November!

This is an October 31st picture.  Love you Andrew... see you soon!

November is a busy month for band directors.  Each year on October 31st, I more or less bid good-bye to the husband and greet him again at Thanksgiving Break.  (I never thought though... maybe he likes this???)  (Andrew's Note: You never thought it because he doesn't.)

Band competitions, football games, school meetings and prepping for the Renaissance Festival occupy the majority of our time.  Yep, that last one makes it up there.  And there are pictures to go with it... no worries kids.  (I KNOW how excited you are, but don't scroll straight to that yet.  We have SO many other pointless things for you to read!)     

All that to say, we've not been all that great about blogging.  You'll live.

The camera however, has been along for the ride!

Lindsey's Birthday!
My sweet sister Lindsey decided that she would like to celebrate her 24th birthday with a family dinner.  Dad decided that a fancy local French place would be a good option.  And since Dad's paying, we all were just fine with this.  Thanks Dad.  As we add more and more family members to the Livingston mix, it can't be fun to foot the bill.  Thank goodness Andrew got in early.... poor Hizzle and Brian ; )

Mom made a beautiful red velvet cake with white chocolate icing.  It pretty much changed my life.  (And mine)

Must have run out of candles...('Cause Lindsey's old)

iPhone, cake and coffee... all of life's necessities  (Not to mention a tartan scarf, which is one of my own personal life necessities.  Yes, that actually is a tartan, just a modern coloring of one.  You see, the Thompson tartan was....sorry.....nevermind.......onward.)

We're those people who brought out OWN cake into La Madeline's....(By the way, apparently it was Light Beard Day.  Steve and I didn't get the memo.)

Region Band:
Most weekends have been spent judging Region Band competition for my students.  Region band... for you non-geeks... is a band competition.

Yep. 
Bandies have competitions.

I've got some pretty talented kiddos this year and if you have to give up your weekends to work, these are the peeps to be with.  They're pretty much the reason my job rocks.
 Dedicated (read.... crazy) students spend August through November playing the SAME PIECE OF MUSIC over and over and over and over.  Then they all congregate at one school, in one room and play that same piece of music again.  For judges.  (me) (And me).  over. and. over. and. over.

It takes love and patience to be a judge... good thing they hired me.  (I.....I just can't take up that much blog space!)

Anyway, here are the kids I've been spending my weekends with... love them!  (Really!!)

Tim, Jacob, Brendan, Adrienne and Matthew!  Super talented bandies ; )

(I had one, too!  My 6th grade French Horn player made it in the Middle School version and rocked it!!  She even got the attention of the clinician for playing so well!  Ahhhhhhh!

Renaissance Festival!
Our yearly celebration of all things costume-nerdiness happened and we chose to attend on "Highland Fling" weekend.  You should be saying, "of course they did" in your head right now.  This year, thanks to a summer trip,  Andrew is now historically AND accurately decked out in kiltedness.   

(I try to convince myself that we're not "those people", but it's getting more and more difficult by the year to make that distinction.  I guess we're not "those people" who dress up in armor, chain mail, and scantily clad-ness and camp every single weekend at the festival.  Nor are we "those people" who form small clans and go around yelling about the injustices of the King and stake a little spot by the tree with a homemade flag so they can sit and eat turkey legs and drink mead.  
I figure we're more like "enthusiastic consumers"......preferable to "die-hard wierdos" or even "fantasy-dwelling nutcases".

All that to say, we're "those people" to the folks who don't dress up!) 


 

Remember this?  Hint... we got it in a country that starts with an "S".  (Not South Dakota.  See this little doozy of a blog post for mind-numbingly awesome information.)

I don't have to lay down to put my clothes on.  (THAT'S BECAUSE YOUR CLOTHING ISN'T NEARLY AS AWESOME AS MINE!!!!)

Your glasses don't match husband.  (Trial run of the costume for our Grace Madrigal Dinner!)  Wow husband, did you just include a link to the ticket page?

Hizzle came!  And dressed up!  Chris was lame and didn't.  (Dress up).  (Hizzle's my sista from another McMista)

Thanksgiving road trip:
And then... we had the brilliant idea to drive to Atlanta for Thanksgiving. 

130lb dog?  Rav 4? 
Check.  Check.
Dog hair EVERYWHERE? 
Check. 
Waitresses at Waffle House, McDonalds and Steak and Shake looking out the windows at your car?  Check.  ("Is that a horse??"  "Do you have a saddle for that thing??"  "Is it a leopard??")

Thanks Minnie.

We decided that all of Andrew's family in Atlanta, GA should get to meet the newest member of our canine family.  Unfortunately, getting her on airplane would have meant purchasing a row of seats... (for the dog), which isn't currently in the budget.  Next time you're on Google you should type in driving hours from Houston to Atlanta.  We didn't do this until about 10 PM the night before we left for Atlanta. 

14 hours.

Yep.

No worries though, thanks to my days working as an expert cashier at Cracker Barrel...(cashier... ha!  Want to know how many nights in a row that I had an off till and had to go into the manager's office and get yelled at?  Every one.  Every frikin one.)...I knew that Cracker Barrel has a kiosk that lends books on CD. 

Yes, remember CDs?  ("Compact Discs".  I think.)

So yeah, we listened to a book on CD.  Which isn't especially effective when you fall asleep and miss oh, 5 chapters.  (Still don't know what happened to "Jason"... our hero).  But whatevs.... it passes the time quickly.  Minnie did great!  And we now have enough hair in our backseat to send to locks of love for dogs. 

Like the red towel drool-proofing? 

Atlanta Pre-Thanksgiving activities:

Andrew's family is awesome, and we'll put up more pictures later.  But here are a few of Minnie meeting her niece Amelia, and doggie cousin, Ole (pronounced Oh-lee, not Ole like the Spanish Ole).  Ole liked Minnie so much that he peed and then slipped and fell in his own pee.  Good job Ole.  

Ole and Amelia before Minnie arrived.

Ole meets Minnie.  This is Minnie rolling her eyes.

Ole realizes that he is no longer the biggest dog in the pack and tries to compensate.

All hell breaks loose.  Can you find Micah, one of Adrienne's sons, in this picture?  (Oh, he's there.  Look hard)

We, by the way, are in Atlanta to run the Atlanta Thanksgiving Day Half-Marathon again.  Yipee!  This will be our second official Half Marathon, and I'm looking forward to not crying at the finish line this year.  Cough.

More on that later.  And the three, yes three, Thanksgiving meals we get to eat.  Mmmm... calories.

(We'll need them!  We're burning like 1400 calories during that race!  More on that later - assuming we survive the Atlanta hills.  So long for now.)