Halloween, and November's Adventures

 This post is pretty delayed because I decided with all the uninteresting things going on in my life, I waited a bit for things to roll by so I can pack it into one blog.

Friday morning, Mom left for Chicago to see her Dad and get a break from how she has been feeling the last 7 months. But she will have a more in-depth story on her blog, what am I saying, the only reason you aren't my immediate family reading this is through my Mom's blog. On Halloween day, I started by trying to find my cuts for the region band auditions that day. The audition for all-state this year are recordings instead of life (because of Covid), so we had a key to our church, so we could record in a better acoustically sounding environment. The recording went well, and they said we should have resulted in about a week-and-a-half. But after the recording was done, he went home with some Little Caesars pizza and got ready to go to the 13th Floor, a local haunted house, it turns out the house wasn't that scary for me, but there were a few jump scares here and there that got me. After the haunted house, I went to a friend's Halloween party, where we watched Disturbia and ate lots of junk food.

Dad's pumpkin

Mom's pumpkin

Alex's pumpkin

My pumpkin

The 13th Floor, it wasn't the scariest, but it was really cool

On Election Day I didn't have to go to school, so instead, I lounged all day, and watched the election which took a long time for the results to come in. But Biden was finally chosen as our next President, of course, Trump won't concede and makes a big deal of it, but I see that everything was fair.

My father has finally reached his mid-point, that's right, on November 7th he turned 40 years old and is officially old. I mean, he likes licorice. This year he got an electric coffee grinder, but his best present was a surprise. My Mom took my Dad to a breakfast place where he "accidentally" ran into his sister and brother-in-law. He was so excited to be able to spend the weekend with his family.

The reunion

The whole gang getting some Duck Donuts

Dad wanted a Texas sheet cake, which Alex made

One last thing, and it's about band. We got our region results back and I turned out to be the highest-ranking trombone freshman in the region. Despite that, I only made the district band, not the region band. And for marching band, we finally got our uniforms and started moving around in our halftime show. In fact, in the last game. I got to play the trombone solo, because the section leader had to quarantine, so I was next in line.

I would also like to address the sudden horrifying spike in cases recently, The United States has consistently been surpassing 100,000 cases a day. Our worst day was 254,000 cases in one day. And were places where the situation is dire, like El Paso, we hope that we can once again slow down the pandemic so we don't go into a full lockdown again.

Then finally, Thanksgiving came. It was so nice to have some days off after non-stop school. I basically slept the whole break, but I did bike around on the new pump track in McAllister Park. It's the only pump track in the area so a bunch of pro bikers is hitting up McAllister and doing some crazy stunts.

Then, of course, Thanksgiving Day arrived and we prepared a feast with the combined efforts of some friends to have a large Thanksgiving Dunch and dessert. We all had fun shooting some arrows and throwing a football in the nice November weather (for Texas).

It's now December, and I feel like that this year has gone by in a flash, but it really feels like the days are weeks and the weeks are days. 2020 is almost over and we have a new adventure planned to celebrate the new year.

Marching Band

 Since I've last posted I've actually made it back to in-person school and life is even busier. And because we've just started the football season which means that we as a marching band have been more stressed-out than ever. Because of Covid-19, we started marching late so every single game we seem to play something new, which is very hard to prepare in 3-2-and-a-half hour practices. But overall my band experience has been great, the weather is finally cooling down here, and playing the music loud while marching is very fun. However we were unable to prepare a full-blown show, but instead a marching version of Malaguena. Our band director says we could still do our show (which is a marching rendition of Pictures at an Exhibition) so that may be a possible video, but I really don't see how we'll have enough time in the football season with how bad ou team is. So far we've got 7-35, and 7-49, losing side, we're amazing.

 

Garner Getaway and Mom's 39th

 Man, I am really bad at this whole blogging thing, but to keep up on the past 3 weeks, I'll make it short.

So on Labor Day weekend, we headed to Garner State Park again to actually camp this time. We stayed for three days making meals, hiding in our tents from unexpected rain, and tubing and swimming. In fact, on the last day, Alex and I swam a large portion of The Frio River. I'll have some pictures and videos below.

Here's our campsite!

What a nice sunset

Our campfire pizza rolls

Dinner!

Yes, we brought hammocks

Our very rich dessert

Look how adorable this little frog is!

On the river!

Chillin in the hammocks

The next two weeks had the start of in-person marching band and regular online school.

Then this last weekend marked my Mom's last year of youth, yup, on September 18th, she became 39 years old. For her birthday we had some homemade cake that Alex made, and she got some bath bombs, some new jewelry, candies, and a little Perler bead version of herself. Happy Birthday, Mom!

The cake

The gifts

The Perler bead figurine

We also for the first time in a while went to church, in-person. It was a different unique experience.

Then also I got a plantar wart, so I went to the hospital to get cryosurgery, and I got a massive blister on the side of my foot, which has limited my moving ability, but in time it should get better.

WARNING: This photo below is somewhat gross, so caution.

The Weeks of Online School

 Sorry I haven't posted lately, there just hasn't been much going on. Well, let me rephrase that, there has been so much going on, I haven't done anything worthwhile to blog about. But here I am.

So, every day something different happens, instead of an A B schedule, we do a Monday. Wednesday, Friday, then a Tuesday Thursday schedule. So on M, W, F I have 4 one-hour classes, and on Tu, Th, I have 3 one-and-a-half-hour periods, but every day has their own inner depths, so I'll breeze through them.

I get to sit at this desk all day!

On Monday, I have zero hour and 9:30. On Tuesday, I have zero-hour at 9:00, and  marching band from 4-6. On Wednesday, I have a Masterclass at 8:30, zero-hour at 9:30, a lesson with Joe Dixon from 5-6, and a mutual zoom from 7-8. Wednesday is a long day indeed. On Thursday, I have a seminary zoom at 6, zero hour at 9, and marching band from 4-6. And on Friday I have zero-hour at 9:30. And keep in mind I have to do asynchronous seminary every day.

So that's really all that's been going on, but we are doing a camping trip this weekend, so there's somethimg worth reading.

Having Fun in Houston

 If you've read past posts on this blog you'll know that our family has had two failed attempts to go on a weekend getaway. well this last weekend, we finally made our way to Houston to take a break from all that's been happening.

We started our vacation Friday afternoon driving three-and-a-half hours to Houston. Our hotel was on the South-east side of Houston near Leauge City, so was a bit further of a drive. When we arrived at our hotel, we unpacked and walked over to a nearby Mod Pizza for dinner.

Headed to Houston

After pizza, we came back and played a competitive game of Dutch Blitz to wait for it to get dark, so we could swim when it was dark and cool, Surprisingly, we had a lot of fun in the pool.

Dutch Blitz

After tiring ourselves out, we went to bed to get refreshed for the next day.

Saturday we woke up bright and early to catch our jet ski we rented. I was old enough to drive the jet ski, so I was pretty excited and nervous. My dad showed me the ropes of the jet ski. and it was pretty simple, the further back you held the trigger, the faster you go. 

Beware the gators.

Getting ready to ski

It's a 3-seater

Zoom!

I was pretty careful when I was driving, but I still liked to go fast. My dad, on the other hand, liked to fling me off at 20mph. That was probably because I tipped him off at one point, but still, it hurts to be kicked off a jet ski. Later in the evening, we headed to Kemah Boardwalk, which wasn't as fun as it seemed, because it was so hot! They had some rides and a view of the ocean.

Do you have any idea, how long it took to take this picture?

In the sky tower

The next day was the beach at Galveston. From our hotel, the beach was about 45 minutes away, and when we got there we set up our canopy, put on sunscreen, and immersed ourselves in the waves. When we arrived the ocean was at low tide, so as time went on, the waves gradually got bigger. Also, my brother and I dug holes near the water to buried in. I had Doritos thrown on me so I would be attacked by the seagulls.

Here's the beach

I had to wear my hat backwards to keep my hair out of my eyes!

Buried Cade

Buried Alex

A lot of wind on the coast, perfect for kite flying!

Much needed shade

Slo-mo

Doritos

On the last day before we headed home, we went to the Houston Museum of Science. It was an interesting museum with some cool exhibits, like the dinosaurs, gems, Egypt, and death by natural causes, and some okay exhibits, like an energy hall, America, and winning nature pictures. I don't have a lot to say about the museum, just a lot of pictures.

Giant inflatable Mars!

Spiders

Trilobites

T-Rex!

Triceratops

It's crazy to me how big these birds were, this thing is about 25ft tall!

A rainbow nautilus shell!

Petrified wood is pretty cool

Imagine if sloths were still this big

Gems!

Fabra'ge

Sandstone

Ancient Eygpt

Rosetta Stone

This is a Foucault's Pendulum, as time goes on in the day, the Earth's rotation affects the pendulum, tilting it very slightly, so about every 15 minutes, it knocks over a wooden peg, marking the time.

And that does it for our weekend in Houston! Pretty soon school starts, so there will be a post about my new experience with virtual learning.