Fall Band Concert

I haven't been blogging too much because not much has been happening. I barely take any pictures as it is. One thing is for sure, Natalie not swimming has freed up our schedule. She has not been in the swimming pool since the Fall Time Trials Meet almost two weeks ago due to ongoing back pain. She has her first physical therapy appointment in three weeks on Friday, so we're keeping our fingers crossed that the appointment will somehow help her back get better.

Natalie has been keeping busy with other activities, Honors Band being one of them. She has sectionals with the rest of the percussion section every Thursday morning at 7 am. We saw the end result of her hard work this past Monday during her Fall Band Concert.

This is Alex leaning on Eric before the concert. The Honors Band performed last, which was good in a way, because that meant that there were less people in the parking lot. The Concert and Beginners Bands and their supporters were long gone by then. The down side was that the Honors Band didn't perform until 7:30pm. We would have left Eric home with Alex, but Alex wanted to go to the concert. When I told him that it was nice that he was supporting his sister, he said that he wasn't supporting his sister since she didn't care whether or not he came. While he's right about that, I still think he was supporting his sister.

Eric would have been playing on the iPad the whole time (with the volume on silent mode), but he had played on the iPad after school and ran the battery way down to 16%, so he brought a Captain Underpants book instead. He's usually pretty good about staying quiet and still anyway.

Natalie didn't want any pictures of herself tonight. She complained bitterly about her tuxedo shirt before the concert. Patrick jokingly said that she probably would decide not to be in band next year just because of the uniform shirt. During the band's America the Beautiful song, she played a solo on the tympani to begin the piece, so I made Patrick take a video. She wasn't happy and wanted us to delete the video, but we didn't delete it, of course. At the end of the concert, the percussionists walk up to the front of the band so that their parents can get photos if they'd like, since the percussionists are always in the back of the band and aren't visible. Natalie especially, because of her size, is usually hidden behind a music stand. This is as good a picture as I could get, because of course, even though she walked to the front, she did not stop walking and walked on by. Even a few of the boys stopped so their parents could take pictures, but not my Natalie.

After the performance, she took a while to be ready to go because she was helping put away all of the percussion equipment, so we waited an chatted with one of her friend's parents. She was happy to go home and take off that uniform. Her shoes also hurt her feet, and especially since she was standing the whole time, her back wasn't going well afterwards either.

This Saturday, there is a special swim clinic with the former University of Texas swim coach, and Natalie is already signed up. I just hope that her back gets better soon. Patrick and I feel so helpless, and really, so does she.