I cannot wait to be married to her. If you told me 2 years ago that I would be getting married in July 2010, I would have told you to go somewhere else with your crazy talk. Now, looking back, it’s really awesome to see everything we’ve done together.

I’m marrying my best friend, and it’s so exciting, and I feel so lucky.

I love Jenny for her wit, her kindness, her generosity, her willingness to work things out with me, and her ability to make me belly laugh. I can’t get over how sweet it is when she laughs at my jokes that we both know are not that funny, and the way she smiles at me when we’re together. I love being able to look into her eyes and know that she loves me back for who I am. She’s so supportive of my dreams and hopes  and desires, and is more encouraging and inspiring than I could ever express to her. To say that spending my life with her, sharing everything and growing old together makes me excited would be an understatement. I love her more and more every day, and my hope is that our love will continue to grow and mature into something even more beautiful than I could ever imagine.

Being with Jenny is the best. I have the best time with her even if we’re not doing anything specific or planned–although, I have to say, going on planned dates are one of my favorite things to do with her. Holding her face in my hands and looking deeply into her beautiful brown eyes has to be one of my dearest and truest treasures.

I feel incredibly lucky to be a part of Jenny’s life. As the time draws nearer and nearer to being married to her, my excitement and anticipation for all the wonderful things to come is building. I cannot wait to call her my wife, live together, wake up together, cook together, share our lives with one another, and build our future together. It’s exciting to know that I will be able to accomplish more than I ever thought possible simply because of our commitment to one another. Our desire to lay our lives down for each other in gratitude and humility whilst pursuing grace in all things in order to be able to really love one another and the people around us is really what it’s all about.

I can’t think of anything that I want more.

I love you, Jenny. You are more beautiful than you’ll know.

Anyway, here’s an update! Long overdue, but I’m doing it now, so that’s what counts.

I’m in Nashville recording our next record for The Autumn Film. I’m pretty excited, and I think it’s going to be the best album to date for us. It’s got a lot of great tracks that are decidedly more “pop” than our previous songs, but we’re in good hands, and I think the end result will be worth all the hard work we’re putting into it.

It’s really cool to be a part of all of this. I am really lucky that I’m able to be a full time musician which is what I have dreamed of being since I was a young boy. It’s kind of hard to believe it’s happening. I definitely don’t want to miss anything, and admittedly, it’s going by really fast, so I am doing my best to hang onto everything and be as present as I possibly can. It’s great when it happens just like that. It’s a blur when it doesn’t and I always end up regretting it later.

Jenny came out to see me for the weekend which was really sweet because she took a day off, and faced her fear of flying. It’s commendable, and I am really lucky to have such a gem.

I got rid of my twitter account, which I think is good because I’ll probably be blogging more. Also, 160 characters is hard to finish a complete thought. So there’s that.

I think we’re ready to record our next song! I gotta go!

Thanks for sticking with me.

Here’s some photos from so far:

I am especially proud of the last one. It’s pretty subtle, but if you are familiar with some art, you might get it. Maybe not though. I’ll never know. I’m hilarious. Coffee is burning my tongue. Gotta go. Sorry it’s short. Everything is going well. We started giving away our album, and it’s going really, really well. More to come soon.

Love,

Dann

We just got done with the west coast and we have about 4 weeks under our belt and about 3 more to go. It went by fast now that I am here typing this but thinking back, so much happened!

Starting in San diego we played and then drove all the way to Seattle and Portland and then all the way back down to LA and then Anaheim and San diego again. Then phoenix and then LA again then phoenix and now wears in Oklahoma city. Whew! I’m sure I forgot something but it was definitely a lot of driving and playing. We also saw Sigur Rós is Berkeley somewhere in there too.

We just filled up for $2.19/gallon in OKC which has to be some sort of record in years for lowest gas price. It’s amazing.

I have only fond memories of the last few weeks. I miss my family and my friends and my girlfriend so so much. I can’t wait to get back home an see everyone.

I love being on the road. It’s a hell of a lot of work and sometimes not the most fun or easiest thing to do but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I get to play music with 2 of my best friends for a living. How cool is that? It’s amazing to think where I thought I was headed 3 short years ago. In retrospect, I’m so happy none of those plans worked out. It’s funny how life works and where you find yourself along the way.

I feel like a lot of times when I start writing and thinking about what to write, I almost automatically turn to remembering how thankful I am. It might sound weird, but I am also really thankful for being able to be thankful. I just have a really grateful heart for everything that I have been given and I feel so lucky and blessed in so many ways and I am just often overwhelemd by it all to the point of shedding tears (happy ones).

I am pretty sleepy now. I have been doing nothing all day except sitting. I hope to work out tomorrow before our trip to Kansas city.

Please feel free to write or call me anytime. I would LOVE to hear from you. Sorry about the spelling errors. I typed this on my phone and sometimes it doesn’t autocorrect how I would like it and I end up not catching it.

See you later, alligator.

In other news, I would say that our new system of playing with three people and making it still sound like a really full band is going swimmingly. I love playing with Tifah and Reid so much that I constantly tell them. I am sure they are tired of hearing how amazing they are and how lucky I feel to be on the road with two superhuman geniuses. Yup…It’s pretty great.

We played at a church called EVBC in Gilbert, AZ and it was so cool. I don’t think we’ve ever sounded better as a band. I would like to brag and say that the sound guy, Tim, is a fellow graduate of the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Science and he does his job very, very well.

I love my life. I can’t complain about anything. I love being on the road with two of my favorite people. I love playing music for a living. I love seeing new places. I love meeting new people. I love seeing God move and touch/affect peoples lives through our music. I love being thankful about everything. It feels so natural doing what I’m doing that I almost can’t believe it. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Randy Bacon Art Gallery has to be one of the coolest spaces I’ve seen. Everyone needs to check it out. It’s where we played last night, and it was incredible. Randy and Shannon Bacon were amazing too. They were so interested in us, and so all about creativity and art and beauty. Randy takes mostly portraits of people, and every single on of them was too beautiful for words.

They talked about how they are huge fans of Rob Bell, and how they just saw him on his “Everything is Spiritual” tour. They saw our “Love Wins” stickers and got a kick out of that too. We just talked with them a little and it was so apparent that when it comes down to it, they are just huge people lovers.

I hope to come back here very soon. I would love to talk with them more, and find out more about their lives.

Also, again, such amazing, incredible hospitality. I am overwhelmed most of the time with gratitude.

In other news, I bought “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie I am really excited to start reading it. Maybe we can be friends soon!

PS – I did 140 pushups yesterday! I can’t quite believe it myself. Maybe my goal of 200 pushups/day by the end of the tour is much too low. Maybe I’ll be doing 1000 pushups a day at the end. haha. We shall see.