But First and Jazzy Legos

On Friday, Meri's Jazz Band competed with lots of other schools in a town about an hour away.  Luckily I'm FB friends with her director's wife, and she posted what time they'd be performing.  I thought "What the heck?!  I'll surprise her!"  So I went.  Thinking I'd be late, I actually arrived just as the band was setting up on the stage.

She was surprised!

Here is one video of them.  They played four songs.  All JAZZY...

Afterwards, I needed to get back to work, but Meri wanted me to wait until after their critique was done.  So I did...  A half hour later and my phone is at 3.4 percent of 1 percent power left.  Yes, it shows fractions...  Luckily Meri remembered a cable in the trunk that would work for my phone and the charger that she had along.  Whew!  I worked, she drove.  

Got back JUST in time to see off Leon and Robb.  Then I took Meri into town to get her car from the school.    

One of my sisters and only three of her kids arrived late that afternoon and I made some homemade pizza for them.  We played one of Meri's board games until Melanie and I were about to fall asleep at the table.  There is only so much yawning a person can do before dropping off.

During the night, I was awakened by a dog howling from the laundry room.  We keep the dogs there if we have company.  Plus we had a spare dog in the house that night too.  I went downstairs and found the boys partially asleep on the couches and they didn't even have the blankets on them that I'd told them were behind the couch.  BURRR!  I pulled the blankets out and covered them up.

Then dealt with the dogs.  Put the guest dog outside, then while waiting for that one, heard Duke hurling in the laundry room.  OH UGGGG...  I put them out too and cleaned that up.  Brought them all back in put the chair barricades back up so our dogs wouldn't see the guest dog and went to bed.

THEN at 4am, we heard some scuffling in the kitchen.  Uh oh.  which dogs got out?!  I tried to ignore it but it sounded like the dogs were tap dancing and we DID have company!  So I went back down and found Reedus had broken down the laundry room gate to check out the guest dog.  He'd jumped over the chairs and was frantic, knowing he'd get in trouble and was trying to get back behind the chairs with no luck.

Sigh... I moved a chair and put him back.  So morning came too soon.  I just felt bad for the boys in the living room!  How can you sleep after a dog has ralphed?  ick.

Well, as I've proven, you can.  but it takes a while.

On Saturday, Melanie's youngest was involved in a Robotic Lego tourney at the local state college.  So I met them for a quick lunch and headed over to see him compete.  They did well, but the robot really flubbed up on the last test, so they won't go to Nationals this year.  Just as well.  Melanie was SO ready to just go home and not do these again!  I think Jacob was too.

The boy with his back to us in blue is Jacob.  and his older brother was mentoring him.  He's the one with glasses looking straight at us.  He competed in this several years ago.

They did a presentation on their interpretation of how to solve the water problems in California.  Pretty clever!

They picked up their sister, who was hanging with Meri all day, after everything was over and headed for home, a 3 hour drive.

It was so fun hanging out with them!  

OH!  And I got Meri's first pair of leggings done!  Well, as done as they can get without another trying on session.  As soon as we can confirm how much elastic, then I can do the finishing touches and start stitching on the 2nd pair.

I've got so many plans for cruise clothes that I'm going to be making for myself this year!!!

But first, too many "but first"s...