School

Today, the Metea Valley High School Marching Mustangs went to a competition at Northern Illinois University (NIU) to perform.  They didn’t “officially compete” but were on the program to give them a competition-like experience.  The Fine Arts Department Chair, Mr. Devany (who is also the band director), doesn’t really believe in the full-fledged “competition model” and so the marching band won’t be doing any of these, but go and participate anyway.

The girls got up to the high school early to warm up and get dressed in their uniforms.  I arrived with the rest of the “Pit Crew” shortly thereafter, and we got the bus loaded up with all the pit instruments. Mr Schneider, one of the band directors got a present for his son and decided to put it on himself!  It was hilarious watching him dancing around singing Winnie the Pooh!  🙂

When we arrived, we got everything unloaded and got ready to perform.  The staging area was quite a walk from the stadium, so we had to wheel the pit carts quite a ways.  🙂 Brittany was really excited to be there and really likes hanging out with her fellow pit members.

The kids performed BEAUTIFULLY and they sounded amazing!  Since I was down on the field, I didn’t get any good pictures of the whole area, but did get a couple with Sarah and Brittany both in the shot.  I’m trying to find a video of the performance if possible and will try and publish the link.

After the performance, we hurried and packed all the equipment on the carts, wheeled it back over and packed up the truck.  The girls stayed after that and watched a few of the performances.  I left to hurry and get back to Zachary’s football game and tailgate party.

Zach played great!  They lost again, but that’s OK.  He is having fun and that’s all that matters.  He is still the starting Center and loves it.  They have a REALLY small team compared to the others that they play.  Some of the teams that they have played look like they have 2nd and 3rd graders on the team.  It’s crazy!  I guess we just breed them smaller in our neck of the woods.  We originally thought that Zach was big and built like a football player, but after seeing a bunch of the kids he has to go up against, he doesn’t look so large!  🙂

After the game, the team had a great tailgate party with hot dogs and brats.  There were a ton of desserts, chips, drinks and everything.  The kids probably loved that more than the game!  🙂  Kirstyn and Ben had a great time eating too!

Today Sarah and Brittany marched in the Naperville Labor Day Parade!  It was great to see both of them in the band.  Brittany carried the state flag, and Sarah played her flute.  It was a perfect day for the parade!  Not to hot and not too cold, and it didn’t rain like it did for the Memorial Day parade.

Kirstyn, Zach, and Ben had a GREAT time watching the parade and cheered loud for their sisters when they came by!  I wish I would also have been able to get a video of the turn that they do at the corners!  It’s a square turn with a weave that looks really cool and VERY professional!

The little ones loved the parade.  One of their favorite things (other than seeing their sisters march and other friends dance and march) was the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile!

We came home with a ton of candy (even after the kids at a ton while watching the parade), so our lunch was actually pretty small.  🙂  We relaxed the rest of the day and just enjoyed the down time!

Today was an absolute CRAZY day!  We had a blast, but it was non-stop!  It started with cleaning the church at 7am.  We couldn’t do it at any other time, so we were all up at 6 getting ready to go clean.  We were there with a couple of other families so the work went very quick!  This was good because the girls had to be at the high school at 8:30am for marching band.  We are SOOOOO glad that Sarah can drive now!  It saves us a ton of time and is so worth the extra money for insurance!  Because we don’t have to cart them around and make multiple trips, it’s actually saving us a lot of gas money!  🙂

Angela and I went up to the high school for Band Parent Preview at 10:30.  We had a parents meeting with Mr. Devany, the Band Director, and then went outside to do marching drills and such with the kids.  This is really old hat for us because this is our 3rd year doing it.  There was a twist, however…  Mr. Devany gave us all marching routes and we actually practiced marching and going somewhere!  🙂  It was fun but I have no idea how Sarah remembers all of this!  Brittany was very glad that she is in the pit because they don’t have to remember all this stuff!  🙂

After we did the fundamentals (“fundies”) and marched with the band as they played the fight song, we had a family picnic.  Angela ran home and got the rest of the kids while I stayed and helped pick up all the pit instruments and was “trained” on what we needed to do to set up and take down the pit.  I am part of the “pit crew” this year, so I get to go to all the home games, competitions, and such and help with all the pit instruments.  I’m excited!

After the family picnic, we all went up to the stadium and watched the band do their opening (fight song, America the Beautiful, and the National Anthem), and then watched them do what they have done of their program.  It looked great!  We in the pit crew I’m sure looked like confused chickens running around not knowing what went where, but we’ll get better!  🙂

Right after the band program (which they did a GREAT job on, by the way), we had to hurry home and get Kirstyn to a birthday party for one of her best friends.  She got to go swimming and had a BBQ.  Sarah ended up having to go pick her up at 6:30, because at 4:30, we met some friends (Thompson and Weisler) at our home and we drove downtown for a date.  We went to the Pritzker shell in Millenium Park to watch the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) play their final concert of the summer music series.  We took a picnic dinner and camp chairs and hung out and relaxed for an hour or so before the concert.  We had some great food, including a chocolate fondue activity for dessert!  🙂   There were a ton of people there and many had very fancy spreads on small tables and were really partying it up!

The concert was great and it was very relaxing to just sit outside and enjoy the music on a cool night.  It felt really good!  What a great ending to a very active and non-stop day!  🙂

We got  up REALLY early and drove up to Rexburg, ID for a campus visit at BYU Idaho at 9:00 am.  The girls were really excited about this one too.  I was also excited as I got to go on the tour and such while Angela stayed with the rest of the kids!  🙂  Sarah and Brittany had a great discussion with an admissions counselor and were very excited about the admissions and scholarship possibilities.  The only drawback for Sarah is that they don’t have a marching band she can audition for.  🙁  Oh well, I think she’ll get over it!  🙂

It is amazing what they have done with the campus since it was Ricks College.  There have been new buildings built, and they are working on a huge auditorium to fit around 15,000 people.  The campus is very peaceful and you can tell it’s a private church school.  The feeling there was much different than on campus at Utah State.

After the tour, we went over to the student center and enjoyed pastries on the house from the admissions office before meeting back up with Angela and the kids for our trip up to Salmon.  The girls were very impressed with the experience they had and it changed some of the perceptions they had of the campus environment before we arrived.  Sarah was not happy about the fact that you couldn’t wear flip-flops and shorts around campus, but after seeing what everyone was wearing (jeans, sandals, etc.) she was OK.  🙂

Angela was very nice to me and drove from Rexburg up to Salmon while I was able to take a nap!  🙂  The closer we got to Salmon, the more excited Sarah got.  The first thing we saw when we pulled up to Mom and Dad Hobbs’ house was…  The car we are buying for Sarah to drive!  She was ecstatic and couldn’t wait to get her hands on the keys!  🙂

It made us as her parents really nervous, however!  🙂  Having another driver in the house will be VERY beneficial (i.e. we don’t have to cart her and Brittany around anymore), but it still doesn’t change the fact that we have a teenage driver in the house!  😐

We are going to be staying with Angela’s sister Carla and her husband Scott for the next few days.  We got all unpacked and are now settled in.  The girls are excited because they get to sleep out in the big trailer with their cousins!  🙂  They have all sorts of plans and are excited to stay up late and talk… and talk, and talk…  🙂

Today we left North Ogden (which made the kids very sad) and drove up to Logan Utah to Utah State University.  We arranged a visit with admissions for Sarah and Brittany, just like we did at BYU.  Angela went with the girls while I drove around sleeping kids.  When they got on campus, not only did they get to meet with admissions, but they took time to give them a campus tour as well.   The girls were pretty excited about that and loved the campus.  This took a little longer than we had planned, so I parked in a lot and slept with the kids for a bit.  We then drove around and looked at the Logan temple, drove around campus, and enjoyed the beautiful weather until they were done.

After the tour, we all went over to the USU Creamery and enjoyed complementary ice cream the girls got coupons for from their tour.  Whenever we’re in Logan, we like to stop by the Creamery.  It’s one of our favorite things to do there.  🙂  Ben ended up with ice cream all over his face and it took some effort to clean him up!  🙂

We left Logan and drove to Franklin, ID.  We stopped at the cemetery where many of Angela’s family are buried (including her Aunt Ann) for a few minutes, and then went buy the old house and Angela’s dad grew up in.  It’s still standing and looks to be in good shape.

We then drove up to Preston, ID to visit Angela’s sister Julie and her husband Joseph.   The view from their house is beautiful and peaceful.

We ate dinner with them and are going to stay the night there before heading up to Salmon, ID tomorrow.  We appreciate them letting us stay.  It sure beats paying all that money for a hotel.  The dinner was great too, and the kids got to see more cousins!

Today we left early and drove down to Provo for a BYU campus visit.  It’s hard to believe that Sarah will be a Junior next year and will be applying to college!  YIKES!  Sarah worked on her resume and we set up a visit with an admissions counselor and a BYU campus tour for both her and Brittany.  My mom and dad came down with us and watched the rest of the kids while Angela and I were with the girls.  There is so much that has changed since Angela and I attended there.  For one thing, it’s MUCH harder to get in than it once was.  Your GPA and ACT have to be much higher and you have to really work to distinguish yourself.  I think that both Sarah and Brittany came away with a renewed determination to do better in school!  🙂

The campus tour was great and Angela and I were able to tell stories to the girls of the things we did while we were there.  The tour guide thought that was great (although I think the girls thought we were a little weird)!  🙂  This time we were the “important ones” being driven around campus in a cart!  🙂  Angela and I used to envy those folks when we saw them!  🙂  Another funny thing was that the name of our tour guide was James Sullivan.  I wanted to ask him if his middle initial was P (the name of the big blue monster  in Monster’s Inc.)!  🙂  We had a laugh over this.

After the tour, we had a complementary lunch in the Canon center cafeteria at Helaman Halls (where I stayed my first semester at BYU).  It was totally different than when I ate there.  They have remodeled the entire place and now it’s like a food court!  We ate until we were stuffed and then met my mom and dad along with Greg and Lisa (brother and sister-in-law) at the Wilkinson Center where we cruised around the bookstore, bought some gifts, and had fun.

We then drove down to Spanish Fork to my brother’s house where we relaxed for the afternoon and then had a BBQ.  It was fun to see their new house and to spend time with them.  We didn’t leave until about 8:30 or so and got home pretty late (about a 2 hour drive to Ogden).

Overall, the girls are very excited about the opportunities they would have at BYU Provo.  They have always wanted to go there, and now they have an idea of what it will take.  They also know what it will take to get scholarships!  🙂

Today was the big day for the Memorial Day Parade in Naperville.  Sarah was all set to march in the parade with the Metea Valley High School Marching Mustangs.  The parade started out well and then it looked like rain would threaten it.  Right before the band started marching, the rain started coming down in sheets and there was a whole bunch of lightnigng and thunder!  Everyone ran for cover and they cancelled the parade!  🙁  By the time we ran back to the car, we were DRENCHED!  It was actually kind of scary because as we were hurrying back to the car, lightning was hitting pretty close and the thunder was almost instant!  The kids were really worried that we would be hit!

Poor Sarah and the rest of the band members got stuck under a big tree trying to keep themselves and their instruments dry.  We had an insane hard time trying to get out of there.  One of the main roads out was closed due to construction, and the others were closed due to the parade route.  The busses were all over and the police did a LOUSY job getting things routed around.  Mr. Devany, the band director was drenched and running around trying to get the cops to let their bus take a small shortcut but to no avail.  The kids had to wait outside in the mess for almost an hour before the bus got to them.

We finally got out of there with the hoards of people and drove over to the high school and waited almost 45 minutes for the bus to show up.  The kids were all in pretty good spirits and didn’t mind being wet.  We don’t think that an instruments were ruined. 

Things cleared up after that and this afternoon we went over to the Oscarson’s to celebrate Memorial Day with a BBQ.  We sat around, talked, and enjoyed the afternoon.  We always love doing things with them.  They are a great family!