Found in Fishers

Meet Maxine! Maxine, meet Mark.

It was that time of year again, the annual Halloween Band practice. The kids dress up and then at the end of practice the parents come dressed with candy.

Mark or should I say Maxine was quite the doll tonight. He or she won again this year! Last year Mark dressed like a girl and wore a skirt. As a matter of fact the whole section of trumpets wore skirts. This year, he went for comfort and dressed like Granny Maxine. All decked out in a new nighty from Goodwill, some snappy new glasses and of course curlers. It was a hoot.

Later that night I showed up with my candy. I was dressed like Mark. I teased my hair until it was fluffy, put on Mark's senior sweatshirt and carried his coronet along with a thermos for water. Many of the parents got a kick out of it, Mark not so much. He just called me a dork. The  director implied that I was dressed like Mark so he must be dressed like me. I don't think so. I don't wear nighties!

Halloween is tomorrow, we will surely get a ton of kids.

May the Force Be With You

I was Lost in Lansing over the weekend spending Fall Break at my sister's house. First up, getting ready for Halloween. I wish I could think of some witty comments about Sarah's and Liam's costumes but I just don't know anything about Star Wars.

I can tell you that Sarah is some princess type with cinnamon rolls on her head. Liam is in the center. He is a storm trooper. His friend Joseph was a clone something or other.

Liam's costume was custom made by a Star Wars fanatic in Lansing. He measured Liam several weeks ago and work feverishly in his garage to create all the pieces. The plastic parts are actually connected with velcro and black elastic. Very authentic looking to someone who can only compare his costume to a Lego Star Wars character but I am told it is "awesome." As a matter of fact, Joseph was planning to be a Ninja until he found out Liam was a storm trooper. Go figure, peer pressure.

What a busy weekend we had. Stay posted. I will fill you in as the week goes on. I was late in getting started as I was busy most of last night sewing Liz's Halloween costume. She is going to be an Indian this year. Pictures to come.

RCG takes home another win!

Right on RCG! The Royal Command and Guard took home another first place trophy Saturday night at the last competition of the year before finals in Mason, OH. This was the first competition in cold weather which makes the horns sound a bit different without warming them up.

We were nervous. There were many bands in their class and 32 bands the whole day. This was a chance for us to see the competition for the finals in two weeks.

I went with a group of friends and we tail-gated prior to going inside to see the 4A competition. The kids only have 2 days of school this week, then off school and band practice for 5 days.  When they return, practice starts again in full swing to prepare for the competition. I sure home they bring home another grand championship. What an awesome way for Mark to end his time in high school band.

The week is our fall break. I decided that I would take a couple days off and go up north to spend a long weekend with my sister and my mom and dad. I am looking forward to it!

Another New Visitor in Fishers

New overnight guests were found in Fishers. Kelli and Mark came down from Michigan City to central Indiana for the weekend. As is tradition, we took their photo on the front porch. Hey all you faithful blog readers, you can have your picture taken too!  We had a great weekend. The Kelly's arrived Friday evening along with my parents, Sarah, and Liam. We spent time catching up with all the news. On Saturday as my family traveled the back roads of Indiana and Ohio trying to find East Central High School, Kelli and Mark went to visit friends in nearby Plainfield. We met up again late at night.

Mark and Kelli woke up on Sunday morning and went with John over to Lucas Oil Stadium. Mark wanted to see the inside the stadium so he and Kelli agreed to work the band concession stand to have their chance to sneak a peak.
Not only did they get to see the stadium, they also saw the Colts win their first game in their new home. And, was it ever a good game.

The Kelly's said they would be back again soon to visit. They are even thinking about going on the big family trip to Disney in 2010. We will be celebrating that summer. Sarah's husband Pat's 40th birthday and John and my 25th Wedding Anniversary. Yippie!

The Queen has arrived

I have a lot of to catch up on with my blog! Just a lot of things going on right now. But, band season is coming to an end. I am already feeling sad. This is our last year.
We had an unusual Saturday off from competition a week ago. My friend Katie, her sister Susan and I spent the day together. Girls' Day out. After breakfast and some shopping, we ended up at the Fishers Renaissance Faire. We let the kids come to the faire. I wanted to go to the faire since we moved to Fishers but the weekend always was in conflict with band.

The faire itself was not what I expected. I was hoping to see something more like the Feast of the Hunter's Moon where people are dressed up and stay in character as well as the grounds and food are all authentic looking. At the Renaissance Faire, I saw people in costume and they would greet us with Good Day M'lady but inside there were booths more like a craft show and carnival food. I don't think people in those days ate Funnel Cakes. I also did not like the pirate, fairies, and Johnny Depp themes going on either. Felt like a mismatch to me. Oh well, wanted to at least go once.

The Long and Winding Road

This year the show of the Royal Command and Guard is called the Door That Leads to You; a series of Beatle infused music. Going to the competition in St. Leon, Indiana was definitely the long and winding road in my car. Let me try to explain what happened.

My mom, dad, Sarah, Liam, Liz and I decided we wanted to go to the competition at East Central High School. Not wanting to take two cars, I checked Mark's car and sure enough, he has seating for 6 with seatbelts once the center cupholders are turned down. We left at 2:30 for the 1 hour and 45 minute drive. I did not look at the directions carefully because I knew that you could see the high school from the expressway. The problem was I had the wrong expressway. I drove across the state toward Ohio on I70 and found out too late I should have take I74. The welcome sign to Ohio was a big clue. I pulled off in Richmond and stopped at a gas station to buy a map. They only had laminated maps so it cost me $9 to find a path to the competition that was to start at 5:15. Sarah was the navigator and we decided the best route was to take 27 south. We got to 27 and the road was closed!!
What did we do? Started laughing uncontrollably. Knowing that we were going to have to take country roads we started to play a highway game. Any four legged animal on your side of the road gave your team a point. You collect points until the road trip is over. The team with the most points wins. The catch is that if you pass a cemetery, the team that has the cemetery on his or her side loses all their points. We passed FIVE cemeteries, four on my side along. The fifth cemetery on my mom and dad's side came at the very end so we ended in a tie. Well, except my dad is still trying to claim to dead raccoons after the cemetery.

Ok, back to the story. After we found that 27 was closed, we followed the detour which took us very far into Ohio where Sarah no longer had a map. We kept following the detour signs but abandoned the detour after about 20 minutes and just starting driving south and west. We found 27 again, right where the road was actually closed. That was a big into and out of Ohio circle. Out of frustration we drove trying to find another somewhat major road that would go south and ran into 101, exactly what we needed to get to St. Leon. The sights were lovely, beautiful fall colors. And tons of laughing. The time actually flew by fast as we kept counting animals and I kept losing my points with cemetery sightings.

We finally found I74 and got on track, sort of. We went the WRONG WAY again and ended up in Ohio. This time the laughter was uncontrollable. We only had to go about 2 miles to turn around and St. Leon now was only about 6 miles away. We arrived at the competition, just as the bands were receiving awards for the preliminary competition. We did save $12 by not seeing the preliminaries.

The evening ended with the RCG winning the Grand Champion Award and all of the caption awards. A total SWEEP. If I had to get lost in the middle of nowhere Indiana, it was at least fun with the six of us packed in Mark's ghetto cruiser.

New joke needed!

I have this guy in my office who just started this summer as the technology integration specialist for grade 5-12. He was a teacher at one of the intermediate schools so I knew him prior to his arrival at the administration center. He is a great guy. But, he needs to be taught a lesson and I need your help.
His name is Jeff and I guess Jeff is into practical jokes. I was in a curriculum meeting all day long one day and upon returning to my office I found that someone covered my desk, walls, and almost every flat surface with post-it notes. It was pretty funny. My first thought was my friend Katie but she now works at one of the elementary buildings. Next, I immediately thought it had to be Jeff. It was.

I let a couple weeks go by before I enacted my plan to get even. One evening I came back into work and plastic wrapped his chair to his desk and put items from his desk in between the layers. It was a hoot. I think I laughed more than I wrapped but when I was done, I felt very satisfied. People in the tech department got blamed for the deed. Many were suspected before Jeff arrived to work and immediately thought of me. It was not even a half day later that the chair in my office was showered with shredded paper. He obviously is not as patient as me.

It is time for more payback. I need your help. A good clean practical joke to celebrate Jeff's return to work next week. He is out right now as his wife just delivered twins, a boy and a girl, so I have some time to plot.

Help me think of something really funny for me. Submit your ideas by adding to the comment page.