Farragut and UT Football

first things first: the ut/gator game was a pitiful excuse for a game. come on: 18-8. for all the times we were near the end zone, we should have made a touchdown. and if we had done that, we would have beat the gators. boo gator boo!

next thing: farragut football!! farragut vs. west at west. we beat west by ten points 26-6. because of a thunderstorm that was rolling in, they delayed the game at least an hour. they started the game, but after a couple of plays, lightning was spotted, so they had to pause the game. the band ended up in the auditorium (nice auditorium, not so hot bathrooms). but i have to tell you a story about our uniforms:

when we left the high school shortly before six, it was sprinkling, so mr. rogers said that we would be going in summer band uniforms (t-shirt and khakis) and we would bring our normal uniforms just in case. guard decided that we would keep our leotards on and wear the uniform over top the leotard. so when we GOT to west, we were informed by our captains that we were going to have to take our leotards OFF! and just wear the band uniform. but here's the catch: we weren't allowed to leave the bus. we were to change, with guys on the bus, into just the summer uniform. needless to say, there weren't to many girls happy about that fact, so we ended up wearing the leotard and the summer uniform.

again, we failed to do our entire show, but we didn't even march the show because half time was so short. we stood in concert set and performed our first and last song. pretty much none of our work with the last song was together because not everyone knew the correct counts. needless to say, it looked pretty terrible. the third song at least.

FOOTBALL!!

OK, so in the past three days, there have been two major football games, that i have attended: the Farragut vs. catholic game, and the university of Tennessee vs. western Kentucky university. both huge games. the Farragut game was on Thursday and let me just say that we left those Irish men in the dust. 20-12 was the final score with some really good plays. (for the entire details, Farragut has a really good article on it: http://www.farragutpress.com/articles/2009/09/11161.html) we didn't do all of our show again, partially because we don't know all of our charts. but we are working on it.

the UT/ western Kentucky game was a piece of cake. western Kentucky is ranked right now, 120 out of 120. that's pretty sad. but we beat them, so no problems. 63-7 was the final score UT. i was serving the mini-melts and they didn't sell too well for us. i don't know what it was about them, they just didn't sell.

both games were awesome, but the Farragut game was more fun.

another football game

this football game was an away game at oak ridge. the bus ride was fun because we played band shoes and then slaps. we sang along to a couple of songs until Mrs. Lewis came and repremended us for interrupting a conversation. she pretty much told us if she heard us again that we would have a silent bus.

it was different not being the home team and not knowing where to go, but i had a good time. we mingled a little with the oak ridge band and i got to know a couple of band members better. both oak ridge and we performed our half time shows but i did not have the pleasure of seeing it very well. i didnt drop my flag and was in the right spot all of the time. we learned some new work this past week and i was a little late on some of the work, but not all of it. farragut beat oak ridge 32-7.

the bus ride back was quieter, but we still got yelled at for being very loud: the guys were playing various versions of the game slaps. some of the many hand positions were facing up and down, facing sideways, two fingers agianst the inside of your wrist right on top of the vein, and 6 inches away from your bicep. all versions were quite painful and made your palms red and stinging. it was 11:30 before i crawled into bed last night and i was exhausted too.

FARRAGUT FOOTBALL IS FINALLY HERE!

its football time in FARRAGUT! woo hoo! our first football game was last week and it was a lot of fun! we, the band, had to be at the high school an hour and a half before kick off. in that hour and a half, the band performed the show standing still in the Garden (a special memorial garden for a student that passed away in a car accident), marched down to the field, and polished all brass instruments. its rather interesting when you walk into the band room after the brass has been polished; it smells funky, and the corner by the closet has a dusty haze to it. but we have good times in that room. the guard had time to set a couple of flag situations straight and continue a couple of traditions: a promise, a prayer, a couple of warm-ups, and a home game tradition: boom chicka boom. good times, good times. then because we are the home team, we had the honor of playing the National Anthem, and performing the huge "F" that the football players run through. we played a couple of stand tunes during the first and fourth quarter. some of my favorites are: the dance of 1000 waters ("...why are you so blue? is it because your number 2? because we're number 1! woo!); everybody dance now; go, fight, win; and another one that i cant remember the name. the guard and majorettes have a dance to each of the stand tunes that the band will play and they all are hilarious. during half time, we performed our show. it was a lot of fun and i remembered all of my spots and work. DB didn't bring a marching band, just a prep band. their band program is HUGE (easily over 500 students total) and their pep band was as big as our marching band. farragut ended up winning against dobyn-bennett high school 29-7.

not the s-c-h-o-o-l word again!

the summer is finally coming to an end and it didn't help knowing that i just had a back to school party last night. we watched the pink panther 2, it wasn't as good as the first one, but it was still funny. once we finished with the movie we played the lap game and would you rather. after one of the girls got asked a rather "personal question" (would you rather kiss said boy or another said boy?), we were all shocked by her answer, so the game fell into more of a gossip time... my favorite! jk! we had a lot of fun, and my parents said we could have one every month as long as we kept our grades up and we weren't interfering with any of their plans. we have fun with our little get-together/gossip times. we had to make a rule not to use phones unless they were for contacting your parents. if you were caught, your inbox was to be read by everyone. a very useful rule that we really didn't enforce too well.

back to school means back to sitting in a desk and using lockers, and back to hearing about other people's boyfriend/girl friend drama. not always the most uplifting things. but I'm kind of known as the therapist for that kind of stuff and i am better at it than some other alternatives. I'll be attending the local high school and i really can't wait. i enjoy color guard and the band's half time show looks good for only worked 56 hours on it. my first football game is a week from tomorrow and I'm kind of nervous. i know the routines, just not up to the extreme tempo.

school starts in 4 days and i haven't finished reading my summer reading books and i don't have any school supplies ready. i feel so unprepared. freshman orientation is tomorrow, so hopefully I'll feel more prepared after that.

band camp! :(

band camp is officially the worst part of summer. apart from the great tan i have (minus the sock tan), it was brutal. i now have a bunch more upperclassmen friends and have a greater understanding of the advice "never eat dairy before going out and spending all day outside in the sun". (believe you me, it is not a good idea to eat dairy and then spend 6 hours outside in the 97 degree heat. you WILL see that meal again.) i had fun and have learned a lot. i hopefully won't forget that all at the performance in less than 2 hours. eek! but i can sort of breathe, its for the parents only and its in the junior parking lot, not the football stadium.

mr. rogers decided to allow us to have a dance last night. we danced nonstop for three hours right in front of the DJ, aka the speaker. when i got home and laid in bed, i heard a distinct ringing in my ears and could hardly hear my own normal voice. sad, i know. but that is what happens when you are having so much fun dancing right up front with the speakers.

i now have a golden tan with the exception of my feet, and look like i went to the beach for two weeks this summer (which is a total lie... sshh). next week is the only other down week before summer ends and school begins *tear*. that also means that i have 7 days to finish the rest of Lord of the Flies and the entire book of How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Fun and Lively Guide to Reading In Between the Lines. ugh!

girl's camp and the final swim meet

first things first again. the final swim meet. *tear* not really. it was against West Side YMCA this time. They don't have as many boys as we do but they definitely have more tiny kids than we do. i enjoyed swimming only three things because the meet got cut short. See the thing is that WSY doesn't have lights that work at their pool, so once the lifeguards can't see the bottom the pool anymore, the meet gets called. the funny thing is that Hannah b., one of my friends, Sharon, and i all said that as soon as we got out of the water or up to the block that the meet was going to be called. guess what happened... as soon as we got onto the block, the announcer said, last event! so so so not fair! but get this: we were talking before we lined up about swimming butterfly and i jokingly said that i was going to drowned. the funny thing is, that Hannah b. jokingly said back: "who would you like to be your saving mouth?" i said seriously, "your man's brother." she gave me a funny look for a second, then understood. then the look got even weirder because she was thinking about it. see, Hannah g. has a crush on her man's brother. and Hannah b.'s man's brother has a crush on Hannah g. awkward for me! guess i got to find a new man... fast! the other events i swam that night were free, back, and i would have swam the 15-18 relay, but they called it before the meet was over. we ended up losing by 107 points! but they had a bunch of little kids and all of our eight and under boys were getting DQ'ed because they would flip onto their stomachs and finish their back there, instead of their backs. like they were supposed to. most of the team went to the Sonic right down the road from the pool, but seeing how me and Rachel had to be at the church at 6:45 AM the next day, Mom and Dad figured it not a good idea to push the time restraints.



so, moving on:





girls camp, ah! the fun time of the summer! the only time that i have to myself WITHOUT too many men around. this year it was stake, which means there were several girls there from our area, but just go to a different church building. we had to be at our church at 6:45 that morning because we needed to be at camp by 10 AM. its about a 2 hour drive to Pickett State Park where we stayed. so, by 9:30ish, we were at camp and checked in. So, this was Wednesday. That day we sang Little Sally Walker a ba-gillion times and then proceeded to sing other camp songs like Mormon Boy, Mormon Girl, Sippin' Cider, Three Starving Buzzards, and many more. Around 10:30 PM, we loaded up into cars to on a hike to see glow worm larvae. as we started our descent into the cave, one of the girls (Leslie) slipped, fell and ended up breaking her ankle. the amazing thing is, is that her twin sister, Leah, was in the front while Leslie was in the back. right before Leslie screamed in pain, Leah yelled her name and ran back to catch her, I guess. the leaders helped her up and took her back to camp. the rest of us continued on our hike to see these fluorescent insects. the funny thing was that you couldn't look straight at the larvae, you kind of had to use your peripheral vision. it was around 2 am before our cabin fell asleep that night, partially because we were all freaked out about Leslie and because it was the first night of camp, who isn't excited?

the rest of girls camp wasn't as exciting as that. allie got glow stick glass and glowy stuff in her eye, brooke twisted her ankle on the swing, and me and hannah b. practically cried our eyes out during testimony meeting. we had fun teaching the younger girls about gawking and staying up late with our YCL's talking in our cabin.



the next day continued, I guess, and 7:30 am when the leaders came into our cabin and declared that we needed to be in the mess hall in a half hour for breakfast.

4th of July!!

Wooo Hoo! The 4th of July! Bring on the fireworks, food, and fun!!



The day started out quite early at 7 o'clock. I need to be at the high school at 8:15 am for a quick warm-up and to line-up. I ended up in the second to last row, but I had fun. The worst part of the entire parade was the lag time between each cadence and Anchors Aweigh. I saw several families on the way to the old Ingles and on the walk back to my parents. Let's see: Cruz's, Hick's, my family, Keinzl's, Miller's, William's, Walter's, and a whole lot more! Thanks so much for coming or noticing that I was there!

After we got back to the house, we grabbed a few things, took a quick power nap and headed over to a friends, the Giacalone's. Rhere were several families there at one point: Giacalone's, Graves's, Bass's, Christiansen's, Phillips's, Vaughn's, Ebbert's, and Ebbert's. (Yes, there were to families there with the same last name. The men are brothers.) We had a huge barbecue, slipping slide, and quite the display of fireworks. One of the fireworks we did exploded out of the bottom and most of them did NOT end up in the sky. The Giacalone's home and their three neighbors' make kind of a square. We were located at the bottom right hand corner of that square, with the fireworks shooting out from the middle of that square. I was scared that one of the fireworks was going to go through the window and set something inside on fire. Luckily nothing of that sort happened.

All in all, the day was quite tiring, but I had oodles of fun, and can't wait for the next 4th!

swim meet #4

this swim meet was not as impressive as the others. although i was not late to the meet, only 3 of my 5 events counted for points. for the first time this season, i was in the freestyle. i got 2 of 3 people swimming. then i swam in the A Medley Relay team. hannah, lauren, gabby, and me were the lucky girlies swimming it. Lauren swam backstroke, I swam breast, Hannah swam butterfly, and Gabby of course swam free. We would have gotten first, but the girl swimming against Hannah had a really professional stroke. I swam the backstroke against Lauren. She got first in that event as well, but it was close. Breast stroke was a disaster. I was so close to getting second, but it didn't end up happening. I was past up during my flip turn. I was supposed to be done after that, but right before the relays, my coach asked me what heat i was in for my free. I told him second and he surprised me: "Do the 15-18 relay." I was not impressed, but i didn't really have a choice. We weren't supposed to have competition, but it ended up that they moved two girls up and had them swim with their 15-18 girls. Again we got second. In case of time, our 15-18 boys swam with us, and our coach was not happy with them. two of them did breast and Kristyn was not impressed with that.

but one of the funny things about the meet, was that one of the 15-18 boys is a total ball of fun, and asked me to cheer for him as princess, not by his name. so i called him princess, and i felt funny to be calling him a princess, but he got a kick out of it, and he would cheer for me as princess, so our little joke now is princess.... ahh!

Sony Walkman's 30th Birthday

Sony Walkman celebrated its 30th birthday on July 1st, 2009. It was first released in Japan on July 1st, 1979. Seeing how I am a happy owner of the updated Walkman, I thought I would give Sony its well deserved way to go! It is the only music player that I could tolerate. I had a small 2 GB San Disk, but it was tiny and on more than one occasion, I had lost it! But last Christmas, Santa treated me to my Walkman. The only problems I have had with is the earphones blew out on one side. But other than that, I love it!!!!!



To read an article about what one 13-year old did, press the link below:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/01/BU2618GKE7.DTL&nopu=1