WPI BBALL

I took Eve and Simon on a road trip yesterday down to WPI to watch a women’s basketball game. More accurately, E & S agreed to come with me to WPI to watch a pep band concert with a side of basketball. LOL. We have lots of fun. We took Lex out to lunch before the game, then took a little campus tour with him afterwards. The game was great, both teams played hard and kept the score very close throughout the whole game. WPI ended up losing in the last few seconds. The band played loud and often. I loved it!

Here’s a playlist with seven videos. Check your sound volume, click the play button, and settle in for the show!

Oh Christmas Tree

Today was a pretty perfect, festive, holi-day. Alan came down to visit and we went to get the Christmas tree. Lex is still at school and River was at an event, so it was just me, Eve, and Alan this year. We found the perfect tree in a matter of minutes! I’m not sure if we got really lucky, or if just few voices make for faster decisions, or what. But whatever it was, the tree is lovely and we were efficient.

When we got home we turned on a livestream of the WPI basketball game Lex was performing at. Lex was on snare drum and easy to spot in the crowd. The basketball game was a good one (WPI won!) and went quickly, like most basketball games do. After the halftime show, which is just the band playing, no marching, we brought the tree in and set it up.

Three videos in a playlist. Hit play once and let it run through all three.

Eve and River went off to play DnD with their friends, Alan headed home, and I went to have dinner with a good friend. It was her birthday yesterday so we got carrot cake for dessert. Yum!

When the kids got home, Eve and I put up the star and the Christmas lights. We also each put up one ornament. We decided to do the rest tomorrow. There is a storm warning for tomorrow, so it will be the perfect day to cozy up at home and decorate the Christmas tree. I’m excited for it already.

Next weekend Lex will come home and my house will be full again. <3

Fall football at WPI

One of my besties from school accompanied me to a WPI concert this weekend, with a little football on the side. :)

When I first told her that Lex was going to WPI she got all excited because her sister had also gone there. When I said he was joining the marching band, she squealed (literally) and said she’d love to see him. She’s the music teacher and was instrumental in his musical career. I suggested a football game and she was all in.

Months later Lex is happily marching with the band and I am no longer at school. I texted her to see if she was still interested and she said heck yeah! It was a beautiful week all week, with just one rainy day, Saturday, football day. :/ I monitored the forecast obsessively and bugged Lex daily via text. The band can’t play in the rain, so all our plans hinged on that rain holding off. And it did! (mostly) It rained on the drive down, drizzled a little for the first quarter, then stopped. The band did the tunnel and played for the first half of the game. Then they did the halftime show as the wind picked up and the sky darkened. The forecast predicted an imminent downpour, so the drum majors (the band bosses) gave the band members the option of staying or going. A handful stayed, but most left. Lex was hungry and eager for Olive Garden, so he was happy to leave after halftime. We were happy to leave then too.

I loved having hours to catch up with my friend. I loved watching the band. I loved watching the band with a music teacher and former pep band member! She had so many good questions and observations that I didn’t even know to make or observe. I loved getting to see Lex. I loved that the rain held off enough that we got to see the band perform. Overall, it was a great Saturday!!

Family Weekend at WPI

After six long weeks I finally got to hug my boy again!! And hug him I did!! LOL. He was warned and graciously accepted my (not-so)surprise hugs all weekend! 🤗

Alan and I drove down Friday night and met Lex on campus for dinner. We ate at one of the cafe on campus, then we went to a show. The VOX (theater group) put on a show called Something Rotten that was hysterical. We laughed all the way through!

After the show we brought Lex back to his dorm, then Alan and I drove to the sketchiest hotel EVER!! It was an Econolodge that seemed to also double as a homeless shelter and methadone clinic — best case scenario. It was AWFUL! The non-smoking room smelled like smoke, the beds felt like box springs, and I was pretty sure my Tesla would not survive the night in that parking lot. There was a big tent with some sketchy looking people in it, all lit up at 11pm. We didn’t even unpack the car! That was the night I discovered that I do, in fact, have standards in lodging. (Had I read the hotel reviews a little better I would have made a better choice. 🙄) We got back in the car and left! We drove down the road a bit and found a Hampton Inn. Turns out they are owned by Hilton and I have a Hilton membership, and we got a deal for night-of booking and it all worked out to be almost the same price as the skeezy drug hotel! Of course I can’t get my money back for the sketchy place, but at least I felt safe in the Hampton Inn. It was a pretty crazy experience, but we definitely made the right choice to switch hotels!

The next morning we met Lex on campus for brunch at his dining hall. Because it was Family Weekend they had dining tickets available for families. We got lucky though and there was a college kid standing by the line offering to use up his extra meal swipes on parents! He treated us to brunch so we didn’t have to pay! It was a pretty cool thing to do. Their meal swipes reset Saturday night and he had extras that would have just gotten wasted, so he treated 10 parents to a free meal. Pretty cool dude!

They had a whole bunch of random activities planned for Family Weekend, so we walked around and checked out some stuff. Nothing terribly exciting, but I loved just being there. We went to the bookstore and I bought him two shirts to hang in his closet and look at for a few months before maybe trying them on. I also got magnets for my car and the teen car, and some new hot cups since the lids for the ones I have broke last week!

Lex had some homework to do, so we left him for a few hours in the afternoon. Alan and I went to Lowes and Best Buy to get him a shelf and a webcam. Then we met back at his dorm to drop off the stuff and take him out to dinner. Dinner, of course, was at the Olive Garden! LOL. We video called with Eve while we were there. It was fun, but maybe not nice for her. I’m not sure. She said she was happy to talk with us and that she missed the Olive Garden.

After dinner we went back to campus to see a free movie, Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse. Friday night they had the movie on the quad on a giant inflatable screen, but on Saturday they moved it into an auditorium due to rain. It was a great movie! I would have prefered to see it on the quad (they have lots of cool Adirondack chairs on the quad!), but it was good in the lecture hall too. Apparently they do regular weekend movies on the quad or the lecture hall. They had free popcorn and candy available. It was fun.

Sunday morning Lex had marching band practice, so I slept in a bit then Alan and I got a great breakfast at little diner near campus After marching band, Lex had to prep for his Concert Band performance. They had three hours of band at Alden Hall. First an hour of Jazz Band, which Lex is in, but apparently there are three Jazz Band levels and level 1 (the freshman) didn’t perform this time, but will at future concerts. Then an hour of Concert Band, then an hour of Symphony. Lex is in Jazz Band and Concert Band. He said there are a lot of percussionists in Concert Band, so they didn’t all play in every song. Of the six songs they performed, he played in three. I might be a bit biased, but I think he was excellent in all three! :)

We chatted with him a little before Concert Band started and he said he wasn’t feeling too hot. It had been raining all morning and they did their marching practice in the rain. He thought that didn’t help with his overall well-being. He was feeling pretty ready to crash. After the concert, of course! He also has test on Monday that he was trying to prep for, in addition to homework due Monday. It was a busy weekend for him.

After the concert we checked in with him again. He said he was still feeling down (cough, sore throat, etc.) so Alan and I went to CVS and got him so meds. The campus health center is apparently closed on Sundays. Good to know for the future. I was texting with him a bit this evening and he said the meds were helping and he was looking forward to a Nyquil-assisted good night’s sleep.

I’m so, so happy we got to spend this weekend with him. I miss him (and he misses us!) and it filled my mommy hear to see him thriving in his new world. Now we begin the countdown to his week at home in October between terms! Then I’ll get to hug him all week!! <3

The one and only time I take just ONE photo, I get this “eyes closed” photo, but I’m going to share it anyway because we all look so happy. He wasn’t feeling great. We just brought him some meds and were saying goodbye before heading home. I think his eyes closed smile is fitting. 💗

Marching Band @ WPI!

My posts are now going to come in threes, apparently. You’re welcome.

Tonight I got to watch WPI beat WSU in football. They livestreamed the whole event. Do you care? No, me neither. HOWEVER, they have the “greatest band in the land” and THAT is why I tuned in! Lex had his first marching band performance tonight. His first week at WPI was for marching band camp. He auditioned for the drum line and was given cymbals. He was hoping for the snare drum, but he is just a freshman after all, so cymbals was a good place to start. Half way through the week he told me he was so glad he was on cymbals because the marching part was so complicated, he really appreciated having an easy instrument to play. Maybe the band director knew what they were doing. :)

So tonight was their first game. They livestreamed it and I loved it. WPI is a NCAA Division III school, so their football setup (and streaming setup) is only slightly better than high school, but they have a marching band and it was awesome. Apparently the football team is good too. Or at least better than WSU. :)

I’m incredibly happy that he decided to join the marching band in college. He has made friends, learned new skills (marching!), and even put on a silly uniform that matches everyone else. He’s come such a long way. And the best part is, he’s loving it!! I’m so proud of him!

High School Variety Show

We saw the very best ever high school variety show this evening. It had jokes and songs, some good and some terrible, and jazz band performances, and technical issues (so many!), and audience participation — it was fantastic! 

They were having a lot of issues with the music accompaniment for several of the acts, but the high schoolers were awesome at getting through it. The best was when our favorite amazing performer (not in our family) who is kind and funny and we’ve known since kindergarten. She’s short and sang a song called Short which totally dissed on short people. She played it up amazingly, especially half way through when her music stopped. She made a joke about her song being cut short, then proceeded to finish it without the music. She was funny and fantastic.

The flip side was another girl who was wearing lingerie, including garters, and sang a loud angsty song while practically making out with the mic and repeatedly flipping her hair in an awkward trying-to-be-sexy way. It was painful to watch.

The MC (master of ceremonies, and which apparently none of my teens knew what MC stood for) was also very funny.

The best part of the show, of course, was the jazz band, specifically the song that Lex arranged! He loves the video game Portal and the music in it. He took one of the songs and arranged it for his jazz band. At the Jazz Festival last month they learned that other local schools have singers accompanying the jazz band for many of the songs, so Lex thought it would be fun to do that in his song too. It was fantastic and the applause at the end made my heart full.

Enjoy!

Jazz!

I went to a great jazz concert last night. Two of my favorite teens were in it. :)

The big three high schools got together and put on a jazzy show. The jazz bands from each school performed three songs each, then they joined together for, as one director put it, “a wall of sound!” It was great.

Lex was on the drum set for the first two songs, and the xylophone for the third. In the combined performance he’s hard to see because he was in the back on the conga drum.

“I congaed too hard and bruised my thumb.”

Mermaids at the lake

We had a break in the rain today so I decided to take everyone to the lake! We brought a few friends along. It was low 80s, sunny, and a really lovely afternoon. The girls swam, some boys kayaked, other boys read, and the moms chatted.

Mermaids at the lake

Reminds me of a recent whale watch. :)

Just lounging about

Lex didn’t actually want to come, but he did a great job putting up with it and keeping the complaining to a minimum. He wasn’t in the mood to swim, so while the girls were in the water….

Fun in the sand

Lex was in the shade! :)

Do you see him way back there?! :)

We stayed for a few hours, then headed home. Ready for another rainy day tomorrow.

Beautiful

Eve has been doing a ton of drawing these days. She even saved up all her money and bought herself a sweet drawing tablet. Recently we were talking about time lapse videos (or “speedpaint” in YouTube terms) and I showed her a tool to make them. Today she made one and posted it on YouTube. I LOVE it!!  She is such a creative thinker. She gave me permission to share it here as well. 💗🧡💛💚💙💜 Enjoy!

(sound on)

Minecraft music

While back Lex recreated the song “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys, using note blocks in Minecraft.  If you want to know more about note blocks, you’ll have to ask him. :)  He wanted to record it, but we ran in to on technical problem after another, mixed in with sporadic bouts of motivation.  Finally the stars and planets aligned and he got it recorded.  Check it out!

He’s working on another song now. I’ll post it when it’s ready. You can also subscribe to his Youtube channel (it doesn’t get a lot of action, don’t worry) to see his work when he first posts it.