All County Band

The Okaloosa All-County Honor's Band had their performance yesterday.  As I reported in a previous post, Bode was the first-chair for trumpet (nine trumpets in all).  There were three Meigs students that made the All-County band; here is a nice picture of Bode, Grace, and Julian.

Here's a goofy one of Bode--I think they got the picture before he was fully posed.

Here's a good one of the three musicians, Ms Tordi, Mr Purcell (Grace's Dad, and he helps a lot with the band), and Mr Mike Loffredo, the guest director of the All-County Band).

The music pieces were beautiful.  The first one was a fanfare.  Note Bode is towards the center back, and you can't really see him at all in the videos.

The second piece was Robin in the Meadow.

The third piece was Best of the West.  This one is our favorite because you can really hear Bode play.  At the 1:22 mark, there is a little back-and-forth between the flutes and the trumpets; we thought it sounded very cool (but we are a little biased...)

And the big finale was a Coast Guard march.

I took some pictures at the end; you can kind of see Bode in the second photo, but it is a little blurry.

Bode will probably rest today--the All-County Band rehearsed Tuesday night, Thursday night, and all day Friday (he got to miss a day of school!).  We'll probably also start preparing for the arrival of a new puppy--if all goes well, we will be picking him up this week! Stay tuned :-)

A New Puppy

 We think we are getting a new puppy.  This little guy is five weeks old.  At eight weeks, he'll have a checkup at the vet, and based on how that goes, we'll figure out when the best time for him to come home with us will be.  He's so cute.

We have a name picked out (it is not Ender), but we'll wait until Bode agrees to it; right now, he's waffling a bit.  But rest assured, the name is somehow tied to Auburn.  Pleasant week to all.

All State Band 2

 I received some All-State pictures from Ms Tordi.  She is the Meigs Middle School Band Director, and she was nice enough to forward these to us  First, here is a nice one of Bode, Grace (the other Meigs student that made All-State), and Ms Tordi.

This next one is funny.  It is of Grace and Bode, and Ms Tordi was trying to get Bode to smile.  You can see her foot in the frame :-)  What's also hilarious is Bode is in the SAME SHIRT that he was wearing when Ms Tordi took pictures of him when he made All-State and All-County.

Ms Tordi took some pictures during the concert.  The picture better shows the size of the all-state band.

The concert was professionally recorded.  They had two large video screens that showed different members of the band during the concert.  Whenever Bode or Grace was on the screen, Ms Tordi snapped a picture.  Below are seven pictures of Bode in action.

Bode's trumpet teacher, Mr Van Dam, was also at the conference.  He took this nice picture of him and Bode afterwards.  Mr Van Dam works with Bode every week, and Bode's achievements are the fruits of a lot of effort from both Mr Van Dam and Ms Tordi.

Big Steeler game tonight against the Chiefs; here's hoping this is NOT Big Ben's last game :-)

All State Band 1

 We spent the last four days down in Tampa for Bode's All-State band conference.  We drove down on Wednesday--it is about a six-hour drive from our house, and we lived it up by staying in the JW Marriott.  I don't think I realized how much work this would be for Bode.  He had rehearsals on Thursday from 1 - 5 and then from 7 - 9; then, he had rehearsals on Friday from 8:30 - 11:30, and then from 2:30 - 5:30.  Finally, they had a 2.5-hour rehearsal Saturday morning.  The concert was Saturday afternoon, and lasted about 30 minutes.  Bode jokingly said, "I practiced for four months for the all-state auditions, and then we had 15 hours of rehearsals for a 30-minute concert." Still, I think he enjoyed it.

Thursday night, we took Bode out for a nice steak dinner.  He really likes steak, so Ashley found a nice steak place near our hotel.  Bode had to get dressed up in that he couldn't wear shorts; he had to make do with a pair of my jeans.

I think Bode got a 10-oz fillet.  I should have waited to take the picture because even though the steak was good, the sides were even better (lobster-mac-and-cheese)...and the desserts were to die for :-)

Parents were allowed to watch the rehearsals, but Bode wanted nothing to do with us, so I had to sneak in and take a picture before rehearsal started.  You can see Bode's side profile near the center of the picture.

During one of Bode's rehearsals, Ashley and I made it to the Tampa aquarium.  It was ok--I think we were expecting more along the lines of the Atlanta aquarium, but it was something to do.

The big concert was Saturday afternoon.  Here is a nice shot of Bode and Ashley on the steps leading into the Tampa Convention Center.

Unfortunately, I couldn't take any audio of the concert.  They made this big announcement before the concert that any recordings by people would be considered a violation of copyright law.  We have purchased an mp4 of the concert; we should get a link in a couple weeks.  When I get it, I will be sure to share it with everyone.  I did take some pictures of Bode walking into the concert hall.  I was a little slow, so all you see is Bode's back.

Here is a wider shot showing how large the band was.

The concert was wonderful, and we are very proud of Bode for how hard he worked.  There were 18 trumpets in the All-State band.  Considering auditions were held all across the state, this is a remarkable achievement.

We made it back today, and are now recovering from the conference.  Fortunately, Bode and I have off tomorrow; sadly, Ashley has to work :-(

Bears and Bears and Bears! Oh My!

 The other morning, Barkley started going crazy around 4 am.  She was barking and barking, but we didn't think much of it--we just opened the bedroom door and yelled at her to get inside.

Ashley went to the gym at 5 am, and the dog continued to bark.  At 6 am, I was still in bed, and she was going nuts again, so I opened the door and yelled at her to come back inside.  She did, but she was still barking.  At that point, I noticed movement in my neighbor's yard out one of our windows, and I realized Barkley was barking at some bears that had wandered into our neck of the woods.  I proceeded to lock her inside and then went out for some pictures.  They aren't that great--I didn't want to get too close and end up as a punchline about what happens when you get too close to wild-life.  In this first picture, you can see two bears (the second is to the right of the tree).

At first, I thought there were only two bears, but a third walked over while I was taking pictures.

I tried to get a close up, but this was the best I could do.

The bears were all good sized bears.  These three have been in our neighborhood for a couple years--it is a mama-bear and her two cubs, but the two cubs look full-grown to me (but what do I know).  I watched the bears get up and climb over the fence (going away from us), and they meandered their way down the street.  I even work Bode up to see, and he was excited (well, as excited as a teenager gets...)

The Polar Plunge

 As we have done every new year since we moved to Florida, Bode and I celebrated 1 January by jumping into the bay from our dock.  Unlike previous years, the weather has been quite balmy--above 70 since even before Christmas, so the water wasn't horrifically cold.  Still, despite the warmth, we were unable to convince Ashley to don the thong and jump in with us.

Before the plunge, Bode and I posed for some pictures; the "little" man is getting big.

Without further delay, we proceeded to get wet.

Of course, we can't have the first post of 2022 without a picture of Ashley (even if she tried to not get her picture taken...)

We took down the exterior holiday decorations but decided to leave the interior ones up for one more day.  Happy 2022 to everyone!