Homecoming 2024

I left early Monday from school to see Dr Walker at the St Luke’s orthopedic plaza about my right knee. He showed me the MRI and explained the medial meniscus has a complex tear, could be repairable or could be hamburger meat. If it’s repairable he will secure the meniscus to the tibia with something, if not he will clean out the damage as best as possible. He said arthritis is already setting in so that was not encouraging. I heard about platelet therapy having remarkable success, apparently the type of tear I have and the length of the injury makes that less successful. 

Josie started with a new violin teacher on Tuesday, Mrs Emma Beck. I was sad Jessica was booked out and Josie was 4th on the waiting list. Josie was revved to start back up after the Lindsey Sterling concert. Emma spent most of the lesson correcting stance, adding the chin rest, and listening to a couple of Josie’s last songs. We walked away with three new songs feeling pretty good about her approach. Her children compete in fiddling all over the country. Her eldest daughter just won best fiddle at an elite competition. She is more expensive, hopefully it’s worth the increase. I was happy she agreed to twice a month for an hour since the drive there is about 20 minutes. Bonus, her daughter Rachel is one of Amelia’s MCO friends. Emma’s son is also a chess master, he invited Everett over to play next time Josie has a lesson. 

Justin saved the afternoon taking Phillip and Evelyn to their well-child visit. I’ve scheduled and been rescheduled like 6 times since August…the nurse called Tuesday morning asking if they could come in at 3 instead of Friday morning. Phillip was going to miss band practice because the schedule is not set until the day before, it’s quite annoying to set up appointments not knowing when practice will be. The times are dependent on meetings Mr Mac is asked to attend. Justin was able to take them and alleviate the schedule conflict on Friday. Hooray. 

Tuesday morning MCO sent out a text changing the required parent meeting to this Thursday and not the 26th. I was surprised because registration hasn’t closed yet! Probably changed because Brett could not make it out the next week. I had to scramble to get my computer class covered and also find attire models for the meeting to show parents what each choir wears. Gratefully, my own children filled out 5 out of 8 spots. I had Josie wear the young singers attire, just switch knee socks with tights. Somehow both boys lost their bowties, Phillip had WHITE socks on, and the wrong pocket square. I used a girl’s hair bow for Everett’s tie. Brett totally called Phillip out on the sock mishap…yes. After the meeting Evelyn wanted to ask Brett if he remembered her (out of thousands of youth). She went up and asked him if he read her email, he immediately knew the story she emailed him about. He said he loved that she was excited to tacos instead of sandwiches! I felt very grateful to attend, the music is heavenly this semester. The girls and I had a nice picnic outside before the meeting. Josie found a gnarly moth, it vibrated when I picked it up. That must be some kind of defense mechanism. At MCO Danielle Young asked me if Amelia was going to Homecoming, she planned to go with Emma and Hailey. Danielle wondered if Kadyn asked her if Amelia would say yes! I almost teared up right there, I’ve been praying that a guy would ask her out to a dance or on a date. I couldn’t talk on the drive home afraid I’d spill the beans. 

Friday was a very busy day. Phillip needed to be at band rehearsal by 8 am to help set up the mics and speakers. I dropped the band boys off then went grocery shopping. After shopping I noticed the fridge was a scary mess (again). Spent an hour cleaning out the fridge and freezer, putting items back in place and tossing the gross items. The next project was the dang pantry, after a month it was already a cluttered mess. I promised the girls we would play pumpkin store after lunch. They had a lovely time setting up the store with Dooter and Beardy as assistants. I paid for my pumpkin decorations with gummy bears, I tell you the girls wanted to charge a gummy bear PER item! We haggled it down to 5 items per gummy bear. The girls earned gummy bears decorating a table all by themselves! I quite enjoyed changing up the decorations. My feet were sore after shopping, cleaning, and decorating. Alas, the rest of the evening was just as busy. Kadyn (and his family) came by to ask Amelia to Homecoming. She had just got off work and was determined to sit on the couch for a year, Justin yelled at her to answer the dang door. She finally grumped her way over to open the door to a cute poster, bouquet of flowers, and Kadyn singing a song! So cute! She said….yes! We found a cute dress a couple weeks prior on Amazon, so at least we had that. Right after all that cute excitement Phillip et al went to band. The rest of us followed around 6:30 to help with cotton candy sales. Amelia and the Chamber choir sang the Star-Spangled Banner. They rocked it!! Sounded so amazing. CHS Marching Band performed two of their competition songs at halftime. Phillip turned his groove on this time! So proud! We were all tired after that long day. 

Amelia was relieved her Farmstead shift was cancelled, later her boss was scrambling to find available workers because it was busier than anticipated. Amelia was fine taking her time getting ready for the dance. Evelyn was craving McD French fries, I had a free coupon so we had a little girl’s lunch. Justin was at home stressing over a statement of cash flow, not a cash flow statement as he just corrected me. Ha ha. Her hair took a good hour to curl, we watched part of Aladdin during that chore. She looked so cute in her blueish gray dress. We hemmed and hawed over which jewelry to wear, the best shoes, and hair pins. All the fussing was a dream come true. We met the Young’s over at the Russian Olive Tree park for some photos. Then off they went to dinner and the dance. I got a text around 10:00 saying they went to play games at Hailey’s home and enjoy ice cream there. She said it was a really fun evening! 

Justin was called to be the assistant ward clerk during church today. He was released as Elder’s Quorum President a couple weeks ago. Hooray. Oh yeah, Evelyn got student of the week for the character trait of responsible this week! She and I enjoyed a quiet lunch in my classroom on Thursday. Excellent work to Evelyn. Everett decided this was not his year for cross country, his lung capacity was terrible with all the smoke and after bronchitis. It was too much for him this year.