The the next night, Feb. 23rd, we will be in Grande Prairie, AB taking part in 'Big Hearts For Big Kids'. This is a fundraiser for Sunrise House which is an emergency youth shelter for kids age 12 -17. We'll be joined by the host and founder of the event, Tenille, as well as Victoria Banks, Jason McCoy, Deric Ruttan and many more artists. This is a GREAT cause!

After GP we'll be heading to Dawson Creek to perform at The Kiwanis Performing Arts Centre on Mar. 1st. We will also include a songwriting workshop for the writing community there.  Should be a fun trip!

Got the long underwear packed and ready to go! Yahoo!

It's been really nice to have things low key around the house this week. Nowhere we really need to be...a lot of pajama wearing goin' on! Hoping to re-group and get rested up for the New Year. We are planning to start working on a new record so we'll be writing songs and getting everything together.

We hope that you are enjoying your holidays as well and getting a chance to slow down a little. And we want to take the opportunity to THANK YOU for all the support you've given us this year! For coming to our shows, for buying our records and making it possible for us to do what we do! We really appreciate you and hope to see you in 2013!

Wishing you peace, love, happiness and a prosperous 2013!!

Lisa and Paul

If you haven't got your Christmas shopping done yet, there is still time to get our new Christmas cd, 'It's Cold Outside'. Makes a great stocking stuffer! If you want to check it out you can go to www.thejeffersonsmusic.com and listen to a sample of it. We'd love hear your comments so let us know what you think! Enjoy the holidays!

I'm writing this as we're driving down the highway and it's snowing like crazy! Never know what you're gonna get weather wise out here this time of year! Sure is pretty though.....

So that brings me to my next thought...Christmas music will soon be out too and you're going to want a copy of our Christman albim, 'It's Cold Outside' for your CD collection. We sang the title track the other night (Its Cold Outside) in Innisfail and it was so much fun! You can get a copy at our website or come see one of our shows over the next couple weeks and get one there!

By the way...there is tons of snow up here already! Just keeps comin' down...brr!

This is going to be an in-the-round style tour where we take turns singing songs that we've written and telling stories about them. This is our favorite kind of show...very intimate..lots of harmony...acoustic. It will be very much like The Bluebird Cafe here in Nashville.

We may even add an early Christmas song or two in the mix since our Christmas album will be ready by then!

We flew to Seattle on August 2nd where Grandma and Uncle Tim picked us up to drive up to Canada. Grandma was so excited to see Ivy! Us too, but of course Ivy was the main attraction. And Ivy was very happy to be with her grandma again...

The first tour stop for us was Tlell, BC which is in Northern BC in Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) for the Tlell Fall Fair. We shared the stage with Valdy and Ish Da Fish and some other local performers. Paul and I got up there a day early so we got to experience a little bit of the lifestyle. It's extremely beautiful, almost magical. Very laid back, peaceful. We wandered along the beach and found seashells and I found a piece of rock with crystal in it! After our show we had a date night in Queen Charlotte City!

Next stop was Merritt, BC at Crossroads church. I've been to Merritt a thousand times...sometimes en route to somewhere else, and of course for the Merritt Mountain Music Festival. My cousin Sherry is a minister at Crossroads so we talked to her about doing an acoustic performance there and she helped us put it together. It was great! We also went and visited the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame which is now based in Merritt.

The next morning we drove back to Surrey for a hometown show at The Surrey Arts Centre. My cousin Jaclyn Guillou joined us and did an opening set of Jazz music. This was the first time combining the two genres and we even did a few songs together at the end of the show...a lot of fun! It was so cool to do this in Surrey since it's hometown turf for both of us.

The next part of the tour was across the border in Washington. We went down to Whatcom Meadows where our relatives own a permanent camp site. We spent a few days hanging out with Ivy and then we did our 2nd annual Whatcom Meadows concert outside for all the camp owners. It was so cool to be back there...I spent a lot of time as a kid going there with family and now we were able to go back and enjoy it with our little girl! Hope to do the 3rd annual next year...

Then it was back to Surrey to Grandmas to do laundry and regroup for the next bit which had us drive to Kelowna, BC to play at the West Kelowna Yacht Club, again with Jaclyn. We had a sold out show and we were right on the water with a beautiful sunset during the show. Paul and I listened to Jaclyn sing 'Moon River' on a beautiful British Columbia evening...so cool!

The next night was also with Jaclyn at Hester Creek Winery. What a beautiful place! And the wine and food...amazing! They had it set up so people could sit out on the lawn in front of the stage and have a picnic..drink some wine. Everything was going very well until the 'gentle breeze' we had at soundcheck became a full on wind storm! When Jaclyn was up it was starting to get pretty intense and by the time we got up it was crazy! We could hardly stand on the stage without being blown over! Then our mic stands started blowing over so we had to stop the show since it was getting a little dangerous. I guess you could say we really 'blew them away'!

One more stop...Mount Engadine Lodge near Canmore, AB. This was such an incredible place! It's about an hour from Canmore, AB surrounded by the Rocky Mountains! We arrived the night before the show so we had the full day of the show to take a hike and enjoy the scenery. While we were hiking I couldn't help but break into a chorus of 'Blue Canadian Rockies'...too fitting! Sang it in the show too! They loved it...

The lodge is known for having moose in the area and apparently there are two that come back often that they have named...White Sox and Mooselini. So right before show time White Sox comes waltzing over in the field behind the lodge, big rack and all and everybody runs out to the balcony to take pictures and admire him. So Paul and I go out too and I say 'Hey Paul, we're being upstaged by a moose!' First time for everything...

.It was the perfect gig to end the tour but then we had a 12 hour drive back to Surrey...back to Ivy..we hadn't seen her in 5 days at this point! We made it back then had a day to re-pack and catch our flight home to Nashville.

We are home now and settling in....and a huge thanks goes out to a whole lot of people! Tina and Brian Guillou for helping with some of the tour and putting us up for a few nights...Tim and Ileen for all of their help at Whatcom Meadows....all of our hosts that put us up along the way and took great care of us...and especially to Grandma and Grandpa! Couldn't have done it without them...Ivy loved every second of it!

Right after the show we got back in the car and drove to Muskoka to Linda and Ross Dodington's boathouse (relatives of Victoria Banks). Such an awesome place! We could hear waves lapping against the dock from our beds. We got to stay there for 3 days and did some boating and swimming...well just Paul and Ivy did the swimming, the water is still very cold (65 degrees) up there!  On Thursday, the 24th we went to Gravenhurst to perform at The Gravenhurst Opera House with our pal Victoria Banks. It was an amazing night. We did the show in-the-round style and swapped stories and songs and then at the end for an encore we sang one of Victorias songs called 'The Other Side' accapella with some awesome 3 part harmony. Really cool!

Then it was on to TO where we took part in the Tin Pan North Songwriters Festival. We did two songwriter rounds on the Friday and Saturday night at different venues in downtown TO. We were joined by several other Canadian and Nashville writers and heard some really cool new songs! I have to say a highlight was hearing Rob Crosby sing his song 'Concrete Angel' (Martina hit). So amazing!
On the Saturday during the day Paul stayed with Ivy at the hotel and I took part in a workshop for new writers. Got to meet a bunch of up and coming writers and offer a little advice to some of them. I really enjoyed seeing the enthusiasm and passion for their art! I'm sure we'll be running into a few of them in Nashville at some point....

On Sunday, May 27th we drove to Ottawa to do a house concert with Mike and Angel Turenne and also to see Ivy's cousins and my brother and his wife. Ivy had tons of fun playing and we had a great show as well. The stage was set in a barn that's converted into a party room with a bar and seating and a little wood stove...so cool! And the sound in there was really good too.

After the show we stayed in Ottawa for a couple of days for some down time and it was really fun to watch our nephews play together with Ivy...we don't see them often enough!

Then we got in the car to head back to Nashville....lordy it was a long trip!! 17 hours total...we stopped in Columbus, OH overnight to break it up but what a HAUL! And with a 2 1/2 year old! Little Ivy did pretty well all things considered. Lots of stops and promises of icecream!

Finally we made it to our driveway in Nashville...I've never been so happy to be home! Took a few days to recover from that one! All in all the trip was a great success! We look forward to going back...perhaps maybe by plane next time??

Our first show is May 20 at the Purple Hill Country Hall in Thorndale, ON and we'll be joined by several other artists...Jamie Warren, Sean Hogan..just to name a couple.

Then we are heading to Muskoka, ON...hometown of the famous Victoria Banks! In fact we're staying with Vic's aunt in their boathouse while we're there..it is so beautiful! We have a show with Vic at The Gravenhurst Opera House on May 24th so we have a couple days to enjoy the lake..cool!

Then from Muskoka we will head to Toronto, ON to be a part of Tin Pan North for 2 nights. We'll be joined by several other Canadian writers for in-the-round performances.

Our last show is a house concert in Ottawa on May 27th where we will visit with my brother and his family and Ivy will get to play with her cousins for a day or two.

It's gonna be a jam-packed trip...never a dull moment traveling with a 2 1/2 year old! It's only what...900 miles to Thorndale from Nashville? Piece of cake! I'm sure Ivy will be really quiet for the whole drive and not throw a single tantrum and be a perfect angel........pray for us...

Follow us on twitter @thejeffersons and we'll keep you posted on all the exciting moments!

Too late...she turned the lock and just like that her and I were both locked in her bedroom with no one else at home! But here's the best part..I had just started running her bath! The first thing I think of is the conversation Paul and I had about keeping a screwdriver in her bedroom in case of this very event, but of course we didn't do it...arghh!  So I try everything to get the lock open...hangers...pieces of toys. Then I remember that someone is staying with us and she's home so I yell for her but she can't hear me because the bath water is running and it makes a loud sound through the pipes downstairs. So then I consider jumping out the window and I get half way out and decide it's too treacherous. I yell some more for Nicole (our houseguest)...nothing...I try jiggling the lock some more....nope. Then Ivy..who's been oblivious to my panicking comes over to me with her angel doll and I say "Ivy, you need to ask your angel to help us get out". So she goes and sits down and starts talking to her doll saying, "You need to help us angel". Then at that very second Nicole comes knocking at the door, completely unaware that we're stuck, and hears us calling and saves us! She just happened to come to the door for something else!

Luckily, the water in the bath had not overflowed but it was close.  Needless to say, taking the locking doorknob off that door is now on Paul'd to-do list.

Thank you Angel doll@

Larry Delaney and his wife Joanne have been the driving force behind the publication and have done all of it right from their home in Ottawa...pretty much the last of it's kind. It was all done from scratch...no computers...no internet...no online anything...all done the old fashioned way with a lot of heart and soul. Paul and I had the chance to visit with them in Ottawa the last time we were there and had the chance to look through the vintage music selection that Larry owns. Quite amazing to say the least!

I personally have had the good fortune of being on the cover a few times throughout my career and am so grateful for all the support Larry and Country Music News have given me. And I'm so glad The Jeffersons were able to be included in one of the final issues as well. But onward we go...we won't forget you, Country Music News, but we WILL miss you!

The point is, come on burger guy! Its not that important! He didn't even see me standing there placing my order. Total tunnel vision...

Anyway, let's consider the people that work at these places...they have to put up with a lot of crazy people throughout the day. Next time you're there, offer a kind word to the person taking your order...it might help make up up for the crazy burger guy comin' in later!

And of course, the media has been going to town with it...any picture of Whitney they can find that doesn't show her in her best light ends up in the tabloids...all kinds of rumors about her last few days and what she did or didn't do. I was at the grocery store yesterday and every magazine and gossip column had her on the cover.

I think we should celebrate the lovely soul she was underneath her flaws for now, but in time not forget that she had an illness that stole her talent, her self respect and eventually her life. How do we help others avoid the same path? So many young artists out there are completely out of touch with reality and have no comprehension of what substance abuse can do...we are not invincible! You can only go so far with that kind lifestyle before it catches up with you in some way.

My wish for these times is that maybe this could be a wake-up call for some. Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Elvis, Hank Sr. and the list goes on...we don't need to add anymore.

Rest in peace, Whitney

They recently signed a new record deal with Interscope Records and are about to bust wide open as the next big thing! They have it all...amazing talent, gorgeous looks and they write their own songs too.

It's so cool to me that these the two little girls have grown up to be such talented young women and are about to embark on the same path I did so many years ago! I can't wait to see where the road will take them and I'm so glad we could get them at The Bluebird before they're too famous!