This One Time, at Band Camp...

Well, it's actually a band competition, but I couldn't think of a movie quote for that to use for the title. Our entire Saturday was consumed by my daughter's band competition yesterday. We got up at 5:15 to get her to school and drive 40 miles south to a band competition. My daughter's school performed at 10:00 AM, and then we had to just hang out the rest of the day, in the direct sunlight in 85 degree weather. Side note here: I want to know who authorized the return of summer temperatures in October. Sheesh!

These kiddos are improving pretty dramatically each week they perform. (Which may be why their band director signed them up for a competition every...single...weekend.) This isn't just a biased maternal opinion; their score has gone up 11 points (out of 100) since their first competition. So of course they made finals last night, and actually got the 2nd place spot. Which meant they played again 9:00 PM. So we didn't leave the competition until after 10:00 PM and didn't get home until almost midnight.

I had a different (somewhat obstructed) view of the band yesterday from field level.

My husband and I signed up to work on the pit crew yesterday since our parents couldn't come to the performance. It was hard work, and even though I didn't have time for a regular workout, I still think I get some credit for pulling a trailer loaded with props and equipment which probably weighed about 300 pounds. There were even hills, and we had to sprint with it to set up for the performance, because they only get 3 minutes 15 seconds to get all set up and ready to play.

Since I was working the pit crew I finally got an opportunity to take a picture of my daughter in uniform in the staging area. Which was good because she told me yesterday that I could just wait until her senior pictures. (She's a freshman).

The kids ended up taking 3rd place overall after finals, out of 28 bands. This was really exciting for a band who until last week hadn't even made it into finals. I'm glad they're working hard and improving, I'm not so glad that their improved performance means I'm losing all of my Saturdays during my favorite month of the year. On Friday night we watched Monster House with the kids. My husband thought it was too early, but I told him we weren't going to have as many opportunities to watch our family Halloween movies together, so we had to get started.

All of this activity so far away from home yesterday meant that I lost an entire weekend day to get caught up on chores. But I pounded through them this morning so I'm feeling better. The dishwasher is running and the hand-wash dishes are sitting in the drying rack. The laundry is in progress. The mail is sorted and the bills are paid. Now I intend to relax (other than taking care of laundry as loads get done) until we take my husband out to dinner for his belated birthday celebration with his parents, where I fully intend to have a margarita!

My yard is really starting to look like autumn.