Wednesday, October 17, 2007

First Holiday pictures



Little David Brian is getting so big he loves listening to Grandpa play the Guitar
and watching his School Video where he learning his Abc and 123 i has been sitting up pretty good and know he is saying momma mmmmmmmm mmmmm so i hope he does a good job of Crawing to lol i hope you all well have a fun and a safe Christmas
No more oral Jell mom Happy David brian Miner look at me mom

VINCE GILL TO INDUCTED TO GIBSON'S MUSIC CITY WALK OF FAME

Music City, Inc. today announced the third class of inductees to the Music City Walk of Fame presented by founding sponsor Gibson Guitar: Rodney Crowell, Bob DiPiero, Vince Gill, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Killen and Barbara Mandrell. The six honorees will be recognized officially with the unveiling of commemorative sidewalk markers on Monday, Nov. 5, beginning at 3 p.m. in the Hall of Fame Park in downtown Nashville. The induction ceremony, which is sponsored by Great American Country (GAC), is free and open to the public. more


SONGBIRD OR HUMMINGBIRD? YOU DECIDE

Newest Hall of Famer Faces Frantically Busy October

This is not the month to invite Vince Gill out for coffee. He’s got a few other things to do. Besides promoting his current single, “How Lonely Looks,” the newest inductee to the Country Music Hall of Fame will be buzzing between Nashville and New York for a variety of appearances, including stops at NBC-TV, the Nokia Theater Times Square, the Grand Ole Opry, the Medallion ceremony at the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Ryman Auditorium and RFD-TV

Special Mosaic Preview #4 / New Excerpt Every Week!

The Deer

In the fall of 1989, a couple of friends and I took a much-needed road trip to a cabin in Indiana. We all had children at home. Two of us were pregnant at the time and looking forward to long, uninterrupted talks by the fire. After a good night's sleep, we put on the coffeepot first thing the next morning and started talking. By late afternoon, the conversation was still going, and we were still in our bathrobes.

All of us have life experiences that go untold. Maybe it was the safety of the cabin, the fact that the phone never rang, that allowed one of my friends to talk about her childhood so vulnerably. She told us a story that was sobering and terrifying.

I was seven months into my pregnancy, carrying my first daughter. Listening to this woman's story, I felt for the first time a very real fear for what might happen, what could happen, to my child despite all of my efforts to keep her safe.

A little bit of evil goes a long way.

A big dose is devastating.

We took a break in our conversation, emotionally drained. The sun would be setting soon and we all needed a little space to digest everything that had been spoken. I showered and dressed and went outside. I wanted to yell at someone. I wanted to cry. Instead, I picked my way down the wooded hill and crossed a creek by crawling on my hands and knees over a fallen tree.

I could not make any sense of life, at least not of that woman's life. I wanted to stop imagining the details of her story. I couldn’t.

As I reached the other side of the stream, I looked up and saw a deer standing in the trees about thirty feet away from me. It was not much bigger than a fawn, but old enough to have lost its spots. Slowly, I began walking toward the deer. He didn't run. When I was just a few feet away from him, I got down on my hands and knees and crept up beside him. I kept thinking he would bolt, but he stayed still.

Slowly I stretched out my hand until my fingers touched his nose. We both jumped back a little. Still he didn't run. I reached out again. This time I touched the fur on his neck, then his shoulder. I began petting him gently, then scratching his chest until I found myself wrapping my arms around his neck and leaning against him. It was the most peaceful interaction I have ever had with an untamed animal. After a while I backed away, turned, and walked toward the creek. When I looked back, the deer was gone.

It’s hard to put into words what I drew from that unexpected experience. Strangely, a calm wonder had replaced my fear.

The next day, as we were packing to leave, the owner of the cabin dropped by to see us off. I asked her how long they had been feeding the deer around there. She thought about it a minute and said, "I can't say that I've ever seen a deer here before."
"Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

Saturday, October 13, 2007

preview 3

Mother's Day

Mother’s Day 2006 was cold in Nashville, unusual for May when climbing roses are already in full bloom. For a fire lover, the weather was a gift. I treated myself to two outdoor fires built in the copper fire pit that Deanna and Phyllis had given me for my birthday. My theme for the day was “I’m taking the day off.” And I did.

By late afternoon I had settled myself outdoors in a rocking Adirondack chair in the backyard next to a roaring fire with a blanket over my legs, a good book on my lap, and a cool drink on the wide flat armrest of the chair.

I’d enjoyed the company of each of my children earlier in the day and was now enjoying the quiet, surrounded by my thoughts. Then the patio door opened and out walked Jenny, my twenty-four-year-old stepdaughter. She’s always a welcome sight, but I had figured she’d made plans for the whole day with her mother. They are very close.

With a beautiful smile on her face, she called out, “I couldn’t let Mother’s Day go by without coming to see you too.”

She joined me by the fire. As we sat there together, sipping from our glasses, catching up on the family news, my thoughts went back to the cloudy spring day Vince and I got married on a hillside in Williamson County. The pictures of our freshly blended family were filled with grim-faced children—Jenny was seventeen, Matt twelve, Millie ten, and Sarah seven. How many conflicting emotions were at work that day? All of us had been through several years of uncertainty and upheaval.

And then I scrolled back a little further to a fall afternoon a few months before the wedding, to the first time I was ever alone with Jenny. We’d been at a golf course, watching her dad host a fund-raiser for Junior Golf at the Golf House of Tennessee. It was the fall of 1999, and Vince and I were in the first stages of being a public couple after several years of tabloid speculation. The day was beautiful and sunny, and Vince was obviously glad we were all in the same place at the same time.

For Jenny and me it was a different story. Our interaction was strained and polite. I remember looking at her face, watching her watch her father, feeling the unbridgeable chasm between us. I wondered how she felt about all the changes in her life throughout her high-school years. Now she was a senior, and her father had invited me into his world and consequently into hers. For some reason I thought about the book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, a book I had read to my children many times. On every page some obstacle presents itself to the reader, and the following refrain echoes again and again:

Can’t go over it.
Can’t go under it.
Can’t go around it.
Have to go through it.

I asked Jenny if she wanted to leave the golf course, hop in my car, and go to the Sonic drive-through a few miles up the road. She shrugged and nodded and followed me to the car. I knew the conversation that needed to happen and was fighting back tears before we even got out of the driveway.

I felt like someone who’d borrowed a car without asking, returned it to the front driveway completely wrecked, and then walked into the house trying to act like everything was normal.

It was an awful feeling.

Driving up Franklin Road, I found myself stringing thoughts and words together that I hoped she would hear. It took everything in me to push those words into the air between us.

In response, she rolled the window down and lit a cigarette. Then her cell phone rang.

I welcomed the chance to collect myself.

As I listened to her side of the conversation, it dawned on me that her life was filled with people whom she had chosen, as was mine. Circumstances had brought us together, but that didn’t guarantee a relationship.

Slowly, awkwardly, we outlined a kind of truce between us: what she could tolerate, what we were willing to accept in each other. Even in this slightly adversarial setting, I loved her mind. It was a good first respectful step.

Over the years, little by little, meal by meal, birthday by birthday, phone call by phone call, Christmas by Christmas, card game by card game, trip by trip, movie by movie, conversation by conversation, we became family.

I had always wanted five kids.

Happy Mother’s Day

Amy Grant - Special MOSAIC Preview - New Excerpt Every Week

How did I wind up here?

I ACCIDENTALLY ENDED UP in the music business. Through a series of unexpected circumstances, the same year I wrote my first song (“Mountain Man,” 1976), I was offered a record deal. I was fifteen. Chris Christian, the man who “discovered” me, is rumored to have said, “She’s not that great of a singer, but she’s sincere.” I was also clueless.

I booked myself to sing for churches, youth groups, weddings, anyplace they’d have me, along with my songs about faith.

A few days a month I drove to Goldmine studio after school in my plaid kilt uniform to work with my youth-group leader and producer, Brown Bannister. There was no rush and no deadline. No one was holding his breath. My first record came out in 1978 during spring break of my senior year in high school. I autographed album jackets for my classmates at Harpeth Hall the way one would autograph yearbooks. There was no fanfare or publicity around the quiet release of my first record. I was seventeen, and within a few weeks I got my first concert offer.

Brown got the call about the booking and phoned me, so I drove over to talk to him about it. Up to this point, I had only sung for people I knew—family, friends, schoolmates—and the idea that a total stranger would call and ask me to sing for a group of more strangers was mind-boggling. Brown said the request was for three hundred dollars.

Three hundred dollars. My mind went racing. I had been saving money for my freshman year at college. My parents were paying my tuition, but I was saving up for extra spending money. As much as I wanted to go to Denver for the concert, spending three hundred dollars would wipe out my savings. I told Brown why I couldn’t go. He started laughing and corrected my thinking. No, I did not have to pay them three hundred dollars for the opportunity to sing. Miracle of miracles, they were willing to pay me. I couldn’t believe my ears. As it turned out, my appearance at Lakeside Amusement Park, sandwiched between the deafening roller coaster and the fish-feeding area, was the beginning of a long, steep learning curve about hard work, expectation, preparation, and professionalism. I’ve sung thousands of concerts since then, released over twenty recordings, and I’ve watched the music business change drastically. I have some awards on the shelf and gold and platinum records in frames on the wall.

It’s been hard work and always interesting. I’m amazed that doing my job led me into the company of so many fascinating people and has taken me to so many unexpected places. Doors that I never thought existed, much less considered knocking on, have swung open for me. That high-school kid (or, for that matter, this forty-six-year-old woman) never had any aspirations for fame or success, but because of the people in my life who dreamed for me and stood beside me and enabled me, I have lived an amazing life.
As I sit here rolling back over the years in my mind, one memory leads to another, far too many moments to recount, but here are a few that make me smile.

***

I was swimming toward a yacht in the Mediterranean Sea, so far away from the shore that I could barely see it. Several yards ahead of me was Barbara Bush, with Secret Servicemen swimming on either side of her. I’ve got a healthy fear of sharks and things that might be in the water, but I knew that there was nothing dangerous in this part of the water world. And I’d been told that if I couldn’t make it, someone would come and get me. The salt water was so buoyant that I could swim, or stop and rest and just lie back. Barbara turned around and shouted, “You know, the Secret Service is here for me, not for you! So take care of yourself.”

Vince and I had been invited to go on a trip that the Bush family has taken every year since George Bush Sr. left office. With them, they take their extended family and a circle of friends of their choosing. They like music, and almost every year they invite someone musical to come along. This particular year they invited Vince and me. And they told us, “Please bring your guitars, but you don’t have to sing.”

The trip was filled with hiking, backgammon, wonderful meals, and great conversations. Most of those people whose company I enjoyed I will probably never see again. We walked remote, narrow roads on little Greek isles, and at one point we took a bus ride that scared me to death, up a winding road. We discovered a little, family-owned museum. The owner had married an Englishwoman. They showed us ancient relics, and when we left, we promised to send music. (I’ve yet to send the music, but I still have the address.) At a seaside trattoria, under the stars, we danced wild, reckless Greek dances.
That’s not the first time we’d been invited to do something with the Bushes because of music. Twelve years earlier, when President Bush Sr. had lost the election to Bill Clinton, he organized a farewell gathering at Camp David to thank people who had supported him through his time in office. I was invited to come and sing at a Sunday-morning chapel program. Gary and I went, and my mom came along to help with six-week-old Sarah.

It was a quick trip. We arrived at our cabin around dinnertime on a Saturday night and were told that if we were hungry, we should walk to a particular cabin a short distance away. I figured it was a cafeteria or something. It was dark, and I couldn’t get a feel for the place. When we knocked on the cabin door, it was opened by George and Barbara. It was just the five of us having dinner. And then we all watched a movie—Of Mice and Men—together, curled up on the sofa with their dog, Millie.

I had met them once before, on a tour of the White House, when Matt was a baby. Years later, they came to a Christmas show and sat in the audience. At the same time, Vince was getting to know the Bushes through his music. He sang at the dedication of the Bush Library.

Life takes some interesting turns. Here in a remote cove, stretched out under the stars around a bonfire, Vince and I sat at George and Barbara’s feet, and played guitar and serenaded President Bush on his eighty-first birthday. They watched the stars and heard the waves lapping. It was beautiful.

***

It was a cool summer evening in Colorado with a tiny mist of rain. Vince and I were at a cookout, along with several other friends, at Chris and Kevin Costner’s house in Aspen. The burgers were great. The conversation was better.

I had met Kevin at a fund-raiser golf tournament in Las Vegas several years before. Perhaps to be more politically correct, the organizers thought they should involve at least one female golfer, and I was playing golf at the time. I wasn’t an actor, and people had paid thousands of dollars to play with movie stars. Whoever drew my name not only didn’t get a movie star but didn’t get a good golfer either. My manager and friend, Jennifer, was with me on this trip, and we struck up an interesting conversation with Kevin.

Now anybody who knows me knows that my favorite movie of all time is Dances with Wolves. I love its narrative perspective, its setting in history, the cinematography, the exquisite use of empathy. I never imagined I would have the chance to meet the film’s creator, but I did, and we talked about the world of acting and the magic of film and music. In the way that one thing leads to another, a few years later Kevin and I sang a duet for his movie The Postman, and I even gave acting a brief try. Now, a decade later, I was enjoying an outdoor fire and live music at his enchanting Colorado hideaway. Music brought me here.

***

Just because I included Mario Andretti’s name in a song called “Good for Me,” I was invited to watch the Indy 500 from his family’s private box in the spring of 1992 (my manager, Chaz Corzine, who accompanied me that day, jokingly asked if there was any way I could include Victoria’s Secret model Jill Goodacre’s name in my next song). That day after the race, I met team owner Paul Newman for the first time. The mood was subdued because it was a dark day in Andretti racing history: Three Andrettis had started, and none of them finished. One was in the hospital. I was afraid all of them would think I had jinxed the outcome and never expected to hear from any of them again. But Paul’s friend and stunt double, Stan Barrett, suggested I be invited to sing at the September gala of Paul’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. All proceeds from his food products go to fund this facility for sick children, and twice since that day I’ve made the trip to Connecticut to sing at the camp.

On my second visit, I met Carole King, truly my greatest musical influence. She was jetlagged from a trip overseas, but I was just glad we got to breathe the same air. Later, I sang on a tribute project to her great songwriting, and she sent me an old Tapestry LP cover, signed “Good Job.” When it arrived, I ran around the house like a crazed kid, called my mother, and then my grade-school boyfriend, Johnny, saying, “You are the only one who will understand how monumental this is for me.” Like everybody else, I know what it feels like to be a real fan.

***

I was thrilled to be asked to participate in the 1987 Prince’s Trust concert in London, my first opportunity to work with Art Garfunkel, Robin Williams, and James Taylor. When my family and I arrived in London, I was a brand-new mother of a nine-week-old son, Matt, and we were both incredibly jetlagged. In a brief backstage meeting, Princess Diana gave me some encouraging words as another working mom. She agreed it was worth the fatigue to have your children with you. Later that night in a dressing room, James Taylor called out to me, “Give me that boy,” taking a fussy Matt so I could have a break. I couldn’t help but think of his beautiful lullaby “Sweet Baby James,” which I had listened to a million times. To this day, I love the honesty of his music. I have been to a dozen of his live shows, and not a week goes by that I don’t pull out one of his CDs and listen to it.

***

My Grandmother Grant took my sisters and me to see Tony Bennett in Las Vegas when I was twelve. He was her favorite. Twenty-seven years later, Tony was my guest on a CBS Christmas special filmed in Banff. He was charming and delightful, the consummate gentleman. While we were talking about a particular song we would be singing together on the show, he showed me a painting in progress. It was a landscape. Obviously, his real passion was painting. I used to carry art supplies on the road, and after seeing his painting, I’ve started carrying them again.

A few days after I got home, an enormous spray of roses arrived at my door, with a card from Tony.

***

There are places I have been just because a video director wanted to film me in a particular spot. During the filming of the “Lead Me On” video, I enjoyed a cappuccino hot from the catering truck, miles from nowhere, in the middle of Zion National Park. The film crew had been given permission to be in a remote area of the park. The moment was not lost on me. I was enjoying a favorite drink in a rare setting.

I was in a bit of a time crunch during an overseas tour, so on a day off, I flew to the coast of Spain to film a video for “I Will Remember You.” Standing on a rocky outcropping, high above the deep blue waves, it seemed to me that if the wind caught my oversized blouse (pregnant again) just right, I might sail off the edge.

I’ve watched the sunrise from the top of the Empire State Building, hours before the crowds showed up, while taping an episode of NBC’s Three Wishes. As host of the show, I accompanied a young boy named Colton who was losing his eyesight and wanted to see New York City in all its glory.
During another episode of Three Wishes, my son, Matt, and I experienced zero gravity over the Atlantic Ocean on a NASA training flight, granting the wish of a young man from Cincinnati who plans to become an astronaut. That was the greatest “take your kid to work” day of my life (and neither one of us threw up).

***

I’ve received a letter from each of our last seven presidents, and I’ve had conversations with Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King.

I’ve won a golf tournament with Bill Murray, and shared a dressing room with Carly Simon and Loretta Lynn.

I’ve met most members of the Grand Ole Opry.

I’ve played golf with Arnold Palmer.

My favorite collection of photographs is of my daughter Millie and me—a gift from Annie Leibovitz.

***

When I was in my late teens, I was invited to be a part of a Billy Graham crusade in Nashville, Tennessee. The football stadium was packed, and it was without a doubt the largest crowd I had stood in front of up to that point. I hardly remember meeting Dr. Graham then, overwhelmed by the situation.
I have been a part of several Billy Graham crusades since then. The last one was in Minneapolis in the late nineties. Before the evening started, I had a chance to visit with Billy. I felt pretty sure I was headed for a divorce, though no one knew it but me, and out of respect, I felt like I needed to tell him that my life was derailing. His organization sets a high standard. If I was going to stand on his stage as an invited guest, I didn’t want anyone to be taken by surprise by later events. He talked to me about his own children, reminding me that God is always at work in our lives, even when we take the long way home. The good news of the gospel was as powerful in the tiny curtained-off backstage area where we spoke as it was in the full-to-capacity stadium that night.

***

Unique gifting brings some people’s lives to the forefront. That’s true in every arena. I’ve been fortunate to have had wonderful interactions, both onstage and off, with many people whose work has had a profound influence on my life.
I know that these doors were opened to me because of music. The opportunities have left me thrilled and dumbstruck, verbose and tongue-tied, and always feeling like I’m in a little bit over my head.
And curious about what’s around the next corner.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Amy Grant - Special Mosaic Preview #2 / New Excerpt Every Week

Moonlight Conversation

Sometimes I crave a kind of connection with nature, with myself, with God that I don’t know how to achieve. The absence of it makes me feel caged up inside. I can’t sit still. I can’t listen well.

The other day I felt this way and talked of going to the farm. I planned to ride horses, go on a hike, sit on a hillside. As it turned out, by the time I pulled out of the driveway, heading for the country, carrying two dogs, two kids, and pulling a tent camper, the sun was an hour from setting. There wasn’t enough daylight left to do anything. So I just positioned the camper on the edge of the woods and left it there.

I turned on lights in the cabin, and left the girls to listen to their latest obsession, High School Musical.

I alternately pulled weeds from between the wooden porch steps and sat in the rocking chair, then pulled more weeds, then rocked a little... all the time wondering, Is this it?

Was this moment the thing that had made me so antsy to leave town? Now I was antsy in the country, and getting bug bites.

At least the girls were having fun, singing soundalike lyrics at the top of their lungs, not much of it making sense, but that didn’t matter to them.

By now a butter yellow moon had risen over the treetops, and I was compelled to walk through a little stacked-rail fence onto the open hillside where Vince and I had said our wedding vows. The beauty of the sky at night and the stillness of the warm summer air were beginning to settle in on me, and I could feel their calming effect.
The pacing in my mind and heart was slowing down.

And as I stood there, gratitude began rising to the surface.

Gratitude for so many things... For this time in my family’s history, marriages, babies, for my parents, for all the comings and goings under my own roof. This uncluttered, uninterrupted moment with my bare feet on the grass made me feel closer to the connectedness I longed for.

Maybe I should pray. Maybe out loud.

But when I opened my mouth, the words seemed outside the moment.My voice too thin. The actual sounds inadequate and out of place. If this had been male-female communication, words would have stopped and touch would begin. How natural. But how does the created connect with the Creator?

I welcomed my gratitude, pictured my loved ones, and then began moving my arms, my hands, my feet in communication... I saw my sisters’ faces. And then I bent down, reaching, and then stood, stretching up, and I rocked my arms and my body and pictured all of us rocking each other’s babies...

And then I was marching and seeing my father, and dancing a jig... And then I moved in gratitude for my mother, kneeling, and bending,
and rising... And then for my children and Vince, and I moved and twirled and danced, and balanced, and stood and spun until I was panting and my heart was racing and I felt connected.

Later, walking back to the cabin, it occurred to me that I should do a little more stretching to stay limber so I can pray wordlessly in the moonlight when I’m ninety.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Reunion pictures/ bay area



the Two on top is the Reunion pictures and one down on the Bottom is my Husband

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Reunion pictures

Hello Friends i just want to i am having a wonderful day i hope you all have a wonderful day to i will post some Class Reunion pictures soon

Monday, August 20, 2007

Vince Gill one from lets make sure we kiss Goodbye

Every little whisper every little sound
Brings me comfort whenever you're around
A heart full of wonder and sweet reverie
Gives me a reason a reason to believe

Chorus:
Forever's just begun
We'll never turn and run
Slowly we've become
One, one

Slowly we've become one
I love the way we're different
And the way we're the same
Making love to each other
Is like shelter from the rain

Isn't it amazing
What i see in your eyes
I'll be your partner
And never leave your side

Repeat chorus

Friday, August 10, 2007

Some Things Never Get Old Vince Gill


FROM These days

feat. Emmylou Harris

Have you ever watched the sunset
Disappear in the water down in Mexico
The sky on fire melting into the ocean
Man there's some things that never get old

Have you ever seen a baby walk for the first time
It's like watching a sparrow, a sparrow's wings unfold
When that baby smiles up at you
Man there's some things that never get old

Makin' sweet love to that gal of mine
My first taste of bluebird wine
Eatin' watermelon down to the rind
Any old song by brother John Prine

Sometimes that face looking back in the mirror
Make that mirror, make that mirror cold
But in my heart, oh I'm a hundred years younger
Man there's some things that never get old

Ridin' into town with some friends of mine
It's a two-tone Chevy, she's a '59
Ice cold beer in the summertime
Pickin' on the back porch with brother John Prine

I think livin' is one long highway
I'm bettin' Heaven is at the end of the road
I think love just might be the answer
Man there's some things that never get old

I think love, oh Lord, I know it's the answer
Man there's some things that never get old

These Days Vince Gill


Man I've seen it all
I've had my back against the wall
Pain and misery, empty victories
Then you came along

[Chorus:]
Oh these days
I'll take these days
Over any other days I've ever known
Oh your sweet ways make these sweet days
Feel like home

Man I've chased some crazy dreams
Reaching for that big brass ring
Bitter memories I've put behind me
I found out it's the little things

[Chorus 2x]

Oh your sweet ways make these sweet days
Feel like home

The weather right now

Roseville, California
Currently: 64°F Clear
Roseville, California
Currently: 17°C Clear
Clear
Wind: South at 6 MPH
Humidity: 68%
Dewpoint: 54°F
Barometer: 29.94 inches and
Wind: South at 9 KPH
Humidity: 68%
Dewpoint: 12°C
Barometer: 1014 millibars and
Sunrise: 6:15 am
Sunset: 8:08 pm

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

disney babys

Mikey wants to play peek oh boo with you

Tiger to

Friday, July 13, 2007

Monday, July 09, 2007

David Brian



our Little David Brian is Two months old siting with momma and he went to see his Grandma and Grandpa Miner he is 3months now

Baby pictures


Hi all sorry i have not updated my website in a while i been really busy with my Son his name is David Brian Miner after his Daddy he is a wonderful baby

Thursday, January 18, 2007