January  ~  The first of the year was spent with all of us getting some personal time for family, creating and whatever it is that touring
    musicians do when they are not on the road!.  Margie continued preparing music for The Irish Immigrant in America CD, as well as
    continuing lessons with harp and penny-whistle students. Paul got back to work on the Mercedes Lackey project, a CD of all original
    music by Paul with lyrics by Paul and Mercedes. This is a companion to her very popular "Valdemar" books.  With some time freeing
    up in the Spring both projects should be close to completion by mid-year!  Kathy, meanwhile, soaked up some of that Hawaiian sun with
    her husband John. Talk about the hard life!!

Our annual Robert Burns Night Concert in San Leandro, CA  was as successful as ever!  As The Scotts Bard himself might have said,
    "We ha' tales to tell and we ha' songs to sing, we ha' pennies to spend and we ha' pints to bring." A splendid time was had by all,
       with the haggis once again taking center-stage!

February ~ February found us back in the swing of things, with several school programs and hitting the road once again, this time for
    Southern California and Arizona.  One of the highlights was The Arizona Highland Games and Festival in Mesa, AZ. We shared the
    stage with a local group, Afan, that plays a great deal of Welsh music.  It was exciting for us to recognize a few of the Welsh tunes
    (some that we play ourselves) and to also hear songs sung in the Welsh tongue - a challenging language if there ever was one.
    Our final set of the festival was a combined set with Afan - a wall of Celtic sound!  It was awesome!  After connecting musically and
    personally with the band, we are putting plans together to some day do a combined show.

March ~ We kicked off the month of St. Patrick with several concerts in Southern California. We then had our annual St. Patrick's Day
    concert at The Palms (at The Winters Opera House) in Winters, CA. We were once again joined by Florie Brown (Golden Bough fiddle
    player from 1982-1997) for some rollicking double fiddles and wonderful violin duets from her and Kathy.  Hosting the Golden Bough
    Stage at Calaveras Celtic Festival in Angel's Camp, CA was next on our agenda.  That is always a fabulous festival with so much music
    and fun it's difficult to fit it into a single weekend!  We were joined for some impromptu jams over the weekend by Lief Sorbye
    (Tempest) and Richard Ferry (flute player and former Golden Bough member) for a slight preview of our 25th Anniversary Concerts,
    coming up in January, 2005!  We were also joined on stage by David Brewer (incredible piper and whistle player from the group,
    Molly's Revenge).

We then headed straight for Colorado, where we spent several days working with the students of Garfield Elementary School in Loveland.
    The three day workshop (building and learning to play resonator bells, as well as some spur-of-the-moment dancing) culminated in a
    concert at the Rialto Theatre, with the students joining us for several songs - playing their bells and singing along.  We then played a
    concert at The Lakewood Cultural Center in Lakewood, CO.  Both of these theatres were amazing, intimate settings where we were
    overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the audiences.

Without more than a day to catch our breaths, we took off for Washington state, where we began that leg of our tour in Forks, performing
    for more school children and a concert for the community. It rained the whole time, which seems to be pretty common along the extreme
    Northwest corner of Washington - after all, they do have a real rain forest there! We performed concerts over the last weekend of
    March in Olympia and Snoqualmie, then headed south end the month with several school programs in Vancouver, WA and Portland, OR.

April, May, June ~ We started off in April with a showcase in Vancouver, BC for ArtStarts, which brings programs into schools in Canada;
    a performance in Lacey with Irish dancers; California concerts and school assembly programs and some recording time!  In May and
    June continued to be busy with our school shows, as well as concerts and Highland Games in California.  Margie also found time to
    continue preparing music for the "Songs of the Irish Immigrants" CD.

July ~ Another Highland Games and local concerts continued through the month of July, with some memorable shows including;
    Lake Tahoe at the Valhalla Boathouse (an old boathouse rebuilt into a beautiful theatre with a huge window at the back of the stage
    that looks out over the lake), Sierra City at The Kentucky Mine site (a wonderful evening concert in an outdoor amphitheatre) and
    one of our favorites, an outdoor concert at The Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve.

August ~ This was about as busy a month as you can imagine. We went up to Washington and Oregon, back to California and back up to
    The Pacific Northwest once more!  Trivia question: How many miles can a Celtic band put on their tour van in a month? One of the
    highlights was when Florie joined us for a show in Lake Almanor - it's always fun to have our friends sit in with us! There wasn't much
    time for anything else in August other than driving, performing and rehearsing the music for the new CD.

September ~ We had to slow down the traveling in order to get into the studio and get the new CD finished, which we did. We were joined
    on Songs of the Irish Immigrants by David Brewer, who did a marvelous job playing the Uilean (elbow) pipes on several tracks, adding
    that very special Irish sound! We finished up the the CD in October and released it in November. We were extremely happy with the
    finished product. We like to think of it as the third installment in our "Songs of" trilogy (Song of the Celts, Songs of Scotland and
    Songs of the Irish Immigrants).  Everyone needs a good trilogy, don't they?  We finished off the month with our annual appearance at
    our hometown festival, The Pacific Coast Fog Fest! Yes, Pacifica does have an export!

October ~ Well, we just couldn't get enough of Oregon and Washington! So we headed back up and enjoyed a colorful fall in The Pacific
    Northwest.  We got to spend Halloween at home, which is always delight. There is nothing more fun than greeting small ghouls and
    goblins, giving them a treat and hoping they don't play any tricks! The last touches were put on the music and artwork for the new CD
    and off it went to the manufacturer!

November & December ~ This is always one of our most favorite times of the year. The changing of the season (yes, we do experience it
    in California, it's just on a more subtle level), the family concerts and crafts festivals that add such a cheerful tone and all of the friends
    that come out to celebrate with us at our shows.  Songs of the Irish Immigrants was a big hit at the CD release concert and we have
    received several congrats on a well-done recording!  2004 came to a close with us looking forward to big changes, knowing that the time
    we were spending on the road, dashing from performance to performance was slowly drawing to a close and that a new lifestyle would
    begin in mid 2005.  January 2005 would mark 25 years of performing and recording as Golden Bough and over 30 years of Margie and
    Paul performing together!