Parade weekend

Friday was the annual band booster picnic and parade performance preview night.  I am on the band booster board, and as such, I went out there to help cook the food.  I was expecting to be hot and tired!  What I was not expecting was to be so sad that I didn't have a kid performing!  There has been at least one of our kids in the band at the high school for the last 14 years!  Quincy is in high school but is not in band.  Harper and Saige are in band, but not in high school.  I think some of the sadness came from cooking food with a couple of other moms who are dropping kids off at colleges.  We were all visiting about it, comparing the gathering of their stuff, what dorms kids were in etc.  I will say that I have been on this board for at least 13 years now, and at this point, I feel like we have the strongest, most amazing people serving.  Not that we haven't had good people in the past, but currently I love them all.  The band director was hurt in a rollover tractor accident a few weeks ago.  If you frequent this blog, you know that I love Mr. Q - he is amazing, and I am so thankful for him being ok.  Truly, I have been around farmers my entire life and this is the first time I have ever heard of anyone surviving the kind of accident he had.  Tractors flipping onto people generally is no bueno.  I am also thankful for his assistant who picked up all the pieces and ran the band camp, got the kids ready for the parade performance, and helped us with the dinner.  It is so much work to run a successful program, and those 2 people are truly amazing.  

When I got home from the dinner, I was so hot that I just put on a swimsuit and got into the pool.  As I was floating around, I noticed my husband was out burning stumps, burning a few piles of brush, and working really hard in the yard.  I got out and "helped" him by stoking up his fire a little bit!  The girls then decided that it was a perfect fire for roasting marshmallows!  I don't know if the stump got burned or not, but the fire really was a nice one!  Although it may be a month or a little longer before I think about standing around roasting things!  

Madison sent me this sweet photo of Evie trying to eat with chopsticks.  I heard she did a pretty good job of it too!  She is amazing!

Also, after the band dinner, since I was at the high school anyway, I brought home my bus for the year.  This is a brand spanking new bus!  It has 1147 miles on it!  It has zero pieces of gum stuck anywhere!  It has zero trash on the floor, zero holes in seats, zero tiny rocks stuck anywhere on the floor.  I give it til next Friday for that to be changed!  I like the new buses, but I will tell you that there is something about driving something new that makes me a nervous wreck.  We got all new buses this year - like 20 brand new vehicles.  I don't want to be the first one to scratch one, or ding one.  I am praying for a safe year for all bus drivers everywhere!  Every single one of us is under a kind of stress that unless you have been trusted with the safety of other people's children you cannot understand.  I like the job a lot, but I pray daily that I can keep everyone safe.  When I say everyone, that includes people on the roads with me, children on the bus with me, children walking around the bus at the schools, children crossing streets and highways, and people who complain about bus drivers and bus service.  :)  

A little pumpkin/watermelon update.  You may recall that I decided watching the water that I backflush out of our pool filter just flow onto the ground, made me think I should plant something in that area to utilize the water.  I planted pumpkin seeds and watermelon seeds.  They have grown a lot!  I have lots of blooms, a few tiny little watermelons, and a bunch of really huge plants!  I am wondering how long the watermelon will take to ripen up, because the fruit is very, very tiny right now.  I noticed that the Amish people who live outside of town are selling watermelon currently (I even bought one from them this weekend), so I am hoping there is enough summer left to get them to maturity!  Since I planted these at the same time as the Shaake's planted the pumpkins for the pumpkin patch they run, I have more confidence in the pumpkins being ready for Halloween! 

After all of the events of the day, I stepped outside on our deck for a few minutes as the sun was setting.  There were these 2 little clouds on the horizon.  I noticed how cute they looked being all fluffy out there by themselves, but then I noticed they were filled with lightening.  It was sort of a cool sight.  

Saturday night was the Overbrook Fair Parade.  Our club voted to have a float in the parade, and we decided to have riding the float count as attendance toward the August meeting.  Let me just say that attendance at the August meeting was pretty pathetic.  This club has 50 + kids in it.  I think there were 8 who showed up to ride, and 2 or 3 who showed up to help decorate.  I was a little disappointed, but such is life.  The kids still won 1st place in the 4-H division of the parade.  (We are NOT talking about the fact that they were the only float in the 4-H division of the parade).  The parade theme this year was "One Hit Wonders."  Jim had plenty of ideas, but like I always tell him, if you have to explain it, it probably isn't funny.  I thought maybe having the kids wear boxing gloves and holding baseball bats would be funny, but we decided that was an absolutely terrible idea considering some of the children in the club.  So we just went simple.  Harper and Saige rode the float, Quincy was planning to as well, but got called into work.  To be absolutely honest, none of them wanted to ride it, but when mom is the leader, sometimes you get volunTOLD.  I did enjoy watching the parade, although it was not one of the finer nights we have had in our marriage.  All is well now, but once in a while, we have to have a little marital strife, right?  Jim and I are both incredibly stubborn people.  We both have work to do on things, and I acknowledge that I am not the easiest person to pull out of my own head.  Despite our bad moments, what we have is pretty dang good.  I give us a 98%.  The float?  A solid 75% - but C's get degrees am I right?  

Jim went fishing, the girls and I met up with Madison and her family.  Saige and Evie enjoyed the inflatables, and we had dinner at the fair board's concession stand.  Mallory's school was fundraising for Rock Your School Day, and she said they had a lot of great support!  Saige was happy to have help with Evie from her friend Nevaeh, they played ball together this summer, and have become pretty good friends.  I enjoyed visiting with my nephew Josh and his crew for a few minutes!  

Wrenley survived her first parade night!  She is seriously the easiest going baby!  She just eats and hangs out!  That is a real blessing!  Madison started her new job driving a van to vo-tech yesterday.  She reported that both girls did amazing, and she is happy to have a job where she can take them along!  

I enjoyed the band's performance and was so happy to see the band director (walking with a cane) afterwards!  I was also happy to see Gary and Shirley.  She hired me to take over for her at the Watershed district when she retired.  He got me my job at the township.  I think of them as an extra set of grandparents.  They have helped me immensely, watch out for my family, and I am sure would do anything for us if we but asked them.  Good people.  

And now the weekend is over.  Preston's last weekend as a "kid" at our house.  (He had a good time on his senior trip, although I didn't' see many photos or hear that much about it).  The new week will bring changes to our house, being down to 3 kids living at home, learning to keep up with yet another adult child, trying to navigate the new school year, getting back into a routine.  I wish I could say I am embracing it with grace, but I am not, really.  I have been a little moody, a little sad, and a lot of smacked into the reality that time is a thief.  We'll all just do the best we can though.