The surprise of the day was on me when Mom,
Ethan, and Ehlana decided to go to Crystal Springs for a hotel sleepover with
Dad today; and I was set up for a sleepover at Michael’s house while they’re
away.
I loved the idea, since I was busy all day
anyway with school and three practices; and I’m sure that they’re having a
blast in the city – though I haven’t tried to check in with them; and haven’t
been sent any messages or email to let me know how they’re doing. There’s a very good chance that they’re
having a lot more fun than I am with shopping; possibly a meal out with the
Malloys; and whatever else they end up doing while in the city; but then my day
has been pretty good too even with being a bit too busy.
My morning, as I’m sure you’ve already
guessed; turned out to be a lot of fun.
The rain moved out overnight, so while the grass was still wet; Tai Chi
by the river was an option; and then it was a bit of a nuthouse around home
once the decision was made for three out of four of us to do the trip to
Crystal Springs. Mom didn’t need to rush
around to get ready and head out right away, but Ehlana wanted to pack her
things; get some help from me with picking out clothes for a restaurant dinner;
and we made a shopping list for a few things that I wanted picked up while they’re
in the city anyway. Getting all of that
done too kept me busy; and Rowen came over to get me today because I was
running late compared to normal for our walk to school.
That was the end of my involvement with the
adventure to the city that the rest of my family has been enjoying today, but I’ve
had a good day at school; and a return to some sunny, warm weather has helped
with that – especially for our marching band practice and lunch break. Our class time was uneventful, but we had a
lot of fun while playing outside at lunch; and then the entertainment level
kicked up a few notches beginning with our first band practice of the
afternoon.
We worked on our marching band music for
part of that practice; though that was only the music for Memorial Day that we
would have worked on anyway if we didn’t now have the marching band for that
parade. Doing that helped out with our
marching band practice because our section leaders for that band are all
members of the concert band; so they were ready to go to help everyone else
during that practice. Our marching band
doesn’t look like one yet, and we haven’t even tried marching and playing at
the same time yet, but then we didn’t plan on getting there for another couple
of weeks anyway. Right now, it’s the
learning how to march as a group and then play as a team in our section groups
that is most important. We’ll start to
have part of our practice as a full band next week; add in the first marching
and music the week after that; and hopefully have it all together in time for
the Memorial Day parade.
Between now and then, the work on the
fundraising and getting our uniforms is as important; and I was busy with that
between practices – with uniform orders the bigger part of that today. The first order has already gone out, but we
need to have everyone with uniforms in time for that first parade; and that
means that we need to have those orders in before the end of this month. I expect that we’ll need to order some extras,
but that’ll work out eventually anyway; since we will have new members joining
over the next few months – and particularly in September when we’ll have
another batch of eligible younger kids starting in Grade Seven.
I haven’t mentioned that before now, but
while I’m thinking about it; the marching band news has been a big deal for the
kids in Grade Six and Seven. The younger
kids are looking to start learning to play instruments early to have a chance
of being allowed to join the band; and the Grade Seven kids are working a lot
harder than normal to be good-enough to join the few of their classmates that
have already been given permission to join – something they need to get both
from their parents and our music teacher.
That’s fairly awesome for our music program, and is even adding a few
teen jobs here and there with older teens being hired as music teachers for the
Grade Six kids. Michael and I have both
had some offers; but we’re both too busy to take on a bunch of saxophone
player-students along with everything else we’re doing right now.
Before I move on, I should also add that
Patrick and Scott are two of the Grade Seven students that have been approved
already for the marching band; and that Jessica Bassett and her best friends
are among the Grade Six students looking to jump-start their band careers with
learning to play band instruments early.
I’ll keep you posted on how that goes for them, but I can tell you that
Michael thinks that it’ll be awesome to go on that trip with Jessica if she can
get that done – especially when it’s getting tougher all of the time to hang
out with his cousins very much when we always seem to be on the go right now.
Okay, next up is our teen praise team practice. We were working on the songs we’ll be doing
for Mother’s Day and the Memorial Day weekend Sunday services. The Pastors will handle the sermons and other
parts of both services, but the teens will be doing the music and reading the
scriptures; with some help for both on Mother’s Day from the younger kids in
our congregation. Since we are closing
in fast on Mother’s Day, we put in a bit of extra time tonight; which is why we
were late getting home to Michael’s house – and why everything I’ve been doing
since then has been later than usual.
Michael’s parents were still up when we got
home, and had a long chat with us while we got started on our homework in the
dining room; but then they went up to bed while we finished our work. Rebecca had a visit with us too after she got
home from hanging out with Jenny; but then she went up to bed when we moved
into the living room to have a bit of wind-down cuddle time. That didn’t include a major make-out session,
but we did have a tiny bit of play time.
Since I’m writing this tonight instead of tomorrow sometime, you must
know that we didn’t try for a sofa sleepover; though that was entirely because
I still had my family business work and studying to get to when we did come up
to our rooms for the night.
This isn’t ‘my’ room, but it is the same guest
room I’ve been using every time for the last half-dozen or so sleepovers here. It was a bit after midnight by the time I was
ready for bed and to get to work, and since I couldn’t use a time phase
tonight; it’s taken a long time to get everything done. There weren’t any problems – just a lot of
work and studying to do. I wouldn’t
trade any of the fun for more sleep, but I might have to think about staying
home instead of doing sleepovers here when Mom and Dad are both away so that I
can still work at full-power.
No, I’m not suggesting that so that Michael
and I can have unsupervised sleepovers at my house; though that would be fun! I could invite Rowen to stay with me for
appearances if needed; though we’re not really talking about something that’s a
big deal since Mom and Dad don’t exactly take off and leave me home alone very
often anyway.
I have covered all of my news for today,
though, and should be sleeping instead of rambling on; so, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
