Well….hope 2010 has been wonderful for everyone so far. Trying to make through now without my nightly dose of college bowl games. It’s okay for now…at least I still have NFL post-season to look forward to. Had a great (all be it rusty) time when the group reassembled after a 5 week hiatus to sing locally at Long View Missionary Baptist Church. Hadn’t been there in a few years…was great to see all the folks there. Was especially humbled to see so many from my home church (in fairness…it’s also Scott and Darrell’s home church too, but sometimes I like to pretend folks come to see me…just kidding). For some reason after these long periods of not singing, when we get back together it’s like we haven’t done it in years. The people there were awfully nice….not one person threw tomatoes or any vegetable at us though they were readily available in the fellowship hall from the lunch they had just served. All joking aside….we had a great time and it was a reminder of how much I missed being around the guys.

Got a big trip coming up next week…the frozen tundra of Michigan awaits the van to blaze a trail. I know I sound like Darrell as he describes virtually every song as his favorite here, but we truly do always look very forward to this trip. Love the people, love the churches, and love (what else)….the snow! We had a small run of snow/ice here that kept kids out of school for a few days, but there is nothing like seeing it piled up all over the place when we tread into the Kalamazoo area. You can check our schedule for details, but it will be a full weekend for sure….Thursday night in Kalamazoo, Friday night in Britton, Saturday night in Sterling Heights, then Sunday night right here (by comparison) in our backyard in Bowling Green, KY. Should be a blast.

So…what about the new songs my boy Marty uploaded to the website?? For those of you who don’t know, Marty loaded up clips of the relatively new “Called Out Quartet Live in Nashville” CD for all to hear. Not only that, but he also loaded up the CD to the site so you can purchase it through PayPal. Real quick…for those not familiar, PayPal is a VERY secure internet based payment system used by virtually every vendor on the Web for completing transactions in a safe and secure manner. You can create a PayPal account that will give you funding options for your purchase, but really…all you have to do is have a credit card or debit card and it will take care of the rest. If you feel uncomfortable in the very least about transacting this way…just shoot us an email of what you would like to purchase, and we will mail it out and let you mail a check. PayPal is easy and provides us with all the info we need and provides the purchaser a way to keep track of the purchase and gives them an avenue of recourse if they have problems with the vendor.

How about this for fun news…everyone knows by now that Marty Harris has returned to the group as our piano player for most dates….right? Well we have another surprise to throw out to you guys who will be around during the trip to Michigan. Darrell has a brother who is slightly older (like 2 years) and who used to sing with Darrell while they traveled for years as the Rayon City Quartet (mainly back in the 80’s and 90’s). Darrell played piano and sang for the group and his brother Kent sang and played the bass guitar. Through some talks during our time off at Christmas it all kind of came together for Kent to join us as our bass player for this trip. How cool is that?? Not sure we will be able to handle 2 Colliers at the same time…but it’s sure going to be fun trying. We’ll be praying about Kent’s ability to be able to join us for subsequent dates down the road….I’ll keep you posted there. I’d say a weekend with us will test his patience to the max…

Hope you guys have an awesome weekend, and keep looking for more changes to the website soon. Marty has a web design business Sound Media Source and is taking care of his regular customers and working a few things for us in here and there. If any of you guys out there need websites for your church (and all churches should have a presence on the web), or your business (ditto), or if you’d like to even start one for your family (very popular with families who are spread out all over the country and want to share pics and blogs with each other and who ever might want to drip ion)…please contact Marty at marty@soundmediasource.com and let him know what you need. A web presence can be super quick and cheap, or it can be a bit more involved. Either way….Marty is your man.

Talk at you guys soon!!!

Jess, Scott, Darrell, Marty, Kent, and Von (all the guys…at least at the moment, with CO4)