Dear High School Football Fans

My sentiments, added emojis, and photo—but not my words…

Signed, Band Mom

🚌 A Friendly Seasonal PSA 🚌

🏈 Dear High School Football Fans,

Another season of Friday night lights is upon us. We’re all looking forward to seeing our kids play and perform. We know you’re so excited to see the football team take the field. As marching band fans, we’re excited to see our team take the field, too.

🥁 We’re all here for the same reason: to cheer on our kids and and support our schools and communities. We understand that you’re probably not in the stadium to see the marching band. But when they’re on the field for their halftime show, we ask that you kindly show respect for the band fan sitting next to you and let them listen.

🎵 Music is an auditory experience. They’re probably trying to hear their son or granddaughter or niece or friend play. Talking while that happens is like standing directly and intentionally in the line of vision of a football parent while their child is making a game-winning play.

👏🏻 On the other hand, please DO cheer for the band: clap and yell when they take the field and between songs in their show and after a soloist finishes playing and pretty much anytime they do a formation that looks particularly tricky. These are the band’s equivalent of touchdowns.

💖 Football players work incredibly hard; so do our band kids. They march and practice and play and learn drill and give up summer free time in 90-degree heat to get their “game” ready, too. There’s no “marching band madness” coverage to balance out “football frenzy” on the 11 o’clock news, and the local newspaper probably didn’t give a run-down of their show and who’s on their roster and what they’re expecting from the season. The halftime show IS their big moment.

💯 And all those formations the football team puts together on the field? The marching band has them, too. But instead of trying to make them work with eleven team members at one time, the band has to do it with 50 or 100 or more players all at once. This sounds tricky because it is.

At most high schools, members of the football team are lauded and applauded and respected and admired, which is great for them. But at a lot of those same schools, members of the marching band are made fun of. They do marching band anyway because they love it and want to be part of something bigger than themselves. The halftime show is their chance, for a few minutes, to be encouraged and cheered on.

And one more thing: if you see a marching band member after the game, tell them, “Great show tonight.”

🥰 Appreciatively,
Marching Band Fans Everywhere

(Written by Elizabeth Spencer/Guilty Chocoholic Mama)

Do I look awake? I don’t feel awake.

First, it’s a gray rainy day so my natural light is…meh.

Second, I’ve been up since 4:30am when I rolled over and had to pee…and then couldn’t stop thinking about Owen and his new high school schedule. Let’s just say his love of all things band is throwing a wrench in things and I’m going to have to be up early to get him to school 4x/week by 7:20(ish) unless he wants to walk .7 miles to school.

Third, it’s a Monday.

Fourth, thank heavens for makeup that will last all day.

Agate Day 4

Lunch prep!
They all pottied!
Tom’s project—fixing and refinishing the gliding bench! Which I found out was a wedding present!
Annual mini golf outing while Anna and I shopped!

ESRAY PARK OUTING — The kids love coming here—climbing the rocks, playing in the water, finding creatures…

We didn’t match them up for an exact redo but we’re just happy they’re all in it and smiling!
After our dinner out!

The Len Christmas in July is over!

It’s now just a gathering with food (lots of food!) and catching up…and euchre!

Plus we get the chance to get the kids together for comparison pics!! (They were all really good sports about it, too!)

Nick (18) and Owen (14) have been going back-and-forth over the years, but Owen is taller now (he was taller than everyone except Tom!).
2013—Katie (1) • Owen (4) • Aubrey (almost 5) • Grace (almost 7) • Nick (almost 9)
The three close birthdays!

Calgon, take me away!

Owen’s baseball stuff is in Tom’s truck BECAUSE OF COURSE IT IS.

I don’t have enough time to go get his stuff and make it back to pick him up from strength training and then get to baseball camp.

Owen doesn’t want to go to baseball camp anyway because his arm hurts.

Oh, and he doesn’t want to go to baseball camp at all anymore because “he knows everything already” — forget that we spent $200 on it.

Tom isn’t answering his texts.

I checked Owen’s summer health class scores and they are not where they should be.

The housekeepers come tomorrow, and I just want to burn the house down.

And the new swipe keyboard I’m testing is a disaster.

Stalemate!

Y’all remember my first chess game against Owen when he checkmated me in like three moves?

Well let me just say… Our second game ended in a stalemate!

His response? “Aw man that was the worst game I’ve ever played!”

Gee thanks buddy.

I told him I’m definitely not as good as he is but I can play.

No pic of the board because he packed that ish up right away. 😂

Revisiting Scream

Omg y’all. We watched the original 1996 Scream tonight because Katie has been saying she wants to watch horror movies.

This was the first movie Tom and I saw together in the theater so we wanted to see how it held up. Of course we didn’t remember how bloody it really was… Owen bowed out after the first few scenes saying he didn’t like scary movies. Katie freaking loved it and now wants to watch the rest of the series. (I hadn’t kept track and there are six!)

I’m not a fan of horror/slasher films (I’ve never had any desire to see any of the Freddy/Jason franchises) so we’ll see what happens next.

And just like that we have a high schooler.

Owen volunteered to play in the jazz band before his promotion ceremony!

I love that he was able to walk with his good friend Lucas…

And Anna (as school board president) was able to give him his diploma!

And then it was off to our celebratory dinner at The Chocolate Sanctuary because it’s closing soon! Of course I forgot to get a photo of our whole group but I did get a picture of my chocolate strawberry martini!