Go, Go, Goers!

We're officially at the end of the marching band season! The RHSMB left for St Louis on Thursday morning for their final competition - the Bands of America Super Regional! It was a blast dropping Ava off and seeing the 5 motorcoaches head down 3 to pick up the kids, and then to see Big Blue (the semi hauling their pit and large instruments) heading out, as well. The kids got to STL safely, and had a great first day on Friday. They rehearsed and performed in prelims at 8:45pm on Friday. The 14 highest scoring bands will move into finals, and those bands should be announced shortly (less than one hour from now!) Can't wait to see if RHSMB moves on up. They had a fantastic performance in prelims, and the parents who are there said they received many compliments - for both the band, and how supportive all of the RHSMB parents are. We love to hear that! Dropping Ava off at the high school on Thursday morning - look at that smile! Pria misses Ava... In other news, the house has been ...

Last weekend was the Minnesota state-level competition for high school marching bands. And guess who won state champ for their class?? That's right, Rosemount did! They are the Class AAAA champions due to their outstanding performance in prelims. And in fact, it's the 16th time they have been awarded the State Champions title since they first won it in 2006! The RHSMB advanced to finals, and ended up winning that, as well, so they were the Grand Champions of Youth in Music. They had some really wonderful competition (Sioux Falls Lincoln and Brandon Valley - both South Dakota bands - are fantastic to watch and listen to, plus they have entertaining and thematic shows.)  My parents, Deb, and I headed to US Bank Stadium on Saturday night to watch finals. It was a super long night, but so much fun to partake in the experience and cheer on our band! Two of my fave people in this world! (Deb was sitting just a few rows away from us due to ticket availability at time of purchase) The ...

Man, fall is a busy time of year! The RHSMB ended up winning it all at their competition in Des Moines a few weekends ago, and then last weekend, they won big in Sioux Falls! They came in the Grand Champions in both competitions and took home several captions. Today, they are headed to US Bank Stadium for the state level championship. Fingers crossed that the RHSMB does fantastic! My mom, G, and I made a mini-vacation and headed to Sioux Falls to cheer them on. SF has a lot to offer and we had fun exploring the city and enjoying the nice, warm weather (until the evening when it got pretty dang cold.) We stopped at Minnesota's Largest Candy store on the way to SF. It was unlike anything we had seen before! And then we visited the Green Giant...can you find G? Wonderful adventure at Falls Park in SF We streamed prelims at our hotel, and then headed to the stadium for finals. From my stadium seat, I could see the Rosemount trailer! I took that as a good sign :) We squeezed in a fun fa...

Last Sunday, the family ventured to Fireside Orchard to pick up some yummy crisp apples, and spend a little bit of family time together before another busy week took off. The weather cleared up, and we enjoyed walking around, getting educated about apples by our friend Darren, watching the koi in the pond, smelling the roses, and picking out the first (sage green!) pumpkin of the season. It was a fantastic way to kick off the autumn season. Sunday was also our 18th wedding anniversary. Yay, us! I cannot believe that 18 years ago, we said "I do"... We opted to wait until this weekend to go out for a nice dinner, so we are looking forward to getting away for a few hours this evening.  The band has been busy prepping for a regional competition this weekend. Ava left this morning for Des Moines, and the RHSMB will be performing at a BOA Regional event at 2:45pmCT today (Saturday.) I hope they perform fabulously, and advance to finals! Drop-off capture! G decided to build either a...