07/03/2025
7/2/2025- Patrice and I have been reflecting on the day we had together with friends and family at Solid Rock in the Park on June 29th 2025. What an amazing day it was, we had so much fun. God blessed our day with sunshine, perfect weather, no bugs, wonderful people and delightful music. Do you know how much I love and appreciate saying that?
Sunday night, after all our stuff was tucked in the garage, we enjoyed our after party at Don Julio's. We enjoyed visiting with some of our helpers who still had some time to give.
Here are a few highlights:
- A crew of wonderful helpers, who are friends and family met at 9:00am to work with Greg to setup the big tent and all the other tents and tables around the park.
- My son Josh and daughter in-law Ashley captured smiles all day at the event, using the photo clock.
- My niece Amber Young, our photographer made the rounds capturing moments.
- Holy Smokes Barbecue was ready to feed hungry souls with savory brisket at 11:30am even though the brisket sold out before I got any.😞
- The Short and Sweet Treats Ice Cream truck was ready to go at 1pm to bring sugary smiles.
- The 2 Timothy worship band warmed up the stage at 12:30pm, just before the event officially started to set the tone for the day.
- The bouncy house from 123 Jump got setup at 1pm and our volunteers kept sanity in the ranks.
- The kids craft area was an inspired display of variety and our volunteers were ready with everything stocked to create fun stuff for kids to create and take home.
- Mike Ball from the Blood Like Wine band brought some healing vibes and encouraged people to focus on the recovery that our Christ does.
- There were many young smiling faces lined up for most of the day to get beautifully bejeweled by the gifted Brooke, of Brushed by Brooke- face painting. I even got a few selfies with some of them.
- Scott the amazing balloon man from Amazing Balloons worked feverishly for 2 hours to get balloon animals, wearable balloons and swords into the hands of each young heart.
- Marcus- TRU SERVA used his smooth hip hop to skillfully weave the gospel message. Patrice and I worked with Marcus to dole out prizes in-between sets.
- Anyone within inches of the park got prize tickets and hung around see which of some terrific prizes, donated by area businesses, they might win.
- After the blessing of our veterans at 3pm, a few of us gathered to sing the American national anthem.
- Anthony gave his brilliantly crafted sword presentation with his testimony.
- Then my band, Mike and the Vibes took the stage. I rocked out with the tracks from my Nashville recordings. Steve Duede joined us for the last 2 songs we did.
- Steve Duede took the stage next and brought joyful blues. His music sounded wonderful from every angle of the park.
- After all but the grand prize was given out, our new friends and headliner band, Presence Music, who had worked all day making the rest of us sound good, brought us back to the reason we do all this, pointing people to the One who started it all.
- The grand prize was won by my brother, but he chose to give it to one of the kids anxious to win something, the bouncy house came down, the tents got put away, the equipment put away, the park cleaned up and the travelers took to the road with happy hearts.
- We met with all who could stick around at Don Julio's and enjoyed the food and fellowship.
We have some pretty awesome people to thank. As you may or may not know, our family, our church family and our friends are our support base. We don't get any corporate sponsors.
Another year under our belts. We love our fans, donors and volunteers!
