Saturday, March 17, 2007

A Show, Dinner & Special Friends

The evening opened with a trip to Chantilly High School to listen to a few high school bands compete at a jazz festival. Joshua's band played a set of three pieces. The photo below shows Joshua playing a solo in one of the pieces.

Jonathan went to the concert with us, then hung around for awhile afterwards and came home with Joshua. In the meantime, some friends of ours, Lt. Colonels Barry and Sue Swanson, got to the concert in time to hear Joshua's band. Then they went to dinner with Dave and me. I took the photo below after we finished our dinner.

Our family has known Barry and Sue since we moved to Iowa 11 years ago. Barry was the divisional commander who hired Dave to oversee the corps in Iowa City while I went to school. Our paths diverged for a few years when the Swansons moved to Chicago and we eventually moved to Virginia. Then, last summer, Barry and Sue were appointed to the USA National Headquarters in Alexandria. They also started attending our corps (church) in Arlington. We've enjoyed renewing our friendships over the past several months. Their tenure at NHQ will be short-lived, however, as they recently learned that they will be moving to London, England in July. They will be serving at The Salvation Army's International Headquarters as Secretaries for the Americas. That's a fancy way of saying that they will be responsible for overseeing Salvation Army ministries in 35 countries in North and South Americas, Central America and the Caribbean. Our family will miss seeing them on a regular basis and sharing lunch together at the ARC, but we know they will do well in their new appointments.

2 comments:

Dave said...

The adjudicators gave the Oakton Jazz group an outstanding score (1 score). Groups come to the Chantilly Jazz Festival from across VA, MD and NC.

Barbara said...

sounds like a great vacation spot for you down the road to rekindle a wonderful friendship.