Farm Boy, Nino's, and Snow.

First of all...

Farm Boy. I love you and your way with words. I don't say it enough. I know I don't always respond, but I ALWAYS read your comments. It is still the first thing I do before I sit down to write my blog for the night... I look to see what my favorite Farm Boy Fan has said. (For those of you who get to the blog through facebook or other means... you don't see his comments. You have to actually got to the http://www.peacelovefiddle.com to see the comments. But believe me, they are worth it!)

On to TONIGHT. NINO'S!!! Our favorite bar in Findlay, Ohio! (And one of our favorites in the country). Nino, Rob, and the guys at Nino's are just so great to us!! they ordered in some of the best pizza for us :) And the crowd was awesome. DEFINITELY not a Thursday night crowd... more like a Saturday night crowd ON a Thursday. : )~

Umm... IT SNOWED on us. We drove 8 hours today... well... we left at 8am... lost an hour and arrived right at 7pm in Findlay. It rained on us the WHOLE trip... that is, until we crossed the border into Ohio. Then it started snowing and even accumulated on the car. The roads are like an ice skating rink.... We all were sliding around the parking lot. And Panther even bit it pretty bad outside the hotel. Poor thing :( But he's ok. He's the Panther. He can handle it :)

Mark and Janice came!!! They took off work tomorrow and drove 2 and 1/2 hours. I just love them. Seriously. Sweetest people in Ohio.


My Ohio Cowboy, Kyle, who I met when we played at the University of Findlay this time last year... then again the last time at Nino's and then tonight he brought tons of friends!


Having some fun with my new friends :)




Lindsey - what a sweetheart. Love her.


A late night jam session even broke out after the bar closed - Rob fell in love with my Night Hawk that David plays in the shows. :) He sat in with a guys on some Rolling Stones, Nivana, Van Halen, and Stevie Ray Vaughn... Oh Yeah.


Peace. Love. and More Snowy Fiddles!
~natalie

Nino's. Yes. I Met Him.

It's a good sign when you meet a bar owner and the first thing he says is "Wow that first set REALLY sucked." :) Cause when he's obviously happy... and in your first encounter, he's already comfortable with giving you a hard time... well, it makes me feel at home, actually. My agent, Ari, always says "Don't Suck" right before I go out on stage. Not that I am special. He says that to all of his artists.

Some people and their ways of showing love.

The guys at Nino's including Nino himself, were so awesome. After the bar closed down the karaoke machine came out!!! I helped myself to a little Salt N Peppa "Shoop" with Big Matt. :)

There was a magician at the show tonight doing card tricks. And someone came in dressed with "The Scream" mask on.... only it was goldish-orange and even creepier. Never had someone who looked like they were about to murder me dancing along to my music. Oh Halloween.

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