The Long, LOng, LONg, LONG Weekend…

Wowee! What a fantastic weekend. Tiring, but fantastic!

The entire week was filled with meetings, extra teaching and very little time to breathe.

Friday
I worked a little later at The Muse Machine until Jeff Carter arrived. Jeff was hired to be one of the ajudicators for the Kettering Fairmont High School Show Choir Invitational and he arrived on Friday afternoon. He received a brief tour of the Muse Machine office suite, and then we took a quick trip to Woodland Cemetery to see the Wright Family graves, and past Hawthorne Hill, the home of Orville Wright. Since the boys had to be at the high school for the invitational set-up at 5:00PM, Jeff and I took the boys to Panera Bread to eat, and then I gave Jeff a tour of the new performing arts facilities. We drove north to Monte & Chris’, and then went to the neatest restaurant. It was great. Afterwards we spent some time with Monte & Chris at their home, and then I showed Jeff to his hotel in Miamisburg. I returned home to work on the MC script for the show choir invitational and finished it at 1:30AM. At 4:00AM, I was wide awake and could not get back to sleep.

Saturday
We were up before 6:00AM – the boys headed over to the high school at 7:00AM. I got there at 8:00AM and met with the judges. I was dressed in my new black suit with a deep royal blue shirt, and my new yellow power tie with blue rectangles. I felt like the male version of Cinderella at the ball! Everyone kept telling me how handsome I looked. I didn’t want to take it off. I was the MC for the entire day – from 9:00AM until 6:00PM – on my feet. I ate lunch and supper with the judges and had some fun discussions. I sat with Jeff for the evening competition. After the competition, with Beavercreek High School as the winner (my former student’s choir came in second), the students cleaned the host rooms and stage and we left around 12:15AM. I drove a student home and returned to arguing sons. I know they were tired, but they had allowed little infractions move directly into full fledged bickering. So, I brought them to my study and allowed them to solve it. I worked on Email, changed into my bed clothes and finally, at 1:00AM, Jose offered the first hand shake of truce. I went to bed at 2:00AM.

Sunday
What a great day for music at church. We left church and headed immediately for Indiana for the celebration of my great-great-uncle’s birthday. Frank was married to my great-grandmother’s sister, Marie, who passed away several years ago. Uncle Frank & Aunt Marie had a daughter, Susan, who is my mother’s age. Susan and I were always close as she has a boisterous sense of humor and laughs harder than any one I know.Susan has two sons, Todd, now 38, and Scott, now 35. Scott has always been one of my favorite people in the world – we just always seemed to hit it off. When he was in high school at Indianapolis’ Perry Meridian, he wanted to try out for drum-major. Susan brought him over to Ball State a number of times for me to work with him, and I went to Indianapolis to work with him. For two years, Scott was a fantastic drum-major! Now, Scott is married with two children, and I was so thrilled to see him. It had been 15 years and seeing him Sunday literally made my day. We got to see a lot of family members, and Uncle Frank was moved to tears when he entered to see 80 some people there to honor him. We left around 4:00PM and returned to Dayton – grabbed some groceries from Wal-Mart and then grabbed some Chinese food before heading home where I collapsed in my bed at 9:15PM.