to our gig in Louisiana. We played our gig, got in the car and drove 5 more hours... Spent the night somewhere else in Mississippi... left this morning and have been driving ever since. It is 2:30am and we still have 3 hours left. Ughh.

We stopped in Nashville for less than 30 minutes tonight. I stopped by my apartment and grabbed a sweater. Miguel and James had to swing by Guitar Center for a couple of things to make it through the rest of this week. So Jenn and Ella met Miguel at Guitar Center to give him some extra clothes, too. We all were under prepared for the cold on this trip!!

And then we struck out about 10 times in a row on trying to eat somewhere. We were trying to stop quickly so we plugged in a Dunkin Donuts into the GPS. But it turned out to be a gas station that happened to have a DD coffee dispenser. So then we tried the Arby's down the road. Closed. Called Jimmy John's we ALWAYS go to in Louisville. Closed. Got off at the next exit with a Subway/Gas station... CLOSED. Got off at the next exit because there was a Dunkin Donuts sign on the board. Never found it. Pulled into the Wendy's. Closed. 4 more exits later we found a Subway open. Good Lord. It's frustrating because with all that time driving in circles we could have just eaten with Jenn and Ella in Nashville instead of trying to grab something quickly.

So it's been a long couple of days of traveling. Every time we pass a tour bus I just sigh. And dream. :) Really... it's not even the bus that would make me all giddy. Just having a driver would change mine and James' lives! But this is what we have to do for now.

"Whatever It Takes" right?

Peace. Love. Fiddle.

~natalie

Beeping Fiddles!

I broke ANOTHER string!!!! This is just getting ridiculous, y'all. We keep playing shows outside in the cold, and I am about to run out of fiddle strings! I am gonna have to overnight some strings to our next location, so that I have enough. Whoa.

We played the 90th Annual South Mississippi Fair tonight. It was really cold outside. When we left Nashville a couple of weeks ago, I didn't exactly pack for cold outdoor shows. We haven't ever really played many of those. But the last few weeks, it seems like that is ALL we've played!

Tonight I wore a scarf with a short sleeve shirt. Yeyeah! Don't be confused. It's the new hotness. :)

Man. Last night... James and I fell asleep sometime after 3am. I was excited because we were gonna get to sleep in since we didn't have to be anywhere until 12:30. I got TONS of work done last night. But then WAKE UP!!!!! 6:45 am (NOT my best time) the smoke alarm in our room starts going off like crazy. It would beep beep beep (BLARING... I mean, rattling my ear drums) and then it would hiccup a bit... then it would stop. We thought it was over. Fooled again. And again. In my hazy, angry, fog I remember James calling down to the front desk and saying, "Is there actually a fire, or are you just messing with us?" The guy on the other end of the phone said, "Excuse me, Sir?" And then BEEEEEEEEEEEP The front desk dude, who i think about fell down from having his ear drum berated, said, "OH MY GOODNESS. Sir, I'll be right up"

He ended up ripping it out of the ceiling because he couldn't get it turned off, and didn't know what else to do. It was a very loud, sleepy, disturbing 30 minutes of my morning. Luckily, I don't remember much that early in the day. :)

But then, Chris I guess accidentally texted me at 8:30... and my text message alarm beeped a bunch of times. THEN a crane started working right outside our window around 9. I kept waking up and thinking, "Goodness! That truck has been backing up FOREVER"

So all that to say... it was a long morning of beeping. But tonight is going to be a short night of sleeping, so I better hop to it. If that smoke alarm goes off now... well... I'm just going to assume that God doesn't want me to sleep tonight. :) (As I look up and see exposed wires just hanging out of the ceiling)

Peace. Love. Beeping Fiddles.

~natalie

Darton College

It feels like days ago that we played our show at Darton College! We played from 11-12:30 for their Sustainability Day event. :) I kept expecting Greenzo from 30 Rock to walk in.

This morning when we left Cochrane at about 6:30am, we were all freezing - and could see our breath. And then this afternoon when we got to the hotel, I laid out for 20 minutes at the pool because it was so hot. Go figure!

Today was a strange day. I really felt awful after I got back. I think sometimes when we have an early show, my body isn't ready for all that. No matter how awake or sleepy I am, how sick or healthy, I try to give the same energy for the show. But after some afternoon rest, and some chicken and dumplings at Cracker Barrel, I feel a LOT better. :) Plus we get to have a good night's rest tonight, and a whole day to drive to Mississippi. But I am going to be triple washing my hands and be EXTRA cautious in the next few days. (Mamma is glad to hear that, I KNOW!) I hope everyone out there is staying healthy, too!

I have another REALLY bad internet connection. Ughh. One day I'll get to upload all these cute pics! At least to facebook :)

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Bassinator

I couldn't elaborate much on this the other night since I could only send 1 picture at a time. :)

When we walked into the Bowling Alley on base in Meridian, MS - the whole place erupted into applause. Not gonna lie... that was an awesome feeling. We had JUST played the show, so a bunch of the guys were already there by the time we packed up and arrived.

The FIRST lane had the name "Future Mr. Stovall" on it :)


And here was the self-proclaimed "Future Mr. Stovall"


We ended up taking over Lane 1 after I played pool with some Marines. Notice James' bowling name :) Well... all the names were good... but I loved my husband's.


Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Bowling Video

Let me preface this with - I WON the second game... I just needed to get warmed up. :)