Monday, April 20, 2009

A Nice Quiet Sunday Morning...

So Jim has been teaching the percussionists at Mechanicsburg High School for almost 13 years now. He spends countless hours at rehearsals, meetings, competitions, and attached to the computer writing music. It truly is a passion for him. He loves working with "his kids," and the kids "love" him back. They choose to demonstrate their affection (in a more visual way) once or twice a year...in our front yard. Traditionally, we know to expect an "attack" around the beginning of band camp and/or Memorial Day weekend. This past Sunday, however, we woke up to quite a surprise...

Our close neighbors are so used to it, that they just shake their heads and laugh. Many times, various neighbors have actually come upon the kids decorating late at night and allow them to continue. This year, the kids asked our neighbor to take their picture while they were working at 11:45 p.m....and he obliged!

This year had a more dramatic twist, though. A neighbor further down the street, whom we do not know as well, noticed our yard while out cycling at 6:30 a.m. (We already knew by this point.) He decided that he needed to alert us immediately. However, I wasn't able to get to the door (as he rang the bell and knocked repeatedly!) since I was had just gotten out of the shower, Jim was in the shower, and Ellie was screaming because she had just dropped a wooden stool on her foot. (You know, typical morning stuff...) When I finally did get to the door, the neighbor explained that he had decided we must not be home and called the POLICE! Yep, not kidding. Sooooo, I hurried back upstairs to put on more than a bathrobe to great the SUV and cruiser that pulled up at about 7:10 on a Sunday morning.

I explained the situation and that we did not want to file a report. The neighbor was very apologetic, but it's certainly nice to have neighbors who care! :-) As soon as the police left, our next door neighbor popped out to see what all the excitement was about. You can see her admiring our beautiful tree below. Other neighbors came out during the next hour or so, some even brought their cameras. I really did like the tree...would've been great to take pics of the kids in the streamers with just a bit more sun. :-)

Here's a close-up of the Jim's car...and our friendly neighborhood cycling watchdog. He was most concerned about the paint job on the car being ruined, but what he didn't know is that these kids are professionals. They had almost every bit of the messy stuff sandwiched between layers of plastic wrap - ketchup, mustard, relish, chocolate, and cool whip. Just lovely...

...but pretty convenient for clean-up. When "the boys" got all the plastic off, there was only a little bit of mess left.

Yum!

Ben was a big help in the tree. He's gotten pretty good at climbing and was able to help Jim get down almost all of the streamers. There were only 4 pieces left for Jim's students to get later. :-) Yep, they always come back to tell us exactly how the plan came together and help us clean up.

Ahhhhh, nothing like a quiet Sunday morning... Needless to say, we didn't make it to Mass this week.

2 comments:

  1. wow... you are really showing your ages by telling us how long Jim has been doing this!! :) so fun to see how they torture you year after year!! i dont think this beats the post its though

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  2. yeah...i forgot about the post-its! i'll have to see if i still have pics of that to post. :-)

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