PIPING in the Rain. Just piping in the RAIN!

 Almost two weeks ago now...  Robb's bagpipe band played at Adventureland for the Octoberfest celebration.  

It's a great day to get out and drink...  For 90% of the attendees.  I'm one of the 10%.  

So I'm easily entertained with a giant spider.

It started out rainy and then the sun finally made an appearance half way through the performances.

Robb's sarcastic quote of the day, "there is nothing more comfortable than wet wool".

The band shared a warm up room with a Mariachi band and they were really great!

I made a new friend of a new piper's wife and we explored all over the park between bagpipe gigs and found new foods everywhere.

THIS concoction was a BBQ Sundae!

 Layers from the bottom up.

mashed potatoes

gravy

BBQ beans

coleslaw

BBQ pork

topped with a cornbread muffin and pickle on sticks.

My new friend said that it looked like a heart attack in a jar.

I'm DOWN with that!

We're thinking of making Thanksgiving in a jar and handing them out to our guests this year... ;)

This performance  was right in front of the Monster roller coaster ride.  And I caught that car RIGHT upside down!!  Wouldn't it be so cool to be in that car?

Next year, we're bringing Ryan and Jen with us.  They'd love it.

Potatoes are ALL the rage!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!  

I got roses from my Sweetheart and I am SO going to plant the trimmed stem into a potato! 

 

Have you seen this video?  I have saved the stems.  I just need some potatoes...

ANOTHER evening of busy-ness for us. Meri's long concert was last night.  Concert band/various choirs/jazz band. 

Meri is first chair for the clarinets!  That was new!  Good for her!!

During the choir portion, a girl walking onto the bleachers ahead of Meri accidentally kicked off one of her shoes under the bleachers 

and had to go throughout the rest of the performances with only one shoe on.  

When it happened the girls cracked up on stage.  

It was a long night and by the time we got home, Ryan already had Leon in bed.  Good thing I guess!  He's been under his sleep allotment lately.

Anyway, go grab those potatoes people and get your roses planted!!!

 Happy Valentine's Day!

Weekend and the Chosen

 Friday night...  Robb and I attended the LAST football game that Meri would be marching for. 

 It was kind of bitter sweet...  

And the Billy Joel medley was great!  

 

These LAST events for my baby senior are probably going to be too much for me this year.  

I'll let you know.

I brought along some sewing to do at the breezy game and when we got home, I cut out some more to do for Saturday's event. We left after the half time show as usual.

On Saturday, I attended an ASG sewing event, the big one of the year.  Where the group hires someone to come in and give us an all day presentation.  I spent the morning sewing together some mittens while I listened.  I'll show you those tomorrow.

The speaker was basically the fabric whisperer.

Most everyone brought fabric that they didn't know what to do with and she felt it, draped it across her or someone else, giving out ideas on what could be done with it.  Everyone needs a person like that in their lives.

The IDEA gal!

Then she spent the afternoon showing how to put the finishing touches on garments.  It almost made me look forward to hemming that skirt I made.

almost...

I had to leave a smidgen early but felt inspired to spend the rest of the day sewing.  However instead, we had company coming, so I spent the rest of the day preparing food with Robb while we waited for my SIL and niece to arrive.  The rest of the evening was catching up with them and lots of laughter.

Meri had spent the entire day off at All-State choir tryouts.  She was able to get in on a little visiting too and sang her tryout song for Cathy.

And the big news of the day, was that she got INTO the All-State choir!!  She didn't get a call-back tryout and was pretty bummed until she saw that she'd gotten in WITHOUT a call-back!  Those lists come out later.  Enough to make you panic though!

The concert will be in November and Robb needs to get the tickets purchased soon.  I don't want to sit in the nosebleed section! ;)

So, congratulations to Meri!  A friend, whose son got in also, posted a big thing on Facebook congratulating him, so it's a thing.  So not to be outdone, I posted these two photos and overnight got over 130 likes/loves.

  Mostly Meri's friends I think.  Yay for her!  In the photo on the left, she sang the song from Annie, "Tomorrow" for her cousin's wedding.  Back when she was taking voice lessons.

So I'm not TOO surprised she was chosen, but extremely glad.  She deserves it.

Band/Bond Girl

Got to attend one of Meri's concerts last night!  

It consisted of concert band, vocal groups and jazz band.  Meri is involved in ALL of them, except the boy's Bass choir group, because that would just be weird.

Leon wasn't able to attend but that's ok.  It was a long one and he wouldn't sit still for that long without yelling to Meri to sing faster.

and one of their peppiest jazz pieces because it'll take more than caffeine to keep me going today!
and I know some of you guys appreciate a little jazz.

I've got two wedding showers to attend this weekend for Maddy.  It's going to be fun!  The first one is being thrown by church people, so it will be big.  The second will be for her close college friends and that will be smaller.  Meri, as MOH, is throwing that one.  There are about 5 bags of supplies on the dining room table for that one.  Who knew you needed that much stuff for a shower??

I've got two gifts ready to roll and hopefully I can show you on Monday.  I'm really pleased with one of them especially!

It's been a long day already... After waking up at 4am and not really getting much sleep after that, I finally got a call from my boss and had to go into work early.  

Crisis Galore this week.  

If I was a Bond girl, that would SO be my name...  I hope these crisis are done because if they last throughout the weekend I might take back some things I told my boss..  

Things have calmed down a bit since then, but yikes.  I may go to bed at 7:30pm...  Would that be bad?  Probably not if you know what I've got planned for tomorrow!  And I'll tell you that next week.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Sitting Bull and other random things

Wow... Only half way through the month of October and I think I've added 500 photos to my computer.  A lot to photograph and videotape this month!

On Friday night, Robb, Meri and I took the leaves out of our dining room table and slid things around.  We also carried the couch in.  We were getting an impromptu movie room set up for Meri to have a couple friends over all day on Saturday and have a Star Wars Marathon movie watching.  She told us to be scarce on Saturday.  No problem...  

Also on Friday night, Robb and I attended the LAST home football game. WHEW!  Luckily it wasn't too cold yet to spend an evening outside...  

STILL haven't taken the available warm days to trim the front Lilac bush, but I only JUST got the paint for the board that's hiding behind them.. so...  Maybe today over lunch, but I doubt it.

I'm sure she's one of the blurry kids on the far side of the field waiting to march onto it.

Meri performed at half time, then we were otta there!  

Oh and the team won! yay!  They were ahead at half time and I had faith in them.

Early Saturday, Robb and I moved our big screen tv to the movie dining room and then made like a tree and leaf'ed.  It was a blur of trying to get out of the house before Meri's marathon and trying to find where my ASG sewing meeting was.  Luckily I'd left the house early and left enough "get lost" time in the 45 minute drive to find the joint.  Called a friend who was meeting me there and asked for directions since I'd left mine at home and I knew she'd attended the night before.  It's the building closest to the only roundabout on campus.  

There was a ROUNDABOUT?  I hadn't been past a single one...  BUT she gave me the name of the building and I do know how to read.  WHEW!  There it is!  And sure enough, a roundabout.  I almost went around it just for fun!

The meeting was with a sewist from my home town!  She was funny and vibrant but by the afternoon, I'd started counting how many times she said the word "literally".  Eh,  some people say some words a lot!  I know I have a few catch words...  

You can point them out later but not today.  I'll cry.

Actually, I think the word "actually" is one of mine.  I noticed it when Maddy started saying it when she was 2 and a half.  "Actually, I think I'll have juice."  Well, that's better than a certain sister of mine that accidentally taught her 2 year old swear words from under her breath in bad traffic.

Isn't this coat awesome??!  It also weighed about 10 pounds...  But I would so wear it!

Anyway, back to the meeting.  I learned how to make any pattern into my size without all the tracing out of each size at a time or worrying about ordering the right size.  Also, how everything hinges off the apex, or nipple for those of you that don't know that term.  I had to have it spelled out for me too.

What the heck is an apex?  oooooohhhhhh...  I guess if you call it that, you won't make the high school girls that came there with their home-ec teacher giggle.  If you can measure everything from the apex correctly on a pattern, all else will fit great too.  We did our own measurements and adjusted pattern pieces to fit ourselves.  It worked out super!  

This new skill will work out great in sizing for dresses that I'll be making this year.

I got home by 6 exhausted.  Who knew sitting could be so exhausting?  One of my legs started doing some spasms by 4pm.  I think a few new varicose veins may have broke out...  JUST from sitting... 

I vegged the rest of the night with the latest Tana French book.  The library bought it because I asked them to.  :)  I like that place!  I also love Tana's books.

After church, we took the only child out to a quick lunch at Wendy's.  Then a quick stop at JoAnn's for me, which proved a failed stop as I couldn't find something that I'd found a week and I should have bought then.  Since yesterday, I ordered it online.  We also stopped at US Cellular and replaced the phone that Meri had dropped.  It's pretty snazzy!!!  Has all the bells and whistles and can even turn off the oven if you're not home.  Actually, that might be an app you can purchase..  ;) 

AND it has a cover on it that will prevent droppage issues again! 

Then home again, to try and get the furniture back where it all belongs so the dogs won't molt on the couch again.  After some relax/reading time, we went to go see my bestie.  About 5 minutes there and I remembered that I was supposed to be at a prom planning committee at 4:45!  Oops!  Robb ran me over and waited and waited in the parking lot for me.  It took over an hour...  And yay!  More sitting!  This prom is going to be so fun for these kids!  

I hope they appreciate how much work and sitting that goes into it.

Leon was sick so we won't get him back until tonight.  He's ditching school today.  And it's REALLY quiet around the house...

OH!  The lace was just shipped, after talking directly to JoAnn's on the phone Friday! YAY!  The trick was to order it in 8 yard increments as that was the max yardage on a bolt of that particular lace.  WHO knew??!  It definitely wasn't on their website...  I hope it's enough for all eight panels!  But we'll make a design feature if we must...

Improvisation is the mother of creativity.

How was your weekend?

Marching through the weekends

The weekend...  Friday night was the home football game.  

The bleachers were jam packed AGAIN.  Robb and I had to park about 8.5 miles away from the field...  But we managed to find a couple seats together right next to the student section.

yay.

High school kids are loud!  A neighbor sat next to us and we got caught up on all the kid news between the kids screaming.  I only got hit with candy once and someone else grabbed it when it bounced off me.  We left after the half time show as good band parents do.

Saturday morning, Robb headed in one direction wearing his kilt and I headed in the opposite direction to find the marching band competition parade that Meri was performing in.  It was a solid 1.5 hour drive...  

Look a ski lift!  

a little too green for my liking... and too steep.  What am I saying?  A bunny hill is too steep for me...

I made it in time with a half hour to spare, so I dragged a picnic table over next to the road like we always do and sat and waited.

  

Got bored so I took a picture of the table and sent a text to Maddy saying I was saving her a spot.

She, Matthew and Leon came with us last year.

A mother of one of Meri's friends walked past and recognized me.  She said, "Hey!  The rest of the parents are on the corner, come with me!"   

Okey dokey.  She's either very social, or I'm a sheep.

FINE...  I'll be SOCIAL...

But it was more fun than sitting alone and someone else got to benefit from my picnic table...

Besides getting some visiting in with a few moms, I got to see the band march down a much too narrow street for their group.  MOVE EM BACK!!!

 Got a few close ups after pushing some mothers out of the way.

After getting Meri back to her bus, I headed home again.

Dug out my phone about 20 minutes away and saw that I'd missed 5 calls from Meri.  She'd changed her mind five minutes after I left her at the bus and she wanted to ride back with me after all...

  Oops!  Too late now!!  

So when I got back, I hit up the thrift stores and found a bunch of costume masks for Leon.

Spent the rest of the day sewing the ugliest dress in the world.  I'll get a pic and show you tomorrow.

Weekend Update and Love Boat

Saturday was the best and the worst, depending on how you looked at things.

and me being the eternal optimist...

That morning, Robb and I left early, but not as early as Meri, to head to a town south of us to see her march in a parade.  

We got there too early and luckily it was overcast because Robb would have been pretty burned waiting for an hour for the thing to start.  We brought some lawn chairs and planted ourselves on a quiet street corner next to some lovely flowers... that hosted bees...  lots of them.  

I tried to get a pic of them landing on my leg, but the darn things were just too quick.  As soon as the parade started, my corner was mobbed and the bees had other targets. WHEW!  

Although I had to go into the street to get a picture of my girl as she marched past.  

Again luckily, her band was #37 in a 376 entry parade! WOOHOO!!!  We were OUTTATHERE by 11!  Too bad we didn't have Leon with us, because I only got 1 piece of candy that I had to wrestle a stranger's kid for and popcorn, which I had to pay for.  HE would have picked up candy for me...

After saying goodbye to Meri and telling her to keep the pizza off the ceiling, we headed north. FAR north to find my other daughter.  

As Murphy's law dictates, there were detours.  LOTS of them...

Also, as Murphy's law demands, Maddy's car broke down the day before so we had some work to do when we arrived into town.  The alternator had died.  Some friends had diagnosed the problem and we were there to implement the fix with some dollars...

We went to a car parts store and bought one.  Then bribed a car parts employee to come out to the parking lot and put it in for us.  Well, he did offer his services.  

He'd done tons of them and seemed confident.

$60, a bottle of lemonade and two hours later, he gave up.  Apparently one bolt in there required a special tool that he just didn't have and he couldn't get the old alternator to come out...  So, Maddy, Matthew, Robb and I had sat there watching him literally drip sweat over the engine for 2.5 hours for nothing...  BUT we did get a lot of visiting in and that was great!  He put it back together in the last half hour and there was enough charge in the battery to get it back to her dorm.  She took it to the guy he recommended on Monday and hopefully it's fixed by this time.

The next day, we all attended the 25th anniversary celebration of Matthew's dad being a minister.  What a great accomplishment!  Matthew and his sisters sang for him twice that day and Maddy accompanied.  

I did videotape the 2nd performance, but that will be just for his folks I think.  Matthew gave a speech at the luncheon and I finally got a pic of those two together!  

With a little Photoshopping, this will work.

See?  I'm good!

Then his family wanted to take family photos outside. 

Matthew and his sisters that he loves so much.

 Maddy with them.

We got in on the action too!

After visiting and sharing embarrassing stories of the kids, Robb and I headed home.  We were exhausted but glad to see everyone.  Due to the exhaustion, we forgot to stop and see my bestie on the way home.  She understood and still bought me lunch on Monday! WHEW!

Meri was waiting for us at home and she and I had some good visiting done before Robb came back with the boy grandchild.  

Well, that was the weekend update.  If you were hoping for a commentary on the debates, you'll be sorely disappointed.  I opted for a recording of the Love Boat instead.

I have found that it's easier to watch Gopher and Isaac's love lives get mangled, because they usually wrap it up in an hour and everything ends well.

It was a dark rainy night...

It was a dark rainy night....

And I, like a fool, sat under my umbrella in the rain to watch the first half of a football game.  

Why?  I don't even follow sports!  Unless my kid is playing it...

OR if they're playing in the band...  And yep - Meri was in that band and soaking wet.  

Because of the rain on the football field, the band played on the track instead.  Good idea, however these kids didn't see the memo that went out many years past that they're not supposed to stand at the fence to watch.  Six feet to the right is the high school kids area and they cram that fence and we don't care.  But when they branch out in front of the parents, is where I draw the line...

I was too chicken to yell out, MOVE!!!!!

So I shamed them on FB.  I'm kind of hoping someone at school sees my post and they get chewed out just a little.  And really, just a little, because I knew one of the girls...

So that was my view of Meri during half time over that girl in the yellow rainjacket's right shoulder. 

Sweet, huh?

Robb was able to get back into town by the halftime show and we sat in the rain together, then skedaddled.  I hear we won.

On Saturday, Robb and I ran a bunch of errands, then came back and I sewed my little heart out!  At next weekend's sewing meeting, we're supposed to show something that we've repurposed.

So THIS old jacket of Robb's, that I'm too lazy to replace the zipper on, became a new jacket for Leon!

It's actually just a smidge too small.  Or rather, it fits him like a glove right now, in fact, he's wearing it right now while he watchs dinosaur toy videos.

So I made him another one last night out of some old sweatshirts.  But that one might be too big.  I'll take it in a little tonight.

ALSO on Saturday, I started making a rough draft of Meri's prom dress out of an aisle runner that I had picked up last year. It's doubling as the pattern and the muslin. She kind of likes the "see throughed-ness" of it, but I'm not going to make her a see through dress...  AND we're going to make some tweaks to the style that I'm making.  More on that dress as it progresses later.

That night after supper, she and I went to an actual movie.  I can't remember the last one that I spent actual money on that wasn't Netflix or Amazon Prime...  Or Youtube.  It was the remake of When the Bough Breaks.  VERY suspenseful!  And if I ever want a woman to be a surrogate mother for me, I'll make sure she's not a psycho.

You can learn things from the movies!

It was fun.  Whenever things got tense, Meri and I grabbed each other's arm and whispered funny things back and forth.  There were about 5 people in the theater on a Saturday night...  

So it made it even more creepy!

Madnificent Weekend!

 As usual, my camera is not where I need it to be.  So I pulled a bunch of Maddy's off FB and here they are of the weekend.

Friday: Maddy, Leon and I attended Meri's last band performance of the fall at the football game.  We lost big time, but the band won!  And Leon was completely unmanagable.  I feel for the poor high schoolers that have to pick up all our popcorn...

On Saturday morning, Meri had to work and Robb had an all day meeting, so Maddy, Leon and I headed off to a pumpkin patch for lots of fun.

Hay rack ride

Pumpkin launch

feeding lots of farm animals

 Spooky costumes

and pumpkins.  We only picked one because we had plans for Sunday.

On Saturday afternoon, Maddy, Leon and I attended the wedding of the bride that I did the alterations on her dress.  She looked great and the rose was perfect.  

And Leon had too much sugar.  Thanks Maddy....

Then on Sunday, the girls and I hit up the local thrift store after church so Maddy could find a Dwight (from The Office) costume for either herself or Matthew.  Not sure who's going to get to wear it.  Maddy might have a fight on her hands!  Then we visited a friend's pumpkin farm and loaded up tons of pumpkins and stuff.

Our porch looks awesome now with tons of pumpkins, acorn squash and jicama squash!  YUM!  I think I know what we're doing for supper tonight!

THIS was Maddy's fashion choice for the rest of the day.  Dad's socks with sandals.  She is SO her father's daughter...  (those are his feet)

So a weekend of sore feet, but it was totally worth it!

She headed back to college this morning.  sigh...  We'll see her in a couple weeks for a concert, but I still miss her.