Homecoming

OK for some reason this blogger site is NOT letting me move my pictures. I loaded them all in weird order then I was going to move them to where they go. It's not letting me. So I guess this blog post will begin with a totally disjointed photograph review of the last few weeks, followed by the stories.

This is a photo taken by Mrs. Birch who has a really good camera and always sits over by the band and has a good field view. I hope to pick more photos off of her on facebook over this next year. She is also the same one who took so many good pics of the musical last year. Anyway....see Tyler number 56 running out on the field.

This is the best pic I could manage to take of Tyler and Allison at leadout at the Homecoming dance last night. Taken with my iphone.

Another Mrs. Birch photo from a recent game.

Another Mrs. Birch photo

Allison and her escort during halftime when they introduced the Homecoming court. Best I could get.

Tyler and Allison, the girl he sponsored as Homecoming Maid, at the end of the evening. I had to have at LEAST one decent picture lol

The best picture I got all night and no one was in it.

Getting ready to start. #56 is up front.

Dark photo of the team running onto the field and taking place on the sideline.

This is the Junior float in the homecoming parade that Blake was so proud of. They made an X-Wing fighter from Star Wars. Our homecoming theme was something to do with space.

Allison in the parade. The sign on the side says "Allison East sponsored by Tyler Gardner #56". Actually is says Tyler "Garner", they spelled it wrong but it was too late to have one remade lol.

This is how much we still have left after Rusty's friend chopped up the 2 giant limbs and loaded up a truck AND trailor FULL of firewood. What a MESS

Maybe I posted a few of these before, can't remember. But here's Tyler, I asked him to smile lol.

Blake gave me a good smile at least lol

Tyler and Rebeca at the city wide pep rally

Well into the school year now. Tanner is doing pretty well. Grades are mostly alright, he's finding out that he does indeed have to do the homework. He's been tardy for class a few times here and there trying to get his locker open. He says sometimes it sticks. He had to serve after school detention once for leaving his trumpet at home one day. But he hasn't left it again since! I had him riding a bus from the Jr. High to the High School every afternoon but the bus he was riding was extremely wild. No one was mean to him or anything, it was just so wild and crazy on there it bugged him very badly. So this past week I was able to get him on a different bus to come the the High School with one of his friends who also has a parent at the High School. So he's much happier now I believe. I have been having to go from the band hall, which is way down in a gully, all the way up to the 3rd floor of the main building every afternoon to meet him at the bus. (Our school is arranged quite oddly on the side of a hill - on one side the ground floor is ground level but on the other side the THIRD floor is ground level. Any my building is below even the lowest ground floor of that main building). But couple of times I've been late getting there and he makes it down to my room just fine by himself. So I may be able to just stay in my room now and have him walk the whole way down. He's a big boy I guess, it's just hard for me to realize it lol. He is improving RAPIDLY on the piano as well as the trumpet. Mrs. Leese is very pleased with his progress. I am too. He's going to be very good at both. I'll have to make a video of him playing some time.

Tyler is doing very well also. His team is getting creamed in every game so far. But HE is playing very well lol. So far out of 4 games we've lost 40 something to 0 or 7. BIG losses. Even Homecoming lol. I don't know what's up. But Tyler does a terrific job. He said last weekend in the post-game speech that I suppose all coaches give, everyone was getting the usual tongue lashing that coaches give. About how they aren't making any effort, they're doing so bad, etc etc. Tyler said the coach looked over at him and said "TYLER knocked down 3 guys to tip the ball on the kickoff (or punt, cant remember) because he ALWAYS gives that kind of effort! You guys don't give ANY effort!!! Tyler hasn't played football in 2 years - 2 YEARS!!!! And he's giving more effort than yall!!!" lol. It's been tough losing those games. But he really is playing his heart out. And it's so good to be back in the Friday night football life! He has been doing very well with the cataplexy as well. Went to the doctor last week to report that all is well. They've set him up for the test he has to do to prove that he can stay awake for extended periods of time and if he passes that, they will sign for him to get his license. So they say. They better. They are really big into not wanting to be liable. Like if he has a wreck and someone dies, they could get sued for saying he was ok to drive. So they have been really difficult about this license thing. Which I guess is understandable. I wouldn't want him to drive if I weren't as sure as I could possibly be about his safety. But he's a senior, will be 18 in December, and the license thing has REALLY started to bother him. Badly. But I'm truly thankful he's gotten this one last chance at football. Who knows, he might could even play in college or Jr. college next year. But even if not, he's getting to play now and it's made him really happy. I found out that he may still even get to get a letter jacket even though he wasn't on the team in 10th or 11th grade. I think it has to do with how many quarters you get to play during all the years. It's possible he will get to play that many quarters in just this one year. We'll just see I guess.

Incidentally, can you all IMAGINE how hard it is for Rusty to sit in the stands and watch our team lose so badly without hollering and cussing and stomping?? He's doing very well, but I fear he may not survive the season. He might need some nerve pills.

We got called to play at Beechwood last weekend because some band had cancelled. I wasn't thinking at that moment about football games so I said ok. THen I realized, heck. Football. So we had to miss last week's game. I hated that. Tyler played well, but it was another loss.

This week has been homecoming week at school and it's been wild. We lost the homecoming game, unfortunately. It was a big muddy MESS, Tyler was covered in mud and said he had mud all on the insides of his uniform too. He went in the field house and just stood under the shower with the uniform on for a few minutes lol. I couldn't get any pictures that weren't a total blur. The other team scored their first touchdown before 10 seconds of the 1st quarter had even passed. It was a looooong night. By the end of the 3rd quarter, Chris or Rusty one said....."Hey look, suddenly the other team all has on nice clean white jerseys. You know what THAT means!" They had finally decided to put the 3rd string in lol. And soon we scored a touchdown. So the final was 48-7. I sure hate Tyler's senior and ONLY year to play is going to be like this. But he's still having a lot of fun and thankful to get to do it. We have a young team, lost a lot of guys last year, and they moved us from 4A to 6A and our school is still only 1150 kids. I have no idea how they justify that.

As a senior football player, Tyler had to sponsor a girl to represent him on the homecoming court. There was some issue on who he sponsored, blah blah blah. One girl thought it would be her, and another girl was asking him to sponsor her. You know how that drama can go. Well Tyler didn't really care who it was I don't think. He chose to sponsor a girl that's been a really good friend of his all through school. They aren't dating but she's certainly helped him pass many a class and they've always been in the same circle of friends and she is a senior also. The girl who WANTED him to sponsor her was not pleased, neither was her mom, who happens to be one of Tyler's teachers...anyway. Long story short, it all smoothed over I guess and all was fine. I sure hope so. He has to pass that class lol. I didn't think Tyler would want to go to the dance because he HATES stuff like that. But it turned out he HAD to go, but he also decided he really wanted to. Nowadays they do the leadout procession thing at the END of the dance instead of the beginning. So leadout was at MIDNIGHT last night. But I went. My camera doesn't do good in the dark and at a distance so I didn't get any good pics. But as soon as leadout was over, the dance was over. Seemed awful short to me. By the time football players were showered and there, it was leadout time then it was over. But it was really nice. I decided that teenagers dance a thousand times better than adults. Even the worst dorky white boy looks better dancing than drunk adult fools at 1 am in a bar.

We've had lots of flu, swine flu, bacterial meningitis, and numerous other illnesses going around the schools here. It's been kinda bad. Two kids have died in the last month. One from the meningitis and the other was a 15 year old boy who died sitting in the waiting room of the doctor's office. I can see that happening with the way doctor's offices are around here. But it's been a mess. I stayed home sick 2 days but no clue what I had. I don't think it was any of the things mentioned above. Just severe body aches and sleepiness. No cold symptoms though. But I'm much better now. My assistant, Mrs. Leese, has been having blood pressure issues and has been out a few times. Hopefully they will figure out her problems and get her back going again. Tanner had a stomach virus type thing one day. But other than that everyone else in the house has stayed healthy.

School is going well. I'm having a very hard time keeping up though. With my newly adopted "try to bring as little work home as possible" attitude. I'm WAY behind and I don't think that my new way of thinking is going to be able to work. I find myself being a failure at home AND at work. So I'm just gonna have to face that I'm forever gonna have to bring some work home to stay caught up. Mainly the paperwork, the planning, the ordering of materials and costumes and dresses, the little details and things. So that at school all I have to do is work on the music and vocal stuff with the students. I'm losing hope at ever being able to successfully balance things. But I guess I will forever try.

My tomatoes - still suck. I think next year I may just try to do all bell peppers lol.

We got the tree limbs down for pretty cheap a couple of weeks ago. Then a guy Rusty works with said he would come chop them up if we would let him have the wood for firewood. Well of course we will!!!!! So he came out last weekend and cut up a bunch of it. He filled his truck and a trailor full and we still have so much wood in the backyard that you can hardly tell any was removed lol. They were two HUGE limbs. I think he may try to come back and get some more. But at least we can now safely walk in the backyard and the kids can get on the trampoline again.

Last weekend Rusty fixed out air conditioner that had been leaking gallons of water into the floor (or into a huge bowl I had put under it). Took off the pipes and a big chunk of gunk fell out that I'm sure was blocking it from draining. It's been fine ever since. The pantry light fixture quit working so he replaced that. The kitchen sink was leaking so he's got at least a temporary fix on that. So thankfully we have gotten lots of things fixed around here for minimal cost.

The year is going by too quickly already. I want it to go slow. Because I am not yet mentally prepared to be the mom of a person who is out of high school. We had to go one day this week to see the newborn baby of Zach Vaughan, a friend of ours son. I guess Zach is probably 20. But I've always grouped him in with Tyler and the others about his age. I am now mentally separating them into further subgroups.