Stone Life

I wanted to say a hearty 'Congratulations' to Abbey and Jose and to welcome Jose to the Stone family. I suppose that in all fairness he is not a 'stone' per se; she is an 'esquivel', but for our purposes he is the former as much as she is the latter. That is my sister on the right, and yesterday my father (yes, the one crying on the right) officially handed her over to Jose in a ceremony in Waco. It was honestly one of the most enjoyable weekends that Julie and I have had in a very long time. I am not sure if I have ever had that many family or friends together in the same town at the same time. The wedding itself was nice, but being with everyone was wonderful.

I am generally something of a hermit by nature; I do not answer my cell phone, I retreat to my office whenever I get the chance, I hardly return emails in a timely manner...etc, etc, etc, but weekends such as this remind me how fortunate Julie and I are to have the families that we do. There are far too many, "We should....."'s that never amount to anything in the Stone-household, but without question, "We should make more of an effort to spend time with family and friends" is one that resonates deeply with me after this weekend.

The other highlight for me personally was being able to do music with one of my best friends and rock-megastar, Will Norvell. Once upon a time we learned to play guitar together as teenagers, and a few years later we tried to live together and play on a regular basis, but it was not until we were old and married that we were able to play together and it be truly enjoyable. I seriously could not be more impressed with him as a musician, and he really made the night musically.