Catching up...

Well, it's been two weeks since we moved Robyn out of her apartment. She was crafty enough to make sure she had a rehearsal scheduled for Saturday morning, so Ben, Tim, and I accomplished the big move with the help of a few church friends. We took tons of stuff to a 10x5 storage unit near our house, and another ton or so of stuff ended up in my living room. Robyn had not had any luck selling her furniture, so Ben took two large pieces to a local resale shop, and the rest came to the house. We were very fortunate to get some calls that day about the bed and dresser, and we ended up selling both of them that afternoon (but AFTER we had moved them here, of course!). The storage place had a truck that we were able to use at no cost other than gas, and our friend, Jim Flynt, came in his pickup truck, giving us lots of cargo space. Jim had had surgery on his hand the week before and was still in a large cast, but he insisted that he was too bored to stay home and would rather be helping out. What a great friend! Robyn got home just about the time we finished up. Her timing has always been exquisite.

The day after the move, we took Robyn to the airport for her trip to Canada. She's been enjoying cool nights and comfortable days for the past two weeks and will be there for a few more.

Last week was band camp week. I had eleven oboe students this year, divided into three groups. We played lots of scales and ensembles, and I even let them try tying a reed blank this year, with sometimes hilarious results. But one kid did such a good job tying that he was able to play on his reed after I scraped it a little bit. At the end of the week, we play an ensemble concert. In the midst of a record-setting heat wave, the oboes played Christmas music, complete with Santa hats and blinky-light mouthpieces (okay, we had to take those out to play). We told the audience to think cold thoughts while we played, and everybody seemed to enjoy it!

Ginger got sick last month and is still on prednisone. Every time I try to wean her off of it, she gets wobbly and starts stumbling around again. So we'll just keep on giving her steroids until we're successful at taking her off of them!

I'm leaving Wednesday for Kentucky, then Susan and I will drive to Ridgecrest for the 55th summer reunion at Crestridge. Robyn's going to meet us in Asheville; she'll leave Vancouver, BC, Thursday night, flying overnight to Houston, then going on to Memphis, Atlanta, and Asheville on Friday. I'm thinking she's gonna be one tired puppy by then! But she really wanted to attend the reunion, and this was the only way to do it. We'll both come home on July 8, then we have a lot more sorting to do of her belongings. Wish us luck!