During Red Ribbon week at school, we have dress up days each day. One of the days was college shirt and crazy sock day. Taryn and I planned on switching socks so we'd wear the same crazy socks, but I thought it was pretty cool that we unintentionally matched with our white BYU shirts too. Another dress up day was crazy hair day. Teagan had his hair colored and gelled to stick up straight. Taryn found a picture online she wanted to try and luckily it was an easy one that I could do for her. I love this picture because with Teagan's stand up hair and perfect face, it's like the spider has scared him to death. Everyone loved their hair at school.
Abby had her final game of her junior year at Pebble Hills high school. Her friend Logan from church, and Logan's dad, came to watch Abby too. They won in two sets. It's been so great to watch Abby have fun playing with her team this year. She went from second setter to first setter and right side hitter to all around player and captain. We are so proud of her and impressed with her hard work, determination, and grit.
Here is Abby's JV team after their final game of the season. From left to right, top to bottom it's Allie, Melina, Arianna, Selma, Natalia, Andrea, Daniella. Nat, Elina, Lauren, Abby, Paulina, Angel, and Kenzie. Some juniors, sophomores, and freshmen made up this team that won every game except for two this season. We loved watching them play.
Aubrey had her first band concert of the year right before Halloween. They always get to dress up for this concert in Halloween costumes. Aubrey envisioned her costume and purchased the materials and put it together herself. She and a friend did Monsters Inc characters and it turned out so cute! Sam couldn't decide how to dress up, so he just wore his school uniform, but I wanted a picture of them close up before the concert. The gym fills up since there are three bands, so I was lucky to get a picture of Aubrey in her band when they got settled before performing. The beginner band performs first, and then the symphonic band. The honor band isn't even in their seats until after they trade places with the symphonic band. Aubrey is in the honor band this year and they played three songs. They sounded great.
Everyone in my office at work decided to dress up for Halloween together. We decided to be the characters from Inside Out. Ms. Lugo was Riley and we were all her emotions. With all of our office staff, we had to add some extra emotions besides the original five. My colored dodge balls were perfect props to use as the memory balls. From left to right the emotions were love, hope, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, anger, and kindness. I loved how everyone looked and everyone in the school loved our costumes. It was so fun to dress up together.
October is the busiest month for marching band. Tessa had a weekend full of football and band. They played at a game Friday night and then had two performances on Saturday for marching competitions. Because of their busy Saturday, they didn't even wear their uniforms for the football game. They just wore jeans and their band shirt and kept it very laid back. I liked this picture of the drumline playing in the stands because you can just barely see Tessa's bun over the top of her bass drum. They met early Saturday to get to UTEP to perform in the morning. I chaperoned on the percussion and color guard bus. I took this picture as they lined up to get ready to go to the equipment trucks.
We waited for quite awhile at the equipment trucks until it was time to head to the warm up area. I got the drumline to group together so I could get a picture of them all together. I love these kids. They've been so nice to Tessa and accepting of her even though she's the only freshmen in the group. I also took one picture of the bass line as they warmed up in the parking lot away from the stadium. There is one from every grade in the bass line which Tessa thought was pretty cool. She's a freshman, Andres behind her is a junior. The third bass is Josh, a senior. And the big, bass drum is Mauricio who's a sophomore.
After they performed at UTEP, they marched off the field and headed straight to the busses. They even took their instruments with them instead of putting them back on the truck. They had decided not to stay for the results of that first performance, but instead headed to Las Cruces to perform at NMSU at their Tournament of Bands. Their performance time there was scheduled for a time that they barely made it. We drove on the busses from UTEP to NMSU, got off the bus and walked right up to the stadium and walked right down onto the field to perform. The frontline barely had time to pull their stuff off the trucks. The frontline kids were screwing on the cymbals as they were waiting to set up on the field. It was a crazy tight schedule, but they made it and performed even better than they had that morning. It was awesome.
After performing, we walked straight from the stadium into the basketball arena to take full band pictures. The band moms/chaperones just waited on the side, so I took my own pictures - one of the entire band, and one a little zoomed in on my favorite, cute top bass player.
We waited around on the NMSU campus and had dinner. The drum majors and a few other band students went with the directors to find out the results. The top 10 bands got to advance to the finals to perform a second time and compete for the championship. The directors wanted to give the band time to rest since they had been running around all day, so they didn't take the entire band in for the results. However, I took a group of girls to use the restroom, so we ended up staying to hear the results. And we found out that we were one of the finalists! The band kids were cheering like crazy and they were so happy and giddy as we ran back to tell the rest of the band. I took a video of a large group of the kids with linked arms skipping through the parking lot back to where the rest of the band and parents were waiting. It was so fun to see their excitement. So, they performed again late in the evening and then they dropped off instruments and headed back into the stands to await the finals results.
I mainly followed the percussion around and helped with frontline equipment when needed, but that helped me be near Tessa and her friends. I took some pictures as we waited for results. Here's some of the percussion section as they waited together for the results in the stands; and here's one with Tessa and Andrew. Andrew is another freshmen who plays in the frontline. He also goes to church with us, so he's in Tessa's early morning seminary class.
This first picture is of Tessa with Josh. He's a senior and the bass line leader. Tessa looked up to him a lot. She even called him Mama Duck because they had a running joke about how the other bass drummers were Josh's little duckies and they followed him around faithfully. Josh's parents were part of the band pit crew who were always there to help load and unload the equipment trucks, so I got to know them pretty well. This second picture is of Tessa and Giselle. Giselle is the only other girl in the drumline. They became really good friends as they worked together with all of those boys in their percussion section. Giselle is a junior this year, so they'll be in the band together next year too. Giselle plays quads and Tessa has seriously been thinking about trying out for quads next year. She thinks they are really cool, but she's worried about how heavy they are and if she can manage them. I keep telling her that if Giselle can do it, she can do it, so we'll see what she decides between now and the beginning of next school year.
After all the performances, all of the bands went out to the field to await the results. They all faced away from where we parents were sitting, so I didn't take a picture of them lined up. I did, however, take a picture of the big screen with their results. They ended up 7th place out of all the 6A bands. We were so proud of them after such a long day and three performances. We were so happy with how the day had turned out. It was a long, exhausting, but fulfilling day.
Our Halloween was spread out between school dress up days, band concerts, ward parties, and trick or treating. Tessa wanted to be a pirate so we found clothes and accessories from friends and we made the corset from an old t-shirt and shoelace. It wasn't as fancy as Tessa was looking for, but it was pretty amazing for figuring it out the night before she had to have it to wear. Abby used her prom dress to dress up as Cinderella. We found a felt ribbon she used as a choker necklace and she put her hair up in a French twist and it worked perfectly. She was a beautiful Cinderella at the ward party. I didn't get to attend since it was the same night as Tessa's band competition, so Abby sent this picture to me. She also told me she got to take a picture with a little girl in the ward who also dressed up as Cinderella. I thought that was really cute and I'm sure that adorable little 5 year old loved seeing a grown up version of Cinderella.
Taryn's wish for Halloween was to be a zombie cheerleader. I don't know why that's such a popular costume because Aubrey did that same thing when she was Taryn's age. She and Abby were at the ward party together, so I also got this picture sent to me. Abby helped Taryn with her makeup and we borrowed the cheerleading uniform from one of Abby's friends. On Halloween night, the girls went out trick or treating until it got too dark. Abby went out with her high school friends and they took forever to get ready, so I didn't get a picture of all four girls together like I wanted. Besides that, it was a successful Halloween night and I was happy with how all of their costumes turned out since this year was a "do your own costume" year. I loved their creativity and uniqueness of all of their costume choices. I love my family.
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