3 And Done!

Friday was the date.
Who are these people and why are they sitting lined up in the arena?

 

 

 
This is the graduating class of our local high school on their graduation ceremony night.

And here they come, processing into the arena.  #2 Son is the first one through the 2014 Banner in red......





Sitting and listening to someone or other drone on in this shot.  #2Son is in the band section, facing the camera, in the center front in red.  I was sitting on the oppose side of the arena, way up in the handicapped area since I don't do stairs well,, so this is the best close-up I could get.

And here is #2 Son receiving his diploma.......you can hear his Aunt and Uncle yelling after they call his name....yah, we are those people......
And mom is fussing that his stole is falling off.
I am always the mom I guess. lolz



And finally the graduates throw their mortarboards.  #2 Son is sort of in the middle in the band section(facing the camera) in glasses and he shakes his head a few times after de-hatting himself. lolz

 

And here is the happy graduate......

With his moms.....

With his dad......

With my side of the family.....

With Hub's side of the family......

With his friends who came to see him graduate.....

And what graduation photo session isn't complete without someone making bunny ears behind you?.....

But he's cool with that, especially later when they gave him presents.....

Congratulations son!

3 kids out of high school.
Stick a fork in me, I am done!!! 8-)

Sluggy

The Boy Who Lives Music

Last night was the Awards Night ceremony for #2 Son's graduating high school class.
We went and were proud to see our son win a musical award, the Band Director's Award.

**This clip is of 4 awards given out by the music department.  #2 Son is the first one so you don't have to watch the whole clip if you don't want to.  Unfortunately I don't know how to edit film yet. ;-)



And here are #2 and Hubs posing for a photo after the ceremony was over.

#2 Son has a passion for music. It all began in 6th grade when he decided he wanted to play the flute in his grade school band.  Both his older siblings had played trumpet but no amount of coaxing could get him to not want to play that "girl's instrument". lolz

He picked up playing electric bass in 8th grade after saving up money to buy himself a bass at the local guitar/instrument store.
Along the way he also learned to play the double bass or contrabass and is teaching himself the clarinet because a friend gave him an old one they had.

 He has participated in musical bands at school(plus taking private lessons)since middle school-- marching band 6 years(I think), concert band for 5 years, jazz band for 4 years(on the electric bass), played in the pit orchestra for every musical since high school, did a stint in the string ensemble band(on the double bass), as well as formed a "garage band" outside of school and is cutting a cd of songs with them in hopes of one day finding paying gigs. 
He's gone to Districts competition for flute the last 2 years, performed in Marching Band competitions(placing 1st for the State Regionals in PA once) and performed at Jazz competitions on the electric bass the last 3 years, winning a Solo Performance award at Bloomsburg University this year.

He participated in track as a freshman but gave that up after one season as his heart wasn't in it.
His heart is in music and he hopes to make a career in the music world.

#2 Son is pretty much an introvert and has few friends and has had a hard time finding his way as a teenager.  He wasn't a jock or one of the popular, cool or ultra brainy kids in school.  Being in band he was looked down upon by his fellow classmates as a band geek.
He had a hard time at points fitting into the teenage hierarchy and pecking order in high school.  I think his music helped him cope with what at times seemed to be a miserable time as a teen.
When I think of #2 Son I can't help to be reminded of that Thoreau quote......

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."--Henry David Thoreau

#2 Son truly lives for music and he wants to try to make it his life.
It's a hard life for most who pursue music as a vocation.  But it's what he wants to do so we are 100% behind him and gave him the freedom to take all that money we saved for his college education to major in music.  It's not a popular choice and had my brothers told my father they wanted to pursue a degree in the arts he would have had a cow and then not paid a penny toward their dreams.

It may not be the prudent choice......the concentration that will guarantee the highly paid career for his future, heck he'll probably have trouble paying his monthly bills as those in this profession are not well compensated for their work(unless you are one of the elite few).
But money isn't everything so why spend your life doing something you hate just for the money?
He eats, sleeps and breathes music.
Thankfully his parents are fully supportive of his goals and dreams and always have been, no matter what they turn out to be.

I am so happy to see his love for music being recognized by those at his school.
And needless to say I am proud of him.

And I keep reminding him that if he ever makes it big with his garage band that he needs to remember who has always been in his corner and yes, I'd like that convertible custom purple Rolls Royce for my birthday. 8-)))

Sluggy

Can You Help a Band Out?

When the Warped Tour comes to our area this Summer they are holding a Battle of the Bands competition for local bands.
#2 Son is trying to scare up votes for his group, The Docile Sponge.

Please if you are inclined to do that sort of thing, go to this page HERE and vote for his band.
If they get enough votes they will earn the right to perform in the competition and get some more exposure in the local band scene.

You can vote as many times as you want too.

I & #2 Son thank you in advance for your support.

Sluggy

 

It's the Chair for Me and My "Green" Weekend with a Big Gun

 

I was one busy beaver last weekend.

It all started on Friday when I got rid of the Christmas tablecloth on the kitchen table......about time, right? lolz

I sewed up a spiffy new summery tablecloth.....

And put it under vinyl.......

Then I took one of the nasty and stained seats off of the chairs......

And recovered it in matching fabric with vinyl covering, then reattached the seat to the chair.

By Saturday evening I had done 4 of the chairs and this project was completed!

Looks a lot better, don't it?

I have 2 extra chairs but their seats aren't in bad shape and I don't use them in the kitchen with the other ones.  I may go ahead and purchase another 3/4 yard of fabric so I can cover those chair cushions/seats eventually.  I can always use that fabric to make throw pillows for the living room if I don't end up recovering those seats/cushions before the other 4 get beat to hell.   But I'll wait until the fabric goes on sale again.  8-)

Also on Saturday I went and picked up the last of the soda for the party.  I had a $5 off $25 coupon for Dollar General(the sad store)so we are stocked up on sugary carbonated drinks for the crew.

Then we rented a power washer and de-molded (or as Jane would say de-moulded)the siding on the house and cleaned the French doors, window screens and the deck.
I also emptied the pool deck box and then scrubbed it good with a bleachy cleaner and now it almost looks presentable. lolz

Here's my best Bonnie & Clyde type pose with my big gun.....hehehe

And here is the backside of the house now that it's nice and pretty.....

I had Hubs also pick up 2 lime green Adirondack at Lowe's when he went out on Saturday.
Yah, an impulse buy for $36. 

Now we don't have to drag out the canvas camp every time we want to make a fire.  We can leave these out in the elements and the canvas chairs can be extras for when we have company.

Then on Sunday morning I got an email from Overstock that the lime green leather club chair I wanted to buy(which was out of stock for months)was available again, so I hopped right on that and bought it.
I'll cross my fingers that it arrives before the graduation on Friday.  If not, that's ok too.

Sunday I worked on the living room curtains when I wasn't trying to clean the house and move junk around and clear off the bed in my "fabric lair".

We also got 2 boxes of stuff in the car for Salvation Army ready to go the next time we are over there.

By the time everyone leaves on Sunday I will need a week in bed!

So between mold(or mould for my Canadian friends) and assorted chairs, I have a very green weekend, didn't I?  8-)))

Let's close with a shot of my peonies as they finally decided to bloom this weekend.....

So what have you been up to lately?



Sluggy

April Louisiana Road Trip.....Day 10

Wednesday morning started early for us.  The lame breakfast at the motel lobby was OJ, Coffee, Bagels and/or Yogurt.  I opted for the OJ and Yogurt back in our room.

Eating the yogurt I noticed that it was from a dairy/plant in Upstate New York.......

What?  Folks in Tennessee can't find a closer dairy to obtain their yogurt from?!
Whatever happened to supporting your local economy?

 After breakfast we took a short dip in the motel pool.  The thing was very small for a pool but gigantic if it were a hot tub. lol
No one else was around so we had it to ourselves so it was ok.

The last 2 days hadn't felt very vacation like.....except for our visit with the Clamco clan.
This was because Daughter put an offer on the house on Monday so we were under the gun to get the earnest money, if the offer was accepted, into the hands of the realtor within 24 hours after said offer was accepted.  Since we were on the road and couldn't do some banking stuff remotely, we made numerous calls to both our banks to see how to arrange an EFT of the cash into Daughter's account.  Since we had to do this in person at home there wasn't much else we could do until the deal got the green light(and we had no clue how long THAT was going to take)and we got home so we decided to take 2 or 3 days to get home and make this leg of the trip more relaxing.

We packed up the car and headed out for a day of sightseeing before we left Chattanooga.

We didn't go to Raccoon Mountain, though the go karts WERE tempting......

Instead we went to Lookout Mountain for the day.

Getting up there was a bit harder than we thought, since we approached the narrow windy road leading up to the summit from the wrong direction to make the hairpin turn.  So we came back at it the opposite direction.
And once we got up the mountain we found that the town was repaving most of the main roads that day, which made it tricky trying to get close to Point Park.

But I turned on my best Southern accent and charmed a couple of road crew workers into "moving y'alls little old cones over a tad so we could squeeze on by".
It helps that folks in general are just a bit more friendly down here too.
So we got close enough to park within walking distance.

There are lots of things to see on Lookout Mountain.....Ruby Falls(which is in a cave so NOT on my list as I don't do caves), Rock City(too much walking and climbing over rocks), as well as the Lookout Mountain Incline Railway(we just ran out of time for that one).

Hubs walking by the sign for Rock city and Ruby Falls.

We went into the building next to the park but first, I had Hubs take a picture of my "pretending to fire a cannon".

Me and my big gun....hehehehe

In that building they had a "show" and a gift shop.  The person manning the shop talked us out of $8 each to see a very lame diorama with film presentation.  Back in the day(1950's)this was cutting edge technology to bring the Battle of Chattanooga to life.
In 2014, not so much.

After sitting through that you walked through a couple of rooms of displays of artifacts and some mannequins dressed in circa 1863 military garb.....

Yawn....
Then you were deposited back into the gift shop.
I did rather like the title of the cookbook on the left.....

"Sherman Didn't Burn Our Recipes"

A framed poster of Confederate Generals....just the thing for your PA home.....lolz

 

This display of children's costumes got my hackles up.  An Abe Lincoln costume right next to a Confederate soldiers outfit?!?
Sir, this is unacceptable!  Especially in Tennessee.....

We walked over to the Point Park entrance.

Don't you love the asphalt equipment and orange cones in my shot?

Here's another one with out the road crew equipment.....

Point Park is the National Park Service run Park at the summit of Lookout Mountain.

We walked over to get a shot of the river and valley below.....

In  this shot you can see the Craven's House(where the Confederate headquarters was until the Yankee dogs took the summit) and the Iowa Monument that was erected after the war to commemorate all the many Iowa troop regiments  that fought in the Battle of Chattanooga.
Craven's House marks the midway point between the summit and the river.

 This is about as close as I dared get to the edge.  It's a long way down!

And I spied another fellow visitor to the park that day.....

Here I am looking all emotional and somber, reflecting on the past....or maybe Hubs was telling a really bad nerdy joke here and I couldn't help but grimace.....I don't remember which.

Someone offered to take our picture together......I saw this and realized we wore "matching outfits" that day.  Gawd, we are turning into an old married couple.  lolz

Then we did some artsy and/or goofy shots.....

That's a really big gun!

                                       
 
And a shot of Hubs with the cannon.

The view here was amazing......on  a clear day you can about see 3 states.

Next it was into the Federal Park's gift shop and gallery next to the park to browse the books and trinkets.....

And view the mural painting of the "Battle Above the Clouds".....

Then it was time to hit the road and leave Chattanooga.

We made a stop for lunch in a tiny town called Athens, Tennessee, as we headed back northeast.
Why stop here?
Well it was off the beaten path and I had read about it somewhere.

This was Small's Cajun Man Drive-In.....

They are suppose to have the best burgers in southeast TN........

All I can say is there are very fresh and are about as big as your plate.
And the folks are right friendly there.

When they found out we were from Pennsylvania they all kept asking us why we were here. lolz

I said I was there for the fried pies, which they are also known for but only have when the lady who makes them feels like coming in and doing so(and that wasn't the day we were there). *sad face*

 

They also had a good bbq pork sandwich with coleslaw on it, but the coleslaw was very interesting and nothing like any coleslaw I have ever had.  The sauce on it tasted like mustard and pickle juice.  It complimented the pulled pork but I don't think I'd want to be eating it straight.  8-P

A selfie with the Small's sign in the distance.  Love the hair in my mouth.....

I got a cup of local Mayfield PEACH ICE CREAM to go.
Mmmmmm!

While we were sitting in the car getting ready to leave Hubs cell phone rang.
It was our Daughter telling us the bank accepted her offer on the foreclosed property.
And the clock was ticking now on getting the earnest money to them within 24 hours or lose the deal.

So our vacation turned back into a "we have to get home as soon as possible trip so we can EFT the cash to them".
Ugh.

So that was the end of our fun basically.
Since we were now about 8-9 hours from home, Hubs decided we should drive straight through from here to home instead of stopping another night along the way.

The rest of the day/night was driving with breaks for potty time, gas and coffee.

We saw this bus somewhere in VA.......I got a chuckle out of their company name.....lolz

Another sign from the road further up into Virginia.....

About Buchanan, VA, where we stopped for gas night fell.  My last photo is of the XM radio in the car......

Yes, we listened to some opera that evening.
But by 10pm we switched to a stand-up comedy channel to keep Hubs awake. lolz
We got home around midnight very tired.
And that ended our road trip in April.

Lots of fun and I am still going through all the bills/receipts adding up everything we spent.
I'd say it was a fairly frugal adventure as road trips go.....and we had a very good time.
It's so fun to me to get out on the road and travel and getting to meet online friends is also amazing!

Sluggy