David's BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!!

My man returned to me last Monday night!!! DCI finals were Saturday and the Bluecoats got FIFTH! One better placement than last year AND they beat Phantom Regiment! Woot woot!

Monday night I went over to his place to chill with his family and eat Chinese food...well, they had Chinese food, I had to bring along my own gluten-free salad and eat that instead. Sigh. It was really nice just to relax, lounge on a couch and talk to him. You end up really missing those little moments when someone's gone for three months.

And then on Tuesday it was ADVENTURE TIME!! About a month ago we decided we wanted to take a little mini-vacation together when he got home, and we chose to go to Washington, DC. So we left Tuesday morning around 8:30, and hit MAJOR traffic...but it was no biggie, we didn't have specifically timed plans so it didn't matter if we got to the city two hours later than planned.

Our first stop was the Smithsonian Zoo!!! We saw pandas, elephants playing with tire swings, flamingos, a baby monkey nursing, an orangutan, an ape, a bunch of other cute little mammals, tons of reptiles, a ridiculous amount of awesome-looking birds, and a statue of a hippopotamus in a pond that I totally thought was real at first...OOPS.

After two hours at the zoo, we drove the hour to the hotel, checked in (I felt like such an adult!!), dropped our stuff off, and then went off to dinner! We went to Outback Steakhouse and it was FANTASTIC. It seriously had the best gluten-free menu I've ever seen at a restaurant. I got Alice Springs Chicken and tried some of David's crab...turns out that even though I don't like seafood, I like crab! A really nice night. :) David wore his Bluecoats polo shirt that day and one of our servers knew what the Bluecoats are! Apparently he marches some indoor circuit and knows a girl who marched this Bluecoats season with David. It was pretty awesome that he got recognition for something most people don't even know exists.

Tuesday morning we got breakfast at the hotel, and they actually had some food out I could eat! Success! Then we checked out, and drove to the Metro station closest to us. We figured out how to work the Metro card pass thingers and then we were off!

We got off at the Smithsonian stop cause the thought was we would do a museum first, but the time we got there it was 11AM and we knew we'd be hungry soon so we decided to hike the 45 minutes to Union Station to get some food. Then after a yummy, but expensive, lunch we hiked back to the National Mall area and toured the Air & Space Museum for about two hours. Instead of doing another museum next, we went to go to see the monuments. ALL the monuments. We walked THE ENTIRE MONUMENT LOOP. So much walking!!!!!!!

I think seeing the monuments was my favorite part of the trip. The architecture and structure themselves are so amazing and then the quotes inside and around all of them are BEAUTFIUL. I was totally English-major geeking out at the word choice and vocabulary and syntax and use of parallelism and and AND! The Franklin Roosevelt one was my absolute favorite. But they were all really impressive and emotional and moving.

After we completed walking the loop, we walked AGAIN to Union Station...we could have taken the metro, but that required transfers and money and it was a nice day and we've done harder things *cough drum corps cough* so we just kept on walking. For dinner I got a salad from Subway, which I didn't know you could do! You just pick your ingredients like you do for a sandwich but they turn it into a salad instead...pretty sweet.

Then we took the metro back to our original metro station, got in the car, and had an awesome drive home. It is so much fun spending hours in a car with someone when you just keep finding things to talk about even though you spent the past 48 hours with them.

Excellent trip. Excellent boyfriend. Excellent to have him back. :)

Reasons why...

...my mellophone section is the best section eva.

1. We all love each other. Seriously. No one dislikes/has any issues with anyone else in the section.
2. We all slap each other's butts regularly to communicate hype, encouragement, and love.
3. During rehearsal we each carry around a small water gun to spray each other and other hornline members (as well as unexpecting staff...muah ha ha!).
4. We whoop and holler during run throughs to keep the energy going.
5. We are easily the most attractive section of the corps.
6. We are the only section that has every single member climb a ladder during the show.
7. We have amazing techs.
8. We have neon orange hats.
9. We had a "superhero boxer" hype day. We all wore superhero boxers over our shorts.
10. Our section leader made us all mellophone superhero capes when we had our superhero hype.

:D!

I am so freakin' happy right now!

Bucs is wonderful and amazing. I've met so many new friends and love them all so insanely much.

My job is AWESOME. I'll have to make a separate post about it sometime later but seriously, most rewarding job in the world. I'm gonna miss it.

School is coming up soon and I'm starting to get excited! New people to meet...old people to reconnect with...(shout out to Paul!!!)...new classes...ANOTHER JOB! It's gonna be great. :)

Family life is pretty dang good.

I'm TAN (for once in my life).

Aaaaaaaaaannnnnndddddddd...David comes home in less than a month!!!!!

Life is good. :)

BAND

Drum corps is hard. Here are the stats to prove it.

Scott (a member of Bucs mello line with me) wore a heart rate monitor for our final run through yesterday afternoon. The results? His max heart rate was 189 bpm and his average was 172 bpm throughout the show. To put this in perspective, Scott frequently runs marathons and 5K's. His average heart rate for a 22 minute 5K run is 172 bpm. We reach that average in a 12 minute show.

I'm just gonna say it...holy shit.

Speaking of drum corps being difficult, we also put in a choreography section in the ballad during which I'm lifted and then do a sommersault in the air and roll onto the ground. Pretty sweet and pretty freaky. Here's some pictures from the weekend (first ones of the new visual...others are just awesome):

First Day of Summer

I think I would consider today to be my first official day of summer...I'm not at work today. But that's only because I was in the hospital yesterday.

This weekend was the first really hot weekend of Bucs. Everyone got naked (yay working on my tan!) and smelled nasty within 15 minutes of practice. On Saturday after lunch, I started feeling really sick. Light-headed...dizzy...terrible stomach pain...but I pushed through the day. It was miserable but at the end of it all I was proud of myself that I didn't sit out.

Then yesterday morning I woke up with the same stomach pain. Tried to eat some eggs for breakfast, had two bites and felt like I was gonna be sick, and so just settled on having a banana. Got to practice and within half an hour I was feeling super sick again. But I pushed through and at 12:30 we had a quick snack break (only about 20 minutes). I tried to eat some apple slices but my stomach didn't want any of it...it hurt to eat, it hurt to drink. So by the time 2:00 came around, I was incredibly malnourished and dehydrated but still pushing through rehearsal cause I didn't wanna sit out.

WELL...then we started working on Part 4. The mellos have this awesome feature and we stand on ladders and play it (which is kinda freaky but I'm sure will look fantastic). On the first rep I climbed up, got situated, started playing the feature, and then everything started going black. I stopped playing and just kinda stood until the rep was finished. When it was over, I looked over at Liz and told her I thought I was gonna faint. She yelled for one of the techs to grab my horn from me and as I was on my way climbing down I blacked out. When I woke up I was on the ground hyperventilating with techs all around me putting ice cold washcloths all over my body to calm me down.

After about 15 minutes I still felt sick and my body was completely numb so they took me to the hospital. I was wheelchaired inside, hooked up to a bunch of machines (my blood pressure was super low), and then had a bunch of tests performed on my body. I got an IV and some drugs to help my stomach and my head and I was feeling better for a bit. Then someone came in to check my blood pressure. They took the numbers when I was sitting up, lying down, and standing up and apparently my numbers were still bad. After that I got super nauseous and had to get a second IV that was double the dose of the first one.

Finally, after 5 hours of being in the hospital, I was able to go home. I wanted to go into work today but mom thought it was best that I stay home and get some rest, which is probably the smartest thing to do.

So here I am...posting for the first time in weeks because it's been so long since I've had any free time. Drum corps is still totally awesome and I love it...I'm just really hoping I don't get weird stomach pain (they could never figure out what it was exactly) every single weekend.

One positive that came out of the trip to the hospital though is that I found out I'm in FANTASTIC shape! As in my resting heart rate is lower than average because of all the intense exercise I've been doing with drum corps. My heart is incredibly efficient. Yay participating in an activity that's pretty much like running for 12 hours a day!

Drum Corps Update

I FOUND MYSELF IN A BLUECOATS VIDEO!!!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uKIpVAl7Aak#!


I'm at 2:39...the one in the neon shirt playing the mellophone WHO IS THE ONLY ONE IN THE FRAME AT THAT SECOND! Woooooooooooooooooo!!!

Speaking of drum corps, Reading Buccaneers is now and forever in full speed ahead practice mode! Practices every Friday night, all day Saturday, and most of the day Sunday for the rest of the summer. I'm PUMPED! We had Spring Preview this past Saturday (ON MY BIRTHDAY!) and it was fantastic. We practiced all day outside in the rain, got to the high school, ate dinner, showered, put on our uniforms, did a warm up, and then went and blew the socks off of everyone! Or, as Paul (our brass caption head) would say: "Mellophones, I want this part to sound like SATAN'S PANTIES." No joke. When he wants us to play like crazy, he looks at us and says, "SP."

It was fantastic playing for a huge audience. AND YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE IS FANTASTIC?? I have a dance duet with another mellophone in Part 3 of the show! We were learning drill and Chris and I were a couple yardlines away from the rest of the mellophone section and we were super confused...but then we found out we were picked to do a dance together! A dance that includes a LIFT. As in I will be off the ground completely depending on Chris' brute strength to keep me alive. It will be interesting...BUT I'M SUPER EXCITED TO HAVE A SPECIAL PART IN THE SHOW!!!!!!!

I have decided that drum corps is one of the best things to ever happen to me. It is also the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life...by far. But it is so worth it. :)

Me in the Bucs uniform at Spring Preview!