Pickin' and A Grinnin'

One Christmas Christopher, John and Anna were given a kids' guitar as a gift from their Nana.  They have all three played and played that guitar, and Christopher fell in love with it.  Now that he is a bit older and bigger, he has worked hard to show his mom and dad that he is responsible enough for a full-sized guitar of his own.  Christopher has taken to the piano well in recent years, so we know that he has an interest and talent in music, and that he practices faithfully.  Upon recommendation of our dear friend and expert guitar consultant Aaron Smith, in April we went to Guitar Center in Raleigh to pick-out one for him...

It was so confusing!  Guitar Center has rooms full of guitars, and to the untrained eye, a $5,000 one looks EXACTLY like a $50 one.  So a big thank you to David Hammond at Guitar Center, who took this clueless mom and dad on and helped us find just the perfect guitar.  David was great.  He talked us through what we needed and was honest about what we didn't need.  David didn't try to up-sell us, and we ended-up with a reasonably-priced but well-constructed Yahama acoustic folk guitar.

And here was our Christopher, sitting down with his new instrument for the first time...

 

This week, Christopher had his first guitar lesson with our friend Jimmy.  Jimmy is a talented musician and teaches the guitar very well.  And best of all, Jimmy ends his guitar lesson with prayer.

Christopher hopes to someday be the next Steven Curtis Chapman or Tim Hawkins.  But we are ready for him to be the first Christopher Barnette. :D  Mostly, though, we hope that he has fun and finds a new way to worship and praise the Lord through music.

So now that Christopher has his first real six-string, we'll have to see if he plays it 'til his fingers bleed this summer.  After all, these are the best days of his life... 

Sorry for the cheesy song reference.

Couldn't help myself.  I'm a child of the 80's.  :D