...is the beginning of band camp. i gotta find markers (canning lids) to use in field band so you can remember your different places on the field. we have to end up memorizing like 57 different positions throughout the entire show. so that'll be quite an experience.
i went and visited my grandmother today out in philly. i got to listen to good music in my headphones lol. and we got our van back! that's right. it's all fixed and everything and it turns out it needed a new transmission and one of the front tires was loose. someone forgot to tighten it which meant that if we had ended up driving it down to the ocean, we would've got like 20 miles down the road, the front tire would pop off, and we would've probably broken the front axle if not all of the bones in the our body. so it was a better idea after all to take someone elses car down. but it's great to have our comfortable van back again.
old home week has just about come and gone. wow so quickly too. and to imagine that the next old home week will be when i have graduated from highschool! i'll be off into the world the next time i have my picture taken. gosh i don't know where the time will be. i don't know if i'll even have this blog here then. time sure does flie when you're having a good time. i mean it seems just like a few seconds ago that kassie, jeremy, swopey, and i were hanging out down on the square, that i was running back and forth to each side during the picture, when i was dying from heat exhaustion from marching nearly 4 miles, when the fire got so hot in our backyard that we had to stand like 10 feet away from it (and we still felt like we were gonna melt), and finally when i spent the entire day with justin and watched the fireworks and all. time sure does fly and well i think it's time we catch up. i shall start on thursday since you don't know what happened then...
thursday morning i woke up like towards noon i think and then i just hung around the house for like all afternoon until it was 3:30 and time to set up the little canopy out front where my parents were putting the food for the people we invited over for the parade. that wasn't too hard except that the dang thing has about a million metal tubes you gotta put together all in this certain order and stuff. and there were about a million chairs across from my house and all up and down the entire street. it was a little unnerving to think that several thousand people were going to be watching you march in a few hours.
i took a shower at 4:00, at a sandwich at 4:30, then headed over to the school at 5:00. no one was out in the parking lot (which is odd because usually you see a few cars pulling up and letting off band people and stuff). it turns out, everyone was inside so i was at least on time.
we marched all the way down to the starting point and everything and we were unit #12 out of over a hundred others i think. we stood around for awhile and then we marched all the way through the length of town and then back again. it was one of our town's longer parade's. everyone was drenched in sweat by the end and my mouth was really dry. we all got back to the school and i changed into my normal clothes and whatnot and then justin, laura, kristin, and i all walked back to my house. we hung out there and justin lit this huge fire in the fire pit out back. the flames got around 10 feet tall and the heat was almost overwhelming. around 10:00 pm it started to rain and we had a cloud burst and we ran inside to the porch and we went upstairs to my room and hung out there for a while. then we decided to go for a little walk.
it was a dark night out and we walked all the way through moss springs developement and then back by the park and up through the ballfield back to my house. the developement was really creepy because hardly anyone had any lights on or anything. as we were going past the park back in that alley by the hardware store, someone began to set off these fireworks and they were curving up over us and cracking really loud and flashing and they were setting them off one after another. and then about the 12th one they set off went off course and flew towards a house and some trees and bounced off the house. justin and i thought the trees were gonna catch on fire and that's when the last few fireworks began to arch up over our heads. it was a little freaky because we'd only have a few seconds to react if a stray firework came our way. after they were finished going off, the air was filled with all this smoke.
luckily, the trees didn't catch on fire and we didn't get blown up or anything and we made it back to our house and hung around the fire pit some more and then kristin, justin, and laura all got a ride home from kristin's older brother. so that was the events surrounding thursday night.
friday was a long day. once again, i woke up around like 10:30-11:00 and as soon as i awoke, i got this call from justin. he told me that we should go swimming down by the bridge and we decided to meet there at noon. my dad drove me all the way out there and dropped me off and justin and i stood around for a few moments trying to contact kristin and laura but the antique cell phone that justin had didn't have any signal.
so we walked up the hill towards past kristin's house and towards laura's house and we finally got a signal on the cell phone as we were walking up laura's extremely long driveway. then we had this idea that we should call laura and tell her that we couldn't come over or anything and stand right outside her window while we called her. but we didn't make it all the way to her house because laura spotted us and it turns out that kristin was over too. so we hung out on laura's front porch for like all afternoon.
then, kristin had to go home and it was just laura, justin and i there and we went inside and i listened to laura and justin play the piano for an hour and then justin and i decided to go to justin's house. we borrowed laura's bike and laura's mom's bike and we were going really fast down the hill towards the bridge and then up the other side and back through all these long roads and developements until we were at justin's house. the entire ride was around 5 miles. justin hit 30 mph down the hill towards the bridge and i couldn't go as fast as him because 1. i hadn't ridden a bike in like 6 months so it felt weird 2. this was a mountain bike i wasn't used to and 3. there was something wrong with gears 5, 6, and 7 on laura's mom's bike. i got it up to warp speed and gear number 5 would not click into place. so i had to stay in 4th the entire time which was too bad.
justin showed me his house and then we had to make important phone calls and stuff and then laura called again and said that she wasn't going to the fireworks. and kristin wasn't either! which was odd since we had been planning to all go to these fireworks in town as a group since monday. it turns out that kristin didn't feel like going and laura's mom had suddenly decided to take laura and her sister sarah out to dinner. so that was kind of a bummer. but we had to ride back to laura's and give her the bikes back and then laura's mom gave justin and i a ride back to the town and dropped us off at the library.
from the library, justin and i walked to the school and stuff and we waited around for the army band to play at 7:30. so we had an hour or two to kill so we took a walk back to this birdwatching stand out in the woods and we saw where the fireworks were going to be set off from and this sign that was going to spell out 'goodnight' in big fiery letters.
once everyone began arriving, justin and i hung out with diana and troy and david all evening and we watched the fireworks which were the best fireworks i've ever seen around here. it looked as though they had spent a lot of money preparing for it. the fireworks started at 9:30 and were over a little after ten. i waited around for a while after everyone (including troy, justin, david, and diana) had left and then i walked home from the school back to my house by myself at 10:30 at night. and then i had to crash and get up for work the next morning (saturday).
but i should end there because this entry is ridiculously long already lol. i think that this might be the longest one ever, i'm not sure. but tomorrow is the start of band camp and all and i guess i feel ready; how bad could it be? you just spend a day with your friends and have fun and are mercilessly drilled by the drum majors for 4 hours in the afternoon. i'll have to write an entry about that tomorrow. but for now, i have to go to bed!
ziggy