In July, was a week of band camp, where kids from all over the school district came together to learn and perform together.   It was very cool to see the final performance and how well they learned 3 new pieces within a course of a week.

Before that was 3 weeks of summer school.   The reading portion didn’t go over so well, but the computer graphics half of the day was something Brit was pretty excited about.  We learned new things from it, too.   Let’s face it, there are a lot of fun sites computer graphics people know about that regular geeks do not.   Or I may just be speaking for myself. 

So, next week, it’s back to school.  It’s a whole new year in middle school, learning things like foreign languages and industrial arts, cooking, and participating in band AND choir.   Sounds like a busy year.

October will be here before we know it, then it’s off to Seattle, and hopefully a daytrip to Canada.  Yay!

The band at the festival was a Native American rock band called Brulé.    We took video but the background noise really took away our ability to do their music justice.   So you can read about them here:  http://www.brulerecords.com/isis/promovid3.html and here: http://www.brulerecords.com/home.html.

We spent an hour or so on Sunday at the Omaha Farmer’s Market in Aksarben Village.   There are a lot of people walking their dogs there, and it’s always nice to meet them.   We bought a few things, like a new collar for Molly, our mini-schnauzer, and some ground beef from Thistle and Clover.  We’re cooking some burgers for dinner (when I say “we”, I mean “Ian”) and topping them with chèvre and some habanero paste from JPaste.

My parents are on their way back to Italy.    They’ve had loads of travelling in the last week.   When they get back, I bet work will be relaxing.  We’ll see.  I always get incredible jetlag (in a flu-sort of way) going that direction.

It was good to see them.   I hope we’ll see them again soon!

This is us (sorry, Ian is taking the picture) laughing because Brit kept laughing.

We ate at a really nice restaurant called Firebirds, which has wonderful steak, by the way.  Ian cooked an amazing dinner of pork chops, potato salad, potato wedges (for those against eating potato salad.. is there anyone?  Oh.. Brittany!), and a lovely salad with homemade vinaigrette.

We toured Village Point’s shopping area, went to Kohl’s to do some shopping, then my dad bought loads of Jiffy cake mix and other various things to send back to Italy.

Oh, and we couldn’t miss going down to the Missouri River to see how overflowing it was.

Also, Jackson unplugging the heart sensors.  Brilliant.

Anyway, we have an interesting weekend planned.   Sunday, we’re going to Adventureland with the Girl Scouts.   I’ve not been for several years, and they seem to have quite a few more rides, so I’m really looking forward to it.   I think Ian is a bit terrified, but I’m sure he’ll have a blast. 

Next week:  Two days of work, two days of Crystal Reports class and 4 days in Texas (yay!)    It will be fun taking 10 hour road trip.   It will be nice to have the GPS along the way, as well, since going south often messes up my inner compass.    We are going to see my brother and sister-in-law, and their 35 children (ok, 5).   It will be nice to catch up and enjoy the hot Texas weather.

Our 6-month anniversary is coming.  In the US, they have a very elaborate method of celebrating a 6-month wedding anniversary, involving major purchases at the jewelry store and a week away in Hawaii.   Right?  (shh)

This will be the first time Ian and I have flown together. We’ve done a bit of flying to see the other, but never have been on the same plane together.

He was surprised that we can’t fly directly to Virginia Beach. We have a stop-over in Detroit.

Starting to panic, I attempted to speak to the counter girl.  She decided it was humour day and I just wasn’t getting it.    She finally saw that I was humour-free and actually had a mission to complete in a very short amount of time, so she shifted me off to a counter across the room.    Everyone seemed busy helping other customers.    It was finally my turn to speak to someone.

He thought he was funny, too.   I indicated that my flight was about to leave and I needed a boarding pass, and one to board my flight in Chicago, too.   As he handed me a boarding pass for the flight to Chicago, he wrote down the name of some car rental company and handed it to me (it’s because dreams don’t need to make sense, I guess) as a resource for getting my boarding passes onward from Chicago.

I looked forever for my black luggage so I could wheel it to the gate (because who needs baggage check-in, eh?)    I finally found the luggage, which I remembered putting in a particular spot as I was speaking to my grandfather (who passed on years ago, but was seeing me off at the airport).

So, collected my bags, corralled my daughter and proceeded to the gate.

Oh crap!   I forgot to get her boarding pass.    I’ll just plead totally daft at the gate…. where they ended up just letting her on the plane without question.

I’m sure this all means something.   LOL

Happy Easter, people!

We’re already going through our list of “things we can do next”, which involves a day-long tour of London. Yay!