Christmas Letter 2016

Greetings,
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2016 has been a very busy year for Darren and me, but a slightly less busy year for the DKers. This year I fixed up my house to the point where it is livable, and I had my first son, Everett. Darren got married and started trying to convince his wife that when they have a child they should give him/her a name that starts with R (D-K-E-R). I know I am supposed to cram in all the personal stuff into one sentence at the end, but it was so much easier think of personal stuff than juggling highlights for 2016.

 The only things we premiered this year were the foundation, five big balls, and eight clubs. That all happened last January and was mentioned in last year’s letter. We still aren’t great at 8 clubs, but the other two are standard parts of the show now. However, we removed most of the jokes from the Foundation routine to make it quicker. Even though we were both busy we still managed to do 35 shows which is exactly how many we did last year. To help fit all the shows into our busy lives, we enlisted the help of Ben to run sound for a few shows.
 
The D vs. K Showdown didn’t happen at the 4th of July because instead of our normal time and spot, they moved us to the big stage for an hour.  We are still usually in kids section for most events, but it feels like we are doing more banquets for adults as well. Anyway, D vs. K was moved to later in the month at Party in the Park, and for the second year in a row I was victorious! The first round was devilsticks, which Darren won. The second round was magic tricks. Both of our tricks were really successful, but mine won out. The final round was something new, and my Chuka Chuks beat out Darrens ping pong ball spitting. As the winner I have decided that next year’s rounds will be Chinese yo-yo, something with something, and a new routine. (Something with something means juggling with chickens or devilsticking with a shovel or …)
 
We have begun practicing three new routines. First, we started working on a new stick routine since we have been doing the duel since high school. It is based a song with with a repeating word or phrase.  We finally settled on Chris Tomlin’s “Forever,” but I still feel like we could be easily convinced to change it to something else.  I like what we have so far, but it’s a long way from being finished. Second, we are working on a routine to go with 2 Cor 12:9. We use that verse on our shirts, but it is not anywhere in the show. We have some really interesting ideas, but haven’t put much time into them yet. Finally, we are going to do a whipped cream version of Father Abraham. We haven’t perfected this yet, but it is the type of routine that is fun regardless of how well it works, so I think we will do it for the HMS Winter Carnival next month.

Merry Christmas,

Kevin