End of September

Last weekend we went on our trip to Destin with Mike and Cheryl and it was a total blast of course. Tyler stayed in the room pretty much the whole four days playing video games. But he did come down to the beach a time or two. Rusty and Mike did a good bit of loafing about town looking for guitar and music stores. They even snuck in lunch trip to Hooters while we were sunning lol. The first day we were there, there were still some small storms rolling in from that tropical storm system 10 or whatever it was. But the rest of the days were perfectly sunny. I even got a bit sunburned and my face peeled all week long. Me, Cheryl, and Tanner spent every minute possible sitting on the beach and listening to the waves. Rusty and Tanner built a sand castle one morning early. And we all took a good walk on the beach at sunset one night. We did a little shopping and went to a fancy seafood restaurant called the Crab Trap and the food was great. It was SUCH a nice getaway. I need to do that at least once a month. Here are a few pics. Gonna try to put a little video too now that they've added the video thing here finally!

These birds were incredibly smart and brave enough to get real close to you. They could spot a crumb of food a mile away. It was nearly like getting mugged when you tried to feed them lol.

It seemed like the birds thought the football might be food, they were sure hanging around trying to check it out lol.

So. Back in the real world. Tyler missed school the whole week - 2 days for Destin, then 3 days while wearing the ambulatory EEG monitor. He had wires and electrodes all glued to his head, wrapped up in tape, and a white toboggan thingy over the top of it all. The wires ran down to a monitor that he wore in a fanny pack on his side. He looked strange for sure, and I can NOT believe I forgot to take a picture of it before we got it off on Friday. But now that it's off, we just wait to hear back from the doctor hopefully in the early part of next week. It's going to be a long week next week, with all that make up work he's gonna have.

2 band directors were moved to other jobs this week, creating a couple of vacancies in the band director area. I immediately expressed my interest in moving up to those spots on Friday morning. So I'm waiting to hear something on that too. I'd love to move up, and I'd much rather do band than choir. So I"m really hoping that this change will happen, but I just don't know if they'll be willing to give me a shot. Sure hope so.

BHA played Friday night at a little place in Ridgeland called the Pub. It went pretty well, had some stupid mistakes but the people just didn't notice. They pretty much loved us. It was a kinda small place, but we did indeed pack the house that night! First bar I've ever been in where smoking was not allowed. Apparently Ridgeland is one of those smoke-free cities now. It was difficult on Rusty for sure lol. It was kinda nice playing only one night instead of two. Not nearly as tiring, and didn't take up my entire weekend. We play in Byram next Friday.

Confessions of a Bad Blogger

I did it again, let a few weeks get by without posting. Hate it when that happens. The best I can figure, we've become such "weekend warriors" around here, I'm just going to have to pick a week day to do blog posts instead of Fridays.

School is still going ok. I feel like the majority of my time in the last couple of weeks has been spent on Tyler. He was slacking at school already, had a couple of bad progress reports. I've had to keep in contact with a couple of teachers. But I think he's coming around and going to start toting his end of things, I hope. He's had a steady punishment fiasco stemming from one single incident. He was given a couple of days of after school detention for not tucking in his shirt or something. He did one day of it, then was absent for the next day to go to the doctor, then he went the following day to serve his ASD and no teacher showed up. So he ended up having to make it up on a Monday, and then he forgot about it. So, for not going to ASD on the Monday, he was given a day of ISD. He went to the ISD and fell asleep, so the ISD teacher gave him another hour of ASD for sleeping. So I told him.......this cycle of punishment has GOT to end SOMEWHERE. lol.

And in the midst of the school stuff, he's been having these weird "spells" for a few months now, that have started to happen more often. Just out of nowhere he'll suddenly lose muscle tension, particularly in his upper body, and he can't control his arms, head, etc. For about 10 seconds maximum, then he's normal again. He'll be walking along and suddenly have to stop, grab hold of something, put his head down, and then he's ok after a few seconds. So we've been back and forth to doctors. He had an MRI that came out ok, there's no actual brain or spinal damage which is the important thing they say. But we went for the EEG today to see if he's having some kind of seizure or just what is going on in there. Hoping to hear back from that by tomorrow. In an x-ray, the doctor says he has some worrisome calcium deposits in the vertebrae in his neck. Says it looks like he's had a lot of "trauma" for someone who's 15. Would have to be football I guess. But I guess we'll get back to looking at that when he's had all these other tests done. The doctor took him out of football last week, and he's out until all the tests have been done and they've found out the problem. I expect it will be a couple of weeks. Kyle has an injured knee, so the both of them have been just walking the sidelines in their shorts the last couple of weeks lol.

So anyway, as you can see, I've been busy with Tyler. lol

Tanner's progress reports were all A's and B's. We were very proud of him. He's been doing pretty good, other than continuing to be the class clown. Rusty set up his drum set that Papa and Ina gave him in his room. Ken has been coming over and they've been swapping out guitar lessons for Connor and drum lessons for Tanner. It's a great time to be visiting at my house, when all that is going on! Mom would love it for sure! lol.

The band played 3 nights in a row Labor Day weekend. That was tough. I was so glad I was off that Monday. We don't play again until Sept. 28, and it's probably gonna take that long to recover lol. But we had a good time, made a little money, and did some pretty good shows.

When I got in the car to come home from work yesterday, my car said it was 79 degrees. So I came home, made a pot of chili, put on my flannel pajamas, and curled up in a blanket for the night lol. I'm ready for some cool weather for sure. Apparently there's a hurricane/tropical storm coming in today. I didn't even know about it. That's how busy I've been I guess, not even keeping up with the news. I took the whole day off today because I had to take Tyler to the doctor in Canton. But luckily we were home by 11:00 and I have some time to catch up the blog, and some housework too!

Gonna post some pictures I'm behind on. That's how I remember what we've been doing, is looking back through my camera lol.

Here we are at the girls night out spend the night party at our friend Lysa's new house in Jackson:

And here are the football players, past and present, on "Meet the Gators" night lol:

Rusty bought himself some new sparkly white cowboy boots for wearing on stage, and you know who just HAD to put them on lol:

And here we are at the Loft Labor Day weekend, where you can see the boots are made for rockin' lol: