Memorial Day Weekend

Since Brian's school district tacked two unused snow days onto Memorial Day weekend, we decided to head up to see his parents.  Brian's folks escape the winter cold at their second home in Arizona for a few months each year, and we hadn't seen them since just before Christmas.

I really like Brian's hometown.  Every time I'm up there, I stare in awe at the landscape- rolling hills that seem to go on and on- so unlike where I grew up.  Yes, I had the beach, but everywhere else in my neck of the woods was completely built up.  If there was a speck of land, they'd build something on it.  Another store, another strip mall, another Dunkin Donuts, etc.  It was convenient all right.  It just wasn't very pretty.  Driving on Brian's very own street, it looks like a postcard.  I can't get enough of looking at it.

We had a great visit.  We spent time with Brian's parents who seem to enjoy my stories of what it is like to live with their son.  We also had a lovely visit with our niece and nephew, Brian's sister and brother-in-law, Brian's grandma (I call her "Grandma", too), and Brian's cousin Debbie.  Oh, and we absolutely cannot forget Puttitat.

Here are a few photos of our time with Lauren and Ethan:

Aren't they cute? :)

Busiest Week of the Year

Since Brian and I had a long distance relationship, I never got to see him conduct a concert until this past December.  Now I think he is getting used to me waiting in the wings, camera in hand, as I proudly watch him lead his band make some pretty terrific music.

I don't envy his work.  It's a job I could never do, I believe, even if I were a musical genius.  This year has been a learning experience for me as I've observed just all the craziness his job entails.  And just having to cart the large, heavy instruments from here to there would be enough for me to turn in my resignation.  Or maybe I'd have to get a gym membership in order to lift the cumbersome things. Anyway, I digress.

Last week was the busiest week of the entire school year for Brian.  If there was an event to be had, it was.  His spring concert was on Tuesday.  This was excellent preparation for the upcoming competition for the band on Thursday as the students performed two of the three songs they would play before judges.  In my opinion, I thought the band sounded great, and I am always so proud to see Brian throw himself into the song he is conducting in order to bring out the best in his students.

On Thursday he and his junior and senior high bands went to the yearly competition where they would be judged, critiqued, graded, dissected, etc. before some pretty important people in the state of NY.  His senior high band was at a great disadvantage due to the absence of Brian's best all-state player whose father had just passed away.  Both bands performed well, but I can say from my own listening experience, as least with the high school band, they performed better at the concert, no doubt to having the full band present.  In any case, both bands were challenged, and Brian was proud of them.

Brian finished the week on Friday doing some judging of his own.  It was a tiring week, but we are looking forward to things winding down in the weeks before graduation.

Here is Brian with his jazz band.  This is a new group that just started this year.

The junior high band gets ready to play.

Brian works with his senior high band before their performance in front of the dreaded judges.

Terrible lighting, I know, but this is the high school band about to perform in an auditorium much larger than what they are used to.

Band Mom

My career as a band mom has officially begun.  After Brian and I got engaged last year, he didn't tell his students right away.  He wanted to wait for an important moment to do so, so he decided that the right time was when his students just performed at their band festival and he was giving them their ranking.  He said that next year, he'd be bringing along a new chaperone... the Mrs.  They were very glad for him, and no doubt surprised, since he never mentioned he had a girlfriend.  For the record, neither did I to my students (a boyfriend, that is), and while happy for me, they couldn't believe I had never informed them of such a significant detail.

Truth be told, I do miss my students.  They brought both joy and headaches to my life, but I miss interacting with them.  Some of them may have given me grief, but I also received plenty of love, and it was hard saying goodbye to them.

So when Brian asked me to help him chaperone his students at their solo festival, I was happy to do so.  Brian was so excited to introduce me to his students and break me into my new role.  I only met a portion of his students, but they were very receptive of me, and I even had a couple of nice chats with a few of the girls.  It made me miss my kids even more.

This week, I'll be helping once again as all ninety-four of his students will be heading to their band festival.  I'm glad to have the opportunity to join my husband in his work and interact with teenagers once again.

But for the record, the term "Band Mom" makes me feel really old.

A Daily Surrender

I read this in one of my devotional books a couple of weeks ago, and it's been with me ever since.

"But is it our business to pry into what may happen tomorrow?  It is a difficult and painful exercise which saps the strength and uses up the time given us today.  Once we give ourselves up to God, shall we attempt to get hold of what can never belong to us- tomorrow?  Our lives are His, our times in His hand, He is Lord over what will happen, never mind what may happen.  When we prayed, 'Thy will be done,' did we suppose He did not hear us?  He had indeed, and daily makes our business His and partakes of our lives.  If my life is once surrendered, all is well.  Let me not grab it back, as though it were in peril in His hand but would be safer in mine!" ~ Elisabeth Elliot, "Keep a Quiet Heart"  (Book given to me by my friend Ruth.)

I can always count on Elisabeth Elliot to put things into the right perspective.  Oh, how wonderfully true these words are!  Lately, I have found myself worried about various things in my life, all of which I cannot control and cause me grief in one form or another.  When I read these words, it was like seeing my reflection in a mirror.  Did I walk away immediately transformed?  I wish!  No, it is a daily surrender.

I remember reading Elisabeth Elliot's "Through Gates of Splendor".  In that book, she writes of the journey that resulted in the death of her husband and four other missionary men in Ecuador.  When the men were on what would be their final mission, "Operation Auca", they had planned to contact their wives by radio at a designated time to let them know of their progress.  At the appointed time, the radio was silent.  The women knew something was wrong, but they didn't give in to despair or grief.  Elisabeth, in fact, went on to teach one of her classes even as the fate of her husband was still uncertain.  She didn't do what I would have done, which would have consisted of canceling everything so I could sit and fret until I heard word.

When the ladies did finally learn the truth, no one lost control or threw themselves on the floor in a fit of tears.  No one cursed God and pounded the floor with their fists, nor did they start saying, "Why me?"  They understood that His plans are infinitely bigger than ours.  Though they did grieve the loss of their husbands and the fathers to their children, they did so with dignity, all the while trusting in their Savior.

What a lesson for us all!  How I wish my faith were as strong, and I pray that God is not done with me yet, but that as He keeps dipping me back into the furnace, I will eventually, even faintly, resemble something of His image.