Spring Band Concert

Alice on Clarinet, and Emily on E flat Alto Saxophone, had their first spring concert, on a Wednesday night, in the Gym.  Part of the new bond in their district includes building a multi-use facility that will improve the concert set up for the band. = )

Both bands were sitting at the same time, and so the concert was a back and forth between beginning band and 7th/8th grade band.

The beginning band E flat alto saxophone section received the 'most engaged' section of the woodwind class, and Emily received "happiest to be there" in the woodwind class. = )

 Alice got a nod for being one of only a handful in her band who had only been on their instrument for a year!  

The award ceremony was strange, as it was in the middle of the concert, and each of the recipients of the individual awards were part of the section who received their award (like Emily, who got two, and many others who got none.) The band director has been ill, so I don't know if this were par for the course, or if it were abnormal.  I guess we'll find out next year!

Afterwards was a sugar reception, lol, with cake and cookies and brownies and cupcakes.  It was an impressive spread, considering the email call for goodies went out at almost 10pm the night before.  We contributed some premade sugar cookies that I'd bought for Grace's Easy Bake oven (and they were about to expire, long before she could bake them all!)

later days

edit: written 6-15-23 and backdated for continuity. 

School Events and Spirit Days

On Emily's birthday, Alice had a concert band competition on the calendar.  School was out for them that day, and when I dropped her off, the roads were not awful.  She would hop on the bus with the band for Charlotte, and we were going to drive down to see her.

Billy took the day off, so that he could see her play.  As the six of us drove down to Charlotte, the roads were getting worse and worse.  Even so, many came out to support their band, and Alice even waved to us! = )

It was nice to hear the entire band play the piece that she works on at home each night!  And they got some really good advice from a visiting judge during the 'sightreading' portion of the event.

They 'shortened' the event to end at 6, even so, the roads were slick and awful.  We slowly made our way back to the school to collect her, then very slowly made our way home without incident.

For the week leading up to St. Patrick's Day, the big girls' school had a spirit week.  Both dressed up every day, but I only managed two pictures of just Emily*! 

Plaid day was early in the week:

"Lucky Charm" day was later in the week.  I think this was her favorite, since she was able to pull off the snacks to share with her friends after they took the participation count for the team 'competition.'

Snow piles are like a beacon to my children (or really all the children.)  "Take our picture Mutti!"

The twins, doing twin things on "dress like a cool kid" day!

William dressed up too, and even got called up to help 'lead' a song in the assembly, but by the time I thought "oh, I should take a picture**" all the students were standing, and I couldn't see him.  He did dress up in Spartan gear and a Scooby Doo baseball cap! (which is why, in my mind, he was selected = ))

I will do my best to take more pictures the next spirit week, maybe it will be warmer and we can do some outside pictures without having to suffer!

later days

*In my defense, Mornings are hectic around here, and Alice is usually one of the last out the door, bringing the brush along to brush her hair in the car because she's out of time!

**I was working, and so my mind was more on my work duties than on my mom duties.

Other Fun!

This is the place where I include all of the events and pictures that don't have their own post.

Grace made a cute face on her knee using playdoh.

Emily reminds me a lot of myself at times, and so when I was at the thrift store and found a stash of 50 or so hair tie sets that someone had made (maybe to sell at a craft show?) I grabbed them.  When I presented them to Emily, it was for her to pick through to give to her friends at school. 

She carefully selected patterns and colors for each of her friends, then bagged then up with some candy and labelled them. So as not to exclude the boys in her group, she made up some strictly candy goodie bags too.

Also in the bag were these two nifty hair pieces, for which we had to find a youtube video to learn how to use.  lol.  They are really cute though!

The second fundraising roller skate night was two days before Christmas break, so we were all tired, but it was nice to order a pizza and hang out while the kids went to hang out with their friends.  Even the big girls had fun.  They considered it a practice for the field trip they would get to go on the next day with their classmates!

Grace got some gloves from someone at school as a Christmas present.

The look of delight on William's face when he found this kitchen "gun" that we were using to decorate some cupcakes was priceless.  I caught it just as he was turning away though.

Eggs used to be a cheap protein choice, but now they are running around $5 a dozen (thanks to avian flu and a few other bird illnesses) so these deviled eggs were an expensive "treat" but they came out very tasty!

I made some fresh bread, because it just seemed like something I hadn't done all year, so I got at least one loaf in. = )

We found this secret message book at the thrift store one day.  It had lots of neat codes in it, but the red filter cutout was missing, so some of the codes were quite tricky to try and decipher. After a search of likely places for some 3D glasses came up empty, I was so proud when Grace colored a piece of tape with red sharpie to help her decode the words. = )

The twins were particularly goofy when Renae came over to hang out one weekend.

In her absence, Avia left money to treat us to a milkshake during happy hour at Arby's.  Some of my children opted for the larger shake, others opted for the smaller shake and fries. = )

I'm sure I've told the story here before, but have no idea where, so I'll tell it here again.  Many years ago, Emily was reading the tags under the Christmas tree and found one for Billy.  It read "to" Daddy from: ALL."  Emily came to me full of disbelief and asked "mutti, who is A-L-L???"  like she absolutely couldn't believe that this person, of whom she'd never heard, would be giving Billy a gift!!!  

After teasing her, and still doing so occasionally to this day, A-L-L has become our invisible 'monster' who is never on the floor of the house we are on.  He lives mostly upstairs and in the basement.  Well, one day I was driving through town and learned that A-L-L got a job!!  We don't know what he does, but that is totally his van.

Alice is carving a niche out for herself as the resident band snack provider.  Now that her band director has returned, she brought some blueberry muffins to share with her class.

At a thrift shop, Emily and I found a squishimal that was designed to look like bubble tea.  She had never had bubble tea, so we ventured out to a nearby shop.  Sadly, this was during the break and they were closed until after the New Year.  So, the following weekend, she asked if we could go get some.  When Billy heard we were going for bubble tea, he assumed we were heading to East Lansing, where there are several bubble tea shops, and he wanted to come along and get some No Thai.  

They are one of the few stores, outside of doctor's offices, that are still requiring masks to enter.  So, we had to run out to the car to grab our masks.

They had the strangest combination of a German name, Chinese characters and English translations as an afterthought.

I had done some research in anticipation of our first trip and picked out the Taro flavored bubble tea.  Emily and Grace both wimped out and picked an oreo flavored drink.  I did have them try mine though, so that they would know what bubble tea tastes like, should anyone ask whether or not they like it.   Bubble tea is not my favorite, I really dont like "chunks' in my food or drink.  But the flavor was spot on and I would totally recommend it if you're new to bubble tea and need a starting point.

At the thrift shop, I found a Tucana friend for the cockatoo that Chelsea bought me years ago!

Alice and Emily are part of Monday cooking club.  On their first day, they made cupcakes, the second round was from scratch pretzels!!  I think they are having a good time, and the pretzels were pretty good (a little undercooked, since they ran out of time.)

We celebrated Billy's 41st birthday with a resee's peanut butter cup ice cream cake for breakfast!

He saved his birthday gifts for after work.  He got a pile of homemade gifts and cards from the kids.  I added some subway gift cards and a new Halloween house for his budding Halloween village.

Alice is on the internet alot, and was telling me how very little I knew about modern fashion.  Particularly "suede goth with preppy vibes."  I told her all except for one of those has been a thing *at least* since I was in high school.  The little girls decided to dress up to see if they could nail the look. lol.

Alice was not amused.  I thought it was hilarious.

later days

Middle School Band Concert

In December, despite the band director being a substitute, they put on a Christmas concert!

The 6th graders, beginning band, played first.

Next up was the 7th/8th grade band.

Billy drove out to meet us, since the big girls had to be there at 5, even though the concert didn't start until 6.  We entertained ourselves, taking up about 3 rows, while the bleachers filled up around us.  By the time Billy arrived, we had consolidated to a single row, with just enough seating for our family!

Alice baked 3 different types of treats to pass out to her band, but I didn't manage a single picture! = (  She made "swans," (picture a cupcake with a candy cane,) marshmallow & corn flake wreaths, and some fruit "gnomes" made with bananas, strawberries and grapes on a bamboo skewer.  All went over really well!

It was a sweet event, and they did really well, again, with the consideration that their band director had been out for a couple of months leading up to it.

later days

edit 1-17-23: backdated for continuity.

Date in Kalamazoo

My mom has continued her gift of a monthly overnight get away for us, and this month was Kalamazoo. We had been to Kalamazoo before, by train, but did not have an opportunity to spend the night, so we went back and explored a different area this time (and visited places we couldn't last time.)

We stayed at a local renown bed an breakfast, called the Kalamazoo House.  We arrived before the 3pm check-in, but we were able to park our car and explore a bit.

Billy in line with the statues.

 

We were right next to an art museum, but did not take the time to go in.  We did appreciate the art installments out of doors though. 

We decided to give Hop Cat a 4th chance.  It was a decent walk, and when we arrived, wouldn't you know the doors were locked!  (Disappointed again)  Luckily, they opened at 3, and it was 2:58.  So, not being wimps, we stood out in the sun, on the step (we passed many a running car, with passengers waiting in the the air-conditioning in the parking lot) and as such, were the first ones in the door!

As for the meal, well, I was pleasantly surprised.  They had everything we ordered, and all of it was good!

We stopped by a place called Shakespeare's Pub.  They had dozens of beers on tap, and thousands of handles (including Shiner!) on the ceiling.  Sadly, they didn't have any "themed" menus or drinks, which is was I was wanting, so we only stayed for a drink or two, then headed back to the B&B.

A fountain that wasn't on, when we visited that November, was being visited by 2 ducks on this trip!

We went back to our home base and checked in.

Then we headed to the main event: an outdoor concert at the State Theater!

They did have themed drinks, and a free donut to to with them!

We stayed there for a couple of hours, the harmonica sealed the deal.  It was just like being out in New Orleans.  In fact, downtown Kalamazoo has an open container policy within a certain boundary!

We had an 8pm reservation at the steakhouse that we had missed out on, during our previous trip.  It was good food, and very good service, but Webster's' a very upscale hotel restaurant, not an independent find dining establishment.  

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The next morning, we enjoyed our breakfast on the porch of the B&B.  The weather was so humid and warm, it was like visiting Brennans's!

After eavesdropping on our neighboring table's discussion, we headed to the Kalamazoo farmer's market.  It was a little smaller (and less permanent) than the Toledo market, but we spent all the cash we had!

I had spied a Sonic cup the night before, and so we sought out the local sonic that was not too far away.

We wound our way back home on the backroads.  When we spotted another "village" we had to go check it out. It had a railroad instead of our lovely river, and not much in the way of shopping.  We agreed that Dimondale is much better. ; )

We were almost directly north of Battle Creek when Billy suggested we go back to the lake restaurant we'd seen driving into town (also on the backroads.)   We were about 30 minutes out of the way, but we made our way back to Gull Lake.

The food was good, the drinks were better, the company was the best. ; )

The pink drink was a pontoon punch, and the green one is a riptide (it was the best of what I tried, though I expected it to be blue.)

We enjoyed seeing all the sights and the beautiful countryside.  Michigan sure is green in the summer, almost green enough to make you forget about the horribleness that is winter, almost.

Grace's friend Zoey had given her a sloth in a package that she brought by, and it was waiting to say hi on my window sill when we arrived home.

We had a lovely, lovely time.  Billy is ready to go back, I still have too much of Michigan left to explore, but I'm sure we'll be back someday!

later days