Dear Fans,

After eight months, and a very considered decision, this letter is being written to you from Olivia Franz. Yes, it's me, for truly. Alright, so let's get down to business. You have picked up this letter with every intension of learning about our past few months, and I assure you, I will not let you down. We have put this off for eight months because we knew that your feet are now cold and your lawns are full of snow and just the mere mention of July means relief to your poor souls. So! here we begin.

brought to you by Olivia Franz

July found us back in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. A beautiful place to find yourself. Spruce Lake Retreat, where volleyball ensues and pleasant people flock. We have some friends out at wilderness camp who convinced us to take the little journey out for fireside one night. I have to say, those people definitely know how to do bonfires. We were mesmerized by their dancing skills and general having-fun capabilities. However, we didn't really consider that it was going to be dark on the way back and that we had a sort of jungle we had to travel through to get back to our lodge. We had a friend who was very dedicated to the well-being of us and borrowed us a flashlight, and thus we embarked on the dark trek through the woods. In a moment of absent-minded decision making, we gave the flashlight to Emmett and he spent most of the time testing our courageousness by turning it off and talking about scary movies where people find themselves in dark forests with Those-We-Don't-Speak-Of chasing them. However, through the combination of determination and sheer greatness of mind, we made it through. I'm sure you're feeling the great relief.

Those couple of weeks we spent traveling around the northeast. Including Virginia, Vermont, New Jersey, and West Virginia. We also had the opportunity one night to visit the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It was a fantastic place. We spent a good four or five hours there, looking at artifacts from Egypt, China and Rome, paintings from England, etc. It was pretty incredible. I'm sorry to say, the only thing Dad remembers is that it was very difficult to find a parking spot. I'm praying for him...

After that we headed back to the midwest, exploring the flatness of Kansas, Illinois, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. Our dear friend, John Stockeland, came up from Florida for a week to hang with us. Many of you know John and how incredibly developed his humor is, so I don't even have to mention that it was a fantastic time...but I will anyway.

The first weekend of August we headed up to Minnesota for the Berge's Bluegrass Festival. I have to say, it was lovely up there. We always enjoy listening to other groups, something we don't get to do very often, and meeting fellow musicians. Caleb and Emmett had the privilege of leading guitar and dobro workshops, a.k.a teaching other people their tricks. I'm pretty sure they had fun with it, and I rather enjoyed watching them contribute their brilliance to society. That next Monday we got the exciting news that Julie had delivered a baby boy, another Franz, into the world. His name is Hunter Wade, and he is a chunk! Which is quite surprising after the littleness of Ashlyn. We have really enjoyed having another man in this family. Dad's already teaching him how to lift weights.

the Franz family (including Hunter)!

The next week we went back to Iowa and Illinois. Our very dear friends, the Fry's, have a Boys Ranch in Wilton, IA, and every summer they have a gospel sing, which they kindly invite us to. It's always so lovely to be with them. People who serve the Lord with whole hearts. It's inspiring just to walk beside them. We love you guys!

August 16th presented itself as the beginning of a crazy weekend. We were in Harrison, Arkansas at a bluegrass festival and on the afternoon of the 18th we were scheduled to be in Maine. Yes, the state of Maine. If, perhaps, you are thinking we're insane, you may be quite accurate in your musings. We headed out of Arkansas at about 10:30 p.m., picked up Amy in Branson, and began our long excursion to Maine. We drove straight through, and arrived in Massachusetts at 4 a.m. on the 18th for sleep. Got up at 8 a.m. and headed out to Camp Washington in Washington, ME. Just in case you struggle with the skill of arithmetic, I will tell you, that was 30 hours in the van. I'm happy to inform you, we all pulled through famously, and are still on speaking terms. Camp Washington is an entirely unique place, and we had the unique experience of losing Caleb's thumb pick to the ground beneath our building. He "accidentally" dropped it and it rolled into a knot on the floor and we had to give the banjo a rest for four songs while a few kids and men went crawling underneath the chapel to find it. Which they did, much to our happiness. I have to say, it added much drama to the act.

In the weeks following we covered, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas. During those weeks we had the privilege of spending several days performing at Silver Dollar City in Branson. It was a fabulous time. We had wonderful crowds, despite the rain, and it was very enjoyable. We absolutely love the staff there at SDC, they always make us feel so important. Can't beat that.

The end of September the Anders invited us kids to go work at their big event at the Country Barn in Hastings, Nebraska. So we found ourselves doing odd jobs such as: working registers, spraying perfume in buildings, serving jellies, making sandwiches, tearing apart and melting incredibly huge chunks of Velveeta...all things nice. However, on the weekend we had the privilege of being forced (by the lovely Miss Marla) into doing a Franz kids concert. She quite beautifully insisted, and we didn't want to let her down. Frankly, it wasn't an option. Thus, we put together an hour of new songs. Mostly jazz, blues, bluegrass, and other acoustical surprises. It ended up being a surprisingly enjoyable time for us and we were happy for the pressure.

We once again took a trip through the states of Kansas, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Kansas (again) during the months of October and November. Which happily brings us to the cheery holidays. We spent Thanksgiving in Henderson with our families. Hadley, Julie, Ashlyn and Hunter also joined us up there and we had a very loud and exciting-filled couple of days in our grandmas' basements, eating food and exchanging dramatic stories.

recording at Skaggs Place

December was a very fun month. We had several concerts in Missouri and Arkansas, but spent most of our time in Nashville, Tennessee recording a new album. We had the privilege of recording at Skaggs Place (Ricky Skaggs studio) and working with our producer Ben Isaacs and engineer Lee Groitzsch. We're very happy with the way it turned out, and I am delighted to say that it is almost completed. We're bringing together all the details, and it will be ready for distribution soon. Thank you to all of you who contributed monetarily to this album, we couldn't have done it without you. Keep a look out on our website, we'll have it up there immediately. Or! better yet, come see us in concert and you might even get a signed copy. Yeah, I know that excites you greatly.

Christmas was a lovely time, as always. We had so many good friends come visit us, we felt like Christmas was delivering presents daily for four weeks. Thank you SO much to our beautiful friends who came down. We had about 12 people around our table every meal for a month, and we miss all your company now that it's just us.

The fifth of January we had the very great pleasure of playing the music for Peter and Annie Nelson's wedding in Eureka!, IL. So we pulled out our classical pieces and our handy-dandy Zach Reinke to put together the tunes. It was a gorgeous wedding. We even had the first-time experience of having people (other than little children) dance to our music. We were also given Pete Zobrist as a sort of slave over the weekend. He followed us around and did our bidding. Oh yeah, it was awesome.

the Franz' and Zach

The end of January we headed down south. With all the snow and bitter coldness surrounding us, we really had no choice. We spent a week in Alabama, performing concerts in churches and prisons. The We Care crusade was another success this year. It's always such a fantastic time, the inmates are always so happy to see us, and that does a lot for our egos. Haha. No really, knowing that God is living in their hearts and watching them love Him is so encouraging.

Then we unavoidably went to Florida. It was too beautiful, we couldn't pass it by. Sand volleyball, frolicking through the ocean, wearing flip flops, getting a tan, there is no better winter activity. John Stockeland (once again presenting himself in this letter) opened up his house to us. Oh, and his roommate, Ryan, he should be mentioned. So we bunked out there for a few days. Playing dutch blitz again. Yeah, we can't escape it's grip. And I'm serious, if any of you have not taken a plunge into the depths of it's fantastic amazingness, you really should try it out. Although, I'll offer a piece of advice, don't play Audra until you're feeling very secure in your abilities. She'll wipe up the deck with you.

Last weekend we spent all over the place, driving through snow storms, playing concerts, eating Valentine's Day meals, visiting friends, and surprising Hadley for his birthday. We are now enjoying a couple weekends in the area, relaxing at home, and catching up with a bunch of work we put off when we're 1,000 miles from home.

I hope that you have, perhaps, enjoyed this: my rendition of the past eight months. I also hope that you are enjoying life to the fullest. Don't forget to take walks and enjoy the green when spring presents itself to us yet again.

I would like to mention, that we have a newly revamped website that is just fabulous, made by the brilliant Amos Lanka. You will find our merch, this newsletter, photos, bios, and our schedule, posted on there. You can also sign up on our website to get alerts by email when something exciting happens, such as a release of albums, or newsletters, etc. Please do that if you have internet, it saves a bunch of postage costs for us, and be sure to let us know so we can take you off our snail mail list.

With Much Love,
Olivia
and the band of Franz

Job 27:2-6
"As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made me taste bitterness of soul, as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not speak wickedness, and my tongue will utter no deceit. I will never admit you are in the right; till I die, I will not deny my integrity. I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it; my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live."