We are back from our whirlwind recording trip to Ann Arbor located near Detroit, Michigan! Thank you for your prayers! The project is coming along fantastically!

On Sunday, after church AND after Abigail played in her piano recital, we drove over 8 hours to our hotel in Ann Arbor, the Red Roof Inn. Yep. We were tired. BUT, we had a great story CD to listen to during the hours in the van.

The night passed quickly and we were up early getting ready for the day. After a nice breakfast at Big Boy, we drove to the studio, arriving around 9:00 AM. As you can see from the photos, Brookwood Recording Studio is beautiful with huge painted canvas murals on the walls - very inspirational! The canvas painting behind the piano was actually used in a 1951 Hollywood movie!

We set up, recorded, listened to get an idea of our sound, recorded, broke for a quick lunch, recorded some more, etc. In between lots of the "takes" there were short breaks to check our instrument tuning. After all, they need to be perfectly in tune for the CD!

By the time supper came around, we were quite worn out and Daddy took us out for a wonderful meal at Karl's Cabin. Shrimp... crab... scallops... pasta... spinach... wild mushrooms... 3 cheese stuffed pasta... roasted red pepper cream sauce... YUM!

Then it was... back to the studio to record one last song: Luke's banjo solo. Check out the photo below of Luke in his "cage/playpen" :) His sound had to be isolated at least somewhat from the rest of the group.

Finally, after a great, informative talk with our sound engineer, David Lau, we hit the road for about an hour before finding a hotel and falling into bed.

By morning, we were greatly refreshed and went for a swim in the deserted heated pool after enjoying the complementary breakfast.

We packed up, and drove, making one short detour to The Chocolate Garden, a highlight of our trip for sure. After purchasing a few tastes, truffles, and a specialty hot chocolate, we were back on the road. (As food connoisseurs, we are always looking for new flavor combinations to duplicate at home!) Driving conditions weren't that great. It was snowing once again, which made the trip longer than normal. But, we arrived home safely!

We are now crazily practicing for our 2nd and final recording session!

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