Band-tober

 We are finally coming out of the season of life known as "band-tober" and I'm so glad. It's been such a crazy month of October and honestly band has been intense since school started. So all our regional competitions are now over and all we have left is Grand Nationals which is next weekend. We are so excited to be just about done with band. The kids still have practices after school but their competition season is over except for grand nationals. 

While it's been super crazy, its also been so cool. Both Tanner and Bailey have been amazing at balancing school work, church and band. It's been impressive watching them mature and handling all the pressures. 

So this season the band went to the Bentonville marching invitational, which was in Bentonville. They went to Memphis for the Bands of America Regional and Rogers for State . So they have been busy. However, I think the practices have been even more intense because they are preparing for Grand Nationals. They've also been fund raising like crazy to pay for their trip to grand nationals. It's been alot.  But i've done some documenting and looking back at these pictures makes me a bit emotional. They've come so far and worked so hard! I'm so proud of my kids!

At the first Friday night football game where the band marched during halftime, the band brought out their tarp as a prop during their performance. Bailey was assigned to help roll it up after they finished marching. However, with little experience rolling the tarp and her shoes not tied tightly enough, Bailey managed to lose her shoe in the tarp and had to leave the field with only one of her shoes. 

Luckily for her, I was there watching their performance and when I went to see the kids after they finished marching, Bailey ran up to me with one shoe on and I graciously gave her one of my shoes to wear the rest of the night, since I was going home after halftime. 

Aunt Laura was with me and we laughed so hard all the way home about our sweet clumsy Bailey and her horrible luck and coordination. The band director told her she could get her shoe back on Tuesday after practice. 

I try to attend every home game so I could watch the kids perform. I also attended the Bentonville Marching invitational. Band competitions are fun to attend because you get to see other band's routines and it's fun to compare them to ours. 

We also had one concert during marching season. They have to do an assessment concert to get scored for nationals and other competitions. The concert was beautiful if not a little long. 

We are excited to be nearly through with marching band season. We are planning to attend Grand Nationals with the kids next week so we will all be driving to Indianapolis 

I can't wait to have my kids home more and to get more quality time as a family. But until then- we are super excited to watch "The Midnight Regiment" at Grand Nationals.