State Champs! Part 1

Last Tuesday night the Harlan Jazz Band won the State Championship for the 4th year in a row. It's an interesting story, filled with excitement, hard choices, and painting with turkeys, so I'll start at the beginning.

I'm taking the boys to school on a sunny Monday morning, and as I drive down 19th street I see all the signs for the members of the Jazz band, that the parents have made to wish good luck to the band as they drive out of town. It's a tradition, that they do every year. They are huge signs with each name on it and usually the instrument they play, and also a cute and creative (see above) We had been gone all weekend, and the week before was just crazy and I didn't think much about making a sign. On the way home from Kansas, Sunday night, Amber asked me about it. I felt bad, but I would need to have it done before tomorrow, and I really didn't have the materials or a board to make one. I kinda said, "Is it okay if you don't have one this year? Or we could just use the old one I made last year." She was a good girl and said "That's okay mom, don't worry about it. I felt fine, and thought I was off the hook. But that morning as I saw all the other signs going the full length of the street, and knowing the bus carrying the band members would go down that very street on their way out of town, and knowing that all the kids would be looking for their signs, with their names, their own little reminder that lots of people would be rooting for them, I went home, and instead of doing my morning run, I went to the old garage and dug out the old sign. It looked terrible. The white paint was now a yellowish color and the edges were all faded, it was dirty and it was covered in cob webs. I couldn't use that. I remembered that last week Amber had sent me a text of what she wanted to put on her sign this year. "Slide to Victory at IJC" So I got to work. I cleaned off the board and sketched out a design and headed for the hardware store, got red, black, white, and gold paint, and a couple of brushes. I set up shop in our driveway, and got to work. I had let out the chickens and turkeys so they were roaming around, and the two Tom turkeys came over to see what I was doing. They were fluffing themselves up for me gobbling loudly, and wouldn't leave. So I had an audience. Also the Schwans man came by too, which I really didn't have time for. The band was leaving this afternoon! All these interruptions! Some of the paint had been sitting on the shelf for too long and I had to go back to the store and exchange it for some that I could actually paint with, and the bugs kept landing on my wet paint! But finally a little after noon I had it finished. I now needed to put it up in one of the yards on 19th street. Brother and Sister Burris live on that street so I usually put it in her yard. So finding a couple of nails and a hammer I went to put it up. When I was all done, I sent Amber a text to look for her sign as she left town. She was very surprised and very grateful that I had done that for her. When she saw it she loved it, and said I was the best mother in the world. Definately worth all the time and effort, and missing my run. What we do to make our children happy ;)