The El Paso Winds band that I play in was asked to perform at TBA in San Antonio. We knew about it the entire year leading up to the summer. We premiered a symphony written by Julie Giroux and we spent a week recording it as well. I had never been a part of a recording before. It was tedious and time-consuming, but fun to be a part of. Julie is a horn player, so she had written some fun horn parts. The Symphony we recorded and performed in San Antonio was her Symphony No. VI: The Blue Marble. Everyone else was busy the week I needed to be in San Antonio, so it was a girls trip for just me and Taryn.
We stayed with my parents, but Taryn was able to stay at Scott and Nevla's house and the cousins were so excited to have her there to play. She spent most of her time playing barbies, dress up, Rock Band, or cars while I drove back and forth to my rehearsals and performances.
Because of COVID, we hadn't seen Scott and Nevla's family in person for a long time. I was so excited to get to hug these cute kids and get pictures with them. We FaceTimed Tyler and the rest of the girls a lot so they could all see their cousins. Here's Nadia and Haley. I was glad that even though it had been a couple years since we had been together in person, the girls remembered me and were happy to hang out and smile for my pictures.
Here's what we looked like on stage for our performance. It's like the new era of band music. Her symphony was complete with videos and pictures that you watched while we played the music. There were even sonic boom sounds that rumbled from the stage and some computer generated sounds like rainforest noises that you heard during one of the movements. It was really remarkable and we received a lot of compliments.
Here's the horn section after our performance. I ended up playing 4th horn with Rachel instead of 1st horn with Katy because the UTEP horn professor ended up playing with us. But that's ok. It was fun to learn a different part since I played 1st horn for the recording.
My dad drove me to and from downtown for all of my rehearsals and he even registered for the convention again this year since I was going to be performing. I took a picture with them before the performance. I also took a picture from my spot on the stage during our rehearsal since it was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me. I was so happy that I got to be a part of it.
Scott and Nevla even brought the kids for the performance since it was free. They were good and they enjoyed the videos that went along with the music. I think it made it more entertaining for all ages. I didn't realize until after the concert that some of the videos may not have been appropriate for their younger ages, but I had only seen a preview of the videos for the first two movements, not the third. However, the third movement was more about life, death, and survival, so there were some pretty graphic death pictures that I didn't know about to forewarn them, so the kids kept referring to the pictures they saw. Oops. Other than that, the kids had a great time.
Taryn and Chloe baked cupcakes and had fun in the kitchen whenever they could get enough time away from the little kids. I'm glad Taryn came with me. She had a great time and some awesome one on one time with the cousins that she normally wouldn't get. Nevla even caught a picture of me playing a game with the little kids. I love my nieces and nephew.
Taryn and I ended up staying one more day so I could go to the DCI show too. Melody and Rebecca were sick so they didn't travel, but that left an extra ticket for me to use. We took a picture while we were in the Alamodome waiting for the drum corps to begin. Scott wasn't able to come, so here's another picture with almost all the kids.
One of Aubrey's birthday presents was to go see Stray Kids, a K-Pop group, which Aubrey loves. Tyler tried getting tickets to their performance in Fort Worth, but those sold out too fast. He kept an eye out and was able to get tickets to their performance in Los Angeles, so while Taryn and I headed down to San Antonio, Tyler and Aubrey had a daddy, daughter trip to California. They drove over and spent the day shopping and at the beach and then they went to the concert that night. Aubrey is obsessed with K-Pop and listens to their music constantly. She learns all of their dances and knows everything about all of the dancers and singers. She loved that she got to go to a concert and they had a great time together.
As the summer came to a close, the workouts picked up. Tessa was running with her cross country team pretty much every day. Before school started, they had a trial run that parents could come and watch. Tessa was the 9th fastest girl on her team which is awesome. The top 7 are on the varsity team, so 9th place was really good! I took this picture as the girls prayed before starting their race. Usually, Brooke McCune, another member of the church says the prayers, but when she's not there, Tessa gets to pray. She loves that they say a prayer and that she sometimes gets to do the prayer. They also ran at an Eastwood 5K race before school started. I didn't get to see Tessa race, but I did get this picture of her as she crossed the finish line.
Besides cross country, marching band was also in full workout mode. Tessa made tenors, so it was an all-girl tenor line with her and Gisele. Gisele is her closest friend in band and the only other girl percussionist. They worked out all summer long together to strengthen their back and legs to be able to hold and carry the tenors during the season. They're both very dedicated and had a good time together as they prepared for marching season.
The youth in our ward had a temple trip to the Juarez temple before school started. They needed an extra driver so I was able to go as well. It was a good group that went and we had fun taking pictures after the baptism session. All three girls were able to go, so we got a family picture outside the temple - just missing Taryn, but she'll be able to go to the temple next year! Abby loved her .5 camera angle so she took a lot of pictures with that view. Here she is with Braelinn and Logan.
She showed me how the camera works and took this picture of me, her, and Aubrey. We took some with all of the Mesa ward youth who attended the temple. We have a small, but mighty youth group and I love that they all get along pretty well.
Here's another group photo with everyone from Abby's angle and then another one with some more people from the ward. We love the temple.
Abby took a picture with Sam Kasallis that turned out really cute especially with the temple and angel Moroni in the background. Tessa wanted some pictures by herself outside the temple too. The sun is always shining right in your face that early in the morning, so it's hard to get pictures with the temple behind you without everyone squinting from the sun, but this picture of Tessa turned out really good.
The Mesa ward young women who attended the temple: Aubrey, Rianne, Abby, Ashleigh, Braelinn, and Tessa.
The week before kids started school, there were a lot of teacher meetings and staff developments. Abby, as senior class president and Tessa, in the drumline, were very involved. Abby even dressed up as the Franklin cougar mascot to welcome the teachers back to campus. She found Tessa and had someone take a picture of them together, which I love. I'm so proud of Abby for being willing to do whatever it takes to make her senior year a great successful one.
EPISD had a huge convocation for all of their employees that was mandatory for everyone to attend. As a secretary, I went with the employees from my elementary school, but we had to sit with the other schools that feed into the same high school. The fun part was Tessa and the drumline were there as well, so I got to see her.
It was a huge deal with thousands of EPISD employees. The superintendent and another guest speaker spoke about education and basically pumped us all up for the new school year. It was pretty cool. Lundy employees were sitting down at the front, so when Tessa and the drumline marched in, they stopped right in front of our section and Tessa was right in front of me.
I was cheering so loudly for her, and it was fun to see her perform and be where she was. It was basically like a huge pep rally and we had a lot of fun. It was definitely a big hit and got everyone pumped up for the new school year. I love my job and I love being able to see my kids do what they love.
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