Dear Friends, Greetings from the land that winter's forgotten. We probably shouldn't say anything because, as soon as we do, winter will descend with a vengeance, but it'll be worth it not to have had to spend December and January battling ice, snow and bone chilling temperatures. We've recently seen sunny days and enjoyed temperatures in the 60s. There's lots going on. First, we've heard from the good folks at Traveling Troubadour that we're heading into crunch time for our cruise to Alaska in July. Holland American Line, the cruiser's best friend when it comes to sailing on big ships, needs to know by the first of March how many of us will traveling with them. So if any of you are have been procrastinating on making a decision on whether to join us, let us encourage you to make your decision, remembering of course that you don't have to send all the money in now, just a deposit. Keep in mind that whenever Robin and Linda and Their Fine Group are involved fun rears its head. For more info, call Lynette Miller at (800) 584-6724 or find her on line at http://travelingtroubadour.com/. We're just back from a week in Nashville where we recorded our 22nd CD. It was intense work made all the more so by Robin getting sick at the beginning of the week. But he "iron-manned" it through and we came up with a CD that we're pleased with. We would say we're proud of it but pride is one of the "seven deadly sins" and we need to stay as far away from them as we knowingly can. Being able to go to Nashville and work with such top quality musicians is one of the perks of doing what we do and it makes us feel we're doing something right. The musicians, Al Perkins, Todd Phillips and Cris Brashear, sure made things easy. Jim Rooney, the producer, was a joy to work with and we spent as much time with him as we could. Mark Howard is an excellent engineer and it was a pleasure to be in his studio again. We recorded and mixed twelve songs in five days - seven of them originals - and now are looking forward to the CD being released on Red House Records in the late spring or early summer. As well as the personnel mentioned above, we were also lucky enough to "fly" in harmony performances on a couple of songs by long time friends Jim Watson and Garrison Keillor. A couple of big "thank yous" go out to Tim O'Brien who let us use his house and Dr. Rob Marsh who helped get Robin back on his feet in a hurry. As is evidenced by this February email, we are sometimes late getting them out, so we would like to mention a special night coming up in early March. All gigs are special but this night, March 2nd in Staunton, VA with two good friends, Jeff Huss and Mark Dalton deserves an extra mention. Jeff and Mark, the owners of Huss and Dalton Guitars (www.hussanddalton.com), are wonderful musicians and we love singing and playing music with them. What we'll be doing is taking what we do in our living rooms and polishing it up for the stage of The Mockingbird Roots Music Hall in Staunton, VA. It's exciting for the two of us to get to play and sing with these guys. The rehearsals have been fun and productive. We're all bringing songs to the table that aren't found in our normal repertoires and we're getting a kick out of what we're coming up with. Who knows, some of these songs may stick with us after this gig is over. We're calling this night "The Big Gig" and our band The Big Gig Troupe." We'll be joined by a couple of hot shot musicians, Zack Demming on standup bass and Oliver Craven on fiddle and mandolin. Bumper Sticker Of The Month: I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure. We'll have a couple of weeks at home before heading up to Massachusetts and New York the end of the month to play some of our favorite places. Now we're thinking about what we wrote in the first paragraph and we'll hope for dry roads. It'll be good to get bac k to doing what we do best, playing live. Come out and support some live music. Your pals, Robin and Linda