Crazy Saturday!!!

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!  🙂