More Band





Here are several pictures/videos from the past few events that Kristin has done.  It includes two different games, band day at UD and a festival at Rising Sun.

 

Last weekend Kristin went to the University of Delaware with her high school band.  There were several high schools there and they all got together and practiced with the UD band in the morning and then performed with the UD band during the half time game.  Thanks to other wonderful parents that take pictures (I didn't go) I got some pictures of her.  Here she is with the UD band.  She's in the very center of the picture wearing one of the bright yellow shirts.

The band sits and plays in the stands for every quarter during football games except the 3rd quarter, they get that one off.  Kristin is in the 2nd row from the bottom, 5th person in from the right.

She's the first person to march off the field after their performance.  Well, the first person behind the drum major that is. 

Having fun in the stands with the other clarinet players.

They played in a festival in Rising Sun, MD yesterday which was basically a competition among different high schools.  Her school came in third place.

Another picture of her in the stands.

Now onto the videos.  I've taken several and I had a hard time choosing what to put on here.  I narrowed it down to these 3 because you can see her the best in them.  The marching band theme this year is Santana. 

 

 

 

 

The band seems to have a lot of fun when they're playing in the stands.  A couple times they get up and dance.  That is everyone except Kristin!

And yet another one of her not dancing.

 

She is definitely not a dancer!  Maybe by the time she's a senior she will.  That's it for pictures and videos for now.  Sorry to overload you all in one post.

Helping Mommy

The kids have had a lot of days off from school this month.  In fact they've only had one full week of school in the month of September.  They got off for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur but because I work in a Catholic preschool I obviously did not get off.  Where I work they allow us to bring in our kids so Zach came to work with me.  He had the option of staying home with his sisters but he chose to come with me probably because he knew he could play!  Here he is the first day he came with me, he was showing my preschool kids how to build a tower with the blocks.

He loves the blocks and loves building with them but he also likes to crash them down which is NOT what we want our preschool kids to do.  Mainly because it gets too loud in the room and we don't want any of the kids to get hurt with flying blocks.  So I told him to make roads with the blocks instead so he showed the boys how to do that.

He came with me on a Wednesday and on Wednesday's the kids have both music and gym classes.  I went to gym with the preschool kids and Zach came with me for that one but during music class I stayed behind and got some work done.  I put Zach to work sweeping the floor!

Of course that lasted long enough for me to take the picture!  He won't have another opportunity to come into work with me until November.  He has a day off for Columbus Day weekend but so do I and then I actually have another day off but the kids don't.  I can't wait for that one, that hardly ever happens.

Kristin's Updated Room

Kristin's room got a much needed paint job yesterday.  She had pink walls before like this:

And now they're a lovely sea foam green like this:

It doesn't quite match her comforter and curtains but that's okay.  We'll make it work somehow.  If not she might be getting all new bedding.  :)

Mentos and Coke Experiment



On our summer bucket list was to do the Mentos and Coke guiser experiment.  So on the last official day of summer Paul set it up in the backyard with Zach's help.

With the countdown on here's what happened:

Yeah, not too exciting.  We actually did it twice and now we can officially cross it off our summer bucket list.  We got a lot done on our list and whatever we didn't get to will get put on next year's summer bucket list.  I'll have to update you on what we accomplished later, when I get more time. 

Apple Tasting

Zach brought home from school a monthly list of optional activities for the month of September and one of the activities was to taste test different apples.  So I went to the store and bought 4 different kinds:  Granny Smith, Red Delicious, Fuji and Pink Lady.



I took it one step further and instead of just Zach taste testing we asked Paul, Megan and Lauren to taste test also.  The Fuji and Pink Lady tied for the best and the worst tasting was the Red Delicious.  I wish the Honey Crisp apple had been out when I went shopping because I heard it was really good.  Maybe we'll do another apple taste test before Zach takes his paper back and include that one. 

Band

Kristin had her first marching band experience last night.  We weren't sure she was going to march or not since her shoes that we ordered through the band department hadn't come in yet and the band director has a rule that if you don't have the shoes then you don't march.  Good thing I ordered them through her band director!  It wouldn't have been my fault if they hadn't come in.  But fortunately they did so she was able to march. 

When Paul and I arrived the band was already sitting in the stands.  Kristin is bottom left in this picture.

 I should have cropped this one for you but you can sort of see her near the middle of the picture.

 During the first half the band played music in the stands.  Kristin doesn't quite know all the music yet because that's a lot to memorize when you're a freshman!  At halftime they performed 3 songs (will eventually do 4).  Yet again, it all needs to be memorized.  Here's my girl as she marched on the field.  I love the hat!

 They had the 3rd quarter off to go do what they wanted to do so Kristin stopped by and Paul snapped this picture with his phone. 

 It was a hot night and she was a big sweaty mess in that uniform.  Paul gave her money to go buy a water bottle at the snack bar.

Then for the 4th quarter they had to be back to play again in the stands.

I was going to take some video of her while she was marching but my cameras display wouldn't light up and at the moment I had no idea why.  I didn't want to fool with it and miss the whole thing so I figured I would video her another time.  It's not like they don't do the same performance for every single game!  I was kind of excited to start camera shopping but when I got home it turns out that one of the buttons must have accidentally been pressed, the one that turns off the display.  So no camera shopping for me (well, maybe I will anyway :)   These pictures (except for the one Paul took) are ones that other parents took and then put up on the band website.  Thank goodness there are nice parents that have nice cameras or this blog post wouldn't have happened.

Pool Fun over Labor Day Weekend

I haven't posted many pool pics this summer so I wanted to at least post one of all the kids.  They rarely are ever at the pool at the same time because one will be at a friend's house or Lauren has to work.  So for the first time in a long time the kids and I (Paul was at a softball tournament) got a little pool time together.  

Don't they make a cute bunch?  So grown-up looking.

 

Here they are from August of 2009.  Zach wasn't as cooperative then!



Actually, he's still not!  I was surprised he was so willing to get this years picture taken.