Why Are you Bringing Him Back to School?

Yesterday was the Junior High Intermediate Band Festival.  Nolan is not in this band, but he was asked to be the timpanist, so he had to go to the band festival.  Everyone who went to the festival was given a school excused absence for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th periods.  Talking to the director, I discovered that Nolan only had to miss one class period if I picked him up from festival after they played and took him back to school.  So I did.  I heard the band play.  I sat through their clinic.  I drove Nolan back to school.  I went into the school to check him back in.  The attendance clerk asked me why I was checking him in when I hadn't checked him out.  I explained that I was bringing him back from the band festival early so he could attend the rest of his classes.  She asked me why I wanted to do that when Nolan was excused by the school for the rest of the day.  I explained that I didn't want him to miss his classes and have a ton of make up work to do.  She didn't like that answer.  She thought I was crazy for bring him back to school when he wasn't required to be there.  I explained to her that he's not even in that band class, and that it was more important for him to be at school than killing time at Panda Express.  Evidently she couldn't wrap her head around my logic.  Finally she told Nolan that he should just go to class, and if any of his teachers ask why he's at school when he's not supposed to be there, then they could call her, and she'd take care of it.  She didn't want to go into the computer and change his attendance code.  She preferred that I make her job 10 seconds easier and keep him at home.

Loose Tooth

Miles is essentially 5 1/2.  For some reason, I started thinking about loose teeth.  I was a early tooth loser, and wondered if Miles was going to be like me.  I asked him to open his mouth so I could check to see if he had any wiggle teeth.  I wiggled the bottom front two teeth.  The one on the left didn't budge.  The one on the right wiggles ever so little.  Excited, I told Miles that he has a loose tooth, and that it would come out.  Miles was not pleased with the news.  Actually, he freaked out.  He lost it.  I thought his reaction was really funny, so I was laughing while he was panicking.  I tried to explain to Miles that losing teeth is normal and supposed to happen.  He wasn't buying it.  Large age gaps are a funny thing... Nolan lost his last tooth long before Miles was interested in such things, so Miles has no idea about this rite of passage.  Trying to figure out how to help Miles understand that losing teeth is part of growing up, I remembered the book "Little Rabbit's Loose Tooth."  I ordered it from Amazon, and hopefully it was make losing a tooth less traumatic for Miles.

Logo Quiz

Miles loves all the "Can you identify whose logo this is?" games on the iPad/iPod/iPhone.  He plays several of them, and uses different devices as search engines to help him out when he's stuck on a logo.  He also has learned to use Google to search for logos.  One of his favorite logo games is "Logo Quiz."  It shows a portion of a logo and gives you 4 multiple-choice options of companies to choose from.  Until yesterday, I had the high score on the game... a streak of 60 correctly identified logos.  I thought that was a pretty good score until I saw what Miles could do.  Currently the high score sits at 285 consecutive correctly identified logos.  Evidently, Miles got bored with the game and closed the app before he made a mistake, so his game is still active.  I bow to Miles.

Nolan's Big Day- UPAS DOP 2014

Yesterday was the Utah Percussive Arts Society's Day of Percussion.  He performed THREE times and had an awesome day.  He started the day with his marimba solo, Mbira Song.  It went well... a couple of missed notes, but he played real nice.



This performance earned him this!


Second place in the Junior High keyboard division!

Then he played his snare solo, "Cyclone"...


Which earned him this...


Third place in the Junior High Rudimental Snare category!

He won a pair of mallets, a marimba book, some Marimba One swag, a pair of drum sticks, a snare solo book, and a tub of drum putty for prizes.

The Oak Canyon Percussion Ensemble also played "Millenium", and Nolan rocked it on the Timpani.



What a day!  So proud of Nolan and all the hours of practicing that lead to such a big payoff!

Kitty Has a Bad Morning

The other day I heard hissing.  I saw Jinga pushing aside the blinds and scurrying across the window sills.  Finally I pulled up the blinds on the door and saw what was bothering the cat so much...

Jinga found a "friend" and it was quite disturbing to her.

Disneyland Tour 2014

Okay, I'm tired.  Still.  I've been back for 6 days, but I'm still tired.  I met up with the band/choir/orchestra/drama group in LA on the 8th.  The next day we went to Disneyland.  The band and orchestra had their performances and the choir had its recording clinic (I have no idea what the drama schedule was).  I didn't sleep well the night before so I slept through the choir clinic.  The parks weren't overly crowded and we had a fun day.  We did have an issue with kids who were "breaking the Sabbath" (as per their parents' instructions), and there were a couple of kids for which we had to make "go to church" accommodations, and we did have a kid lose his park hopper pass, but other than that, it was a good day!  We made it back to the hotel around midnight.  During room checks/visits, we gave the kids the schedule for the next day... head to Disneyland at 9 a.m., then meet at the buses at 7:30 p.m. for an 8 p.m. departure.  I couldn't believe that we had kids who wanted to know why we had to stay so late at the park.  Really?  7:30 was past their bedtimes?  Then we had some kids that didn't want to go to Disneyland at all and asked if they could just stay at the hotel all day.  Whatever.

Monday we got to the park and had to help out the kid who lost his park pass the previous day.  We also had to help out the kids who intentionally left their park passes at the hotel because they thought that by doing so, they wouldn't have to spend the day at Disneyland.  Really?  What a punishment... having to go to Disneyland.  Poor babies.  It makes me wonder what they thought they'd be doing when they signed up for the Disneyland tour.  3 hours later, we had those issues sorted out and got to go play in the parks.  It was a bit more crowded, but still tolerable.  We got back to the hotel around 8:30 p.m. and guess what??? Now the kids were complaining that because we had to leave the park so early, they didn't have time to eat and were so hungry and needed an escort to take them to go get dinner.

On Tuesday, the band and orchestra had their clinics, and the choir performed in the park.  The parks were insanely crowded.  Human traffic jams are the best.  There were huge lines everywhere; we waited 110 minutes for Space Mountain.  I'd hit my "I'm done" point, and the crowds and my exhaustion weren't making the day any easier.  The kids were told to be at the buses at 9:45 p.m. for a 10 p.m. departure.  At 10:25, there were 5 kids missing.  They had been told to "run" and if we were still there, they'd be lucky, otherwise they'd need to take a cab back to the hotel.  We saw 3 of the kids running towards the bus.  When they saw that the bus was still there, they stopped running and strolled to the bus.  The adult in charge of my bus saw this and instructed the driver to pull out, and she did.  Those kids were able to get on a different bus though.  The other 2 kids got to take a cab to the hotel.

On Wednesday we loaded the buses and left around 8 a.m. for the drive back to Utah.  It was uneventful until just east of Las Vegas when we saw a dark plume of smoke about half mile ahead.

 A big rig was burning right on the interstate.  We sat there for about 90 minutes (I'm so glad it was only that long) until the fire was extinguished.

We had 2 girls decide that they needed to charge their phones so they were going to unplug the router that everyone else was using so they could charge.  They didn't appreciate being told "no" and actually looked stunned that they were told "no."  We got to St George much later than anticipated, but Texas Roadhouse told us to come anyway.  Nightmare.  We told the server that we need our order put in first, so we could take care of the bill, and get our group in and out as quickly as possible.  3 hours after arriving, and after serving nearly everyone else, they brought out our food.  Every order at our table was messed up... meat cooked wrong, wrong cut of steak, no portobello mushroom sauce, wrong dish, and my meal was never brought out.  The server said she'd have the kitchen cook it, but at that point, I was done with Texas Roadhouse and wanted out of there, so I told her not to bother.  Well, finally we got on the road and I made it home at 1:47 a.m.

Oh, did I mention that our bus driver missed the port of entry at the Arizona-Utah border and got pulled over?  Did I mention that he sassed the highway patrolman?  Just another little adventure.

So tour... yes, in all it was fun.  I always forget how wiped out I get on these things.  Next year, will I go?  No idea.  It's too soon to even think about that.

Dumb Drummers

This morning the THS performing arts department left for their spring tour.  I am going as a chaperone, but instead of leaving today, I'm flying to LA tomorrow, and will meet up with the group there.  I told Mr. Morris that if anyone forgot anything "crucial," I'd be happy to bring it out when I come.  He's a transcript of the texts I got...

Morris: Looks like the percussionists may have forgotten their box of toys.  I'll let you know.
Me:  Oh dear!!! Yes, let me know.
Morris:  Figures.  Isaac isn't on tour and the others can't seem to function responsibly without him.
Morris:  Dumb drummers, they didn't bring sticks ot mallets or anything!!!
Me:  Sorry, but that is hilarious.  Let me know what I need to do, what to bring, and where it all is.
Morris: Isaac got it all together, it's by the piano by the door.
Me:  Great!  Tell Isaac he's awesome! You better give him an A+ this term.
Morris:  True statement.

So I went over to THS to get the stuff and found that not only was there a box of auxillary percussion equipment, but there were 2 large drums in bags sitting by the piano.  I texted Morris...

Me:  Just the "hat box" or do the 2 drums come too?
Morris:  Not sure, sorry!  Take the drums home and I'll find out.
Me:  I hate your drummers.

So I hauled the "hat box" and the 2 drums home.  The drums were quite heavy (32 and 28 pounds) and there was no way that they would fit in a suitcase.  So I texted Morris again.

Me:  There is no way that these congas will fit in a suitcase.  Do you trust them to be checked in the bags they are in?  Suggestions?
Morris:  Sorry, didn't realize they were congas, we won't need them.
Morris:  Yeah, they've been extra obnoxious lately (the drummers)
Me:  Not having the drums is a smart choice financially- it would have been $150 in checked baggage fees.  And I really don't hate the drummers!
Morris:  But they really have been obnoxious!

I was seriously panicking about having to bring the drums.  There was no way I could manage the two drums, the "hat box", my suitcase, and my purse by myself. Not to mention the additional baggage fees and the increase in my airport-to-hotel shuttle rate. Here's what the luggage pile would have looked like.

I also can't believe that the drummers forgot everything except for their snares and bass drums.  There's a THS band anacronym that I think I finally understand.  "DDDT" means "Drummer Do Dumb Things."  Yep, they proved that today.

Here's the percussion equipment I am taking to LA...