Happy 236th Birthday America!!
Today was a rather low-key day after yesterday's LONG day. Ryan and the boys dropped me off at the band hall a little before 2:45 for formation and then they headed to the Festival Fields to get a parking spot and concert viewing spot. The band arrived and waited and waited and waited. You see, there was a storm system showing on the radar and lightning "in the area" (a LONG ways away) so they kept putting off and putting off us getting on stage. Finally we were told to get set up on stage – over an hour late. We got ready to go and had just finished tuning when they did yet another weather delay. Note – at this point, we had seen some lightning WAY off in the distance and the wind had picked up a little bit but it hadn't rained or anything. And then we got the news that we wouldn't be playing. We were so disappointed – we worked hard to put together what would have been an awesome concert. But they bumped us so that the paid entertainment could still play. The coolest thing about the night was getting our picture taken with Gary Sinise!! He was the main act for the evening (Gary Sinise & the Lt. Dan Band) and after he was done with his sound check, he came backstage and we got a picture with him!! Here it is – I'm sitting just to his right as you look at the pic!
After I got my horn put away, I went and found my guys and got the car keys so I could put my equipment in the van. Then I took Robert and Thomas and went to find food. Shortly after we finished eating, it started raining, but not super hard. There were lots of brightly colored umbrellas from all the people on the field waiting for the performances, and we were no exception. Eventually the rain stopped and we got to hear Natalie Stovall and then Gary Sinise & the Lt. Dan Band!! They were awesome and played a little bit of all kinds of different music so there was something for everyone. They played for probably an hour and a half or 2 hours and then it was into the fireworks. It was a really great fireworks display and lasted probably 20 minutes or so. They only thing I didn't like about it was that they had music blaring the whole time. After 3 hours of loud music from the 2 performing groups, I was ready to just enjoy the fireworks and the sounds they provide themselves. Granted, it was patriotic music, but still. They could do without it, in my opinion. Thomas slept through most of the Lt. Dan Band and then was awake during the fireworks. He seemed to enjoy them!! Because of all the weather delays, the fireworks didn't end until almost midnight-thirty (fireworks were originally going to be at 9), it was a LATE night for us. We got home and got the boys to bed and then finally got to bed ourselves.
This morning we all slept in (yes, 8:00 is sleeping in for me these days) and I made some cinnamon streusel muffins for breakfast. After we ate, we headed to the PX to find a floaty for Thomas for in the pool. We found him a Lightning McQueen one – I need to get a pic of it. Thomas fell asleep on the way home and napped for an hour and a half or so. Once he woke up and had eaten, we got changed and headed to Splash! here on post. It costs a little bit to get in, but it was less than $5 for all of us. At the pool is a diving board (not used by us), a climbing wall (again, not used by us), a couple of water slides (used by all but Thomas), and then just an open water area. Thomas really enjoyed floating around in his car and Robert had a lot of fun as well. He sure enjoys going underwater now and is getting better at swimming. We've enrolled him in swimming lessons for the last 2 weeks before school starts, so that should really help him. After we were done at the pool (we were there for almost 2 hours!), we came home and just relaxed and I made pepperoni & mushroom pizza for dinner. After dinner was bath and bed time for Thomas and then we watched A Capitol Fourth and I got a bit of cross stitching done.
There's still time to donate in support of Big Brothers/Big Sisters and help toward my fundraising goal for my 10K in a little over a week! Just click here —> http://pioneerdaysfunrun2012.kintera.org/laniyearicks and make your donation today!
armytbonegirl 