What's Going On: Not Rome

Spending a week in Rome in early July has been the highlight of the summer so far. Between the four of us, I think we took more pictures in Rome than we have taken throughout the entire rest of our lives. That might be a slight exaggeration, but nevertheless, there are a LOT of pictures from Rome (over 2,000). I have spent the last month sorting through those, and as a result, the rest of the blogging has fallen way behind. Here are some pictures of the end of the school year, and a few moments from our non-Rome summer.

The end of the school year is always marked by many musical performances. Showing pictures of the actual concerts is often boring (they all look the same!), but showing the kids dressed up is fun.

Gregory before his final chorus concert:

With Stuart after the concert:

The band marching in the Memorial Day parade...

And afterwards at the Food Stop:

The concert bands and the jazz band also had final performances. All of these nights were fun, but Harry's jazz band concert, the "Jazz Cafe" night, was our favorite. The jazz band has been really incredible this year, and we were psyched that Harry got to fill in for the lead alto player during the final concert and consequently got a few more solos.

On the night of his final concert band performance, Harry received his new alto clarinet in the mail. He had been saving his money and, after loosing several auctions, finally purchased this instrument from eBay. Considering the many pitfalls of buying instruments on eBay, we got a really good deal. This is an older Selmer clarinet and it was playable right out of the case. Because Harry is the only alto clarinet player on Earth, buying books and reeds for this instrument is really easy...and everything is at least 75% off list price.

Now Harry has added clarinet lessons to his list of activities and is hoping to play this horn in the Maine Youth Orchestra in the fall. We're crossing our fingers that they can find or cobble together an alto clarinet part...

The Earth, Wind and Fire band gave its final performance in Deering Park in Portland. This was definitely the best Midcoast School band performance yet. The kids were both in the group this time, and they sounded amazing. G hammered out an incredible solo, which I think he just threw together at the last minute. He also sang back-up for a few of the numbers. Harry played tenor sax with a kid he met at band camp last year. Harry liked the experience so much, he decided to join G in the epic Stevie Wonder group that is rehearsing now for a late August performance.

Also in June was Andy's birthday. The kids each picked something for Andy--Harry bought him a Starship Enterprise pizza cutter:

And Gregory got him some Boston Red Sox playing cards and some new geeky beer glasses:

John and Cathy gave Andy an old Kennedy campaign poster, which we will have framed and displayed:

It is very rare!!

With his birthday money, Andy joined an adult band in which he gets to sing and play the sax. This is a dream come true for Andy, and although I am not given very many details about the rehearsals, I suspect that it is a wild and crazy (fun!) group.

For Father's Day, we took a hike in Portland at one of our new favorite places, the Fore River Sanctuary:

Puck joined us for lunch...

And I tried hard (and failed) to get a serious picture of my three guys:

Harry's last day of school was great. He won the composing competition at his school and his piece of music, The Crimson Twilight, was played in front of the whole school! His classmates were very appreciative of his efforts and he got lots of high-fives. Here he is walking home on the last day with Connor:

Gregory rode the bus home on the last day...the last time the bus will take him right to our house.

G was given an Abraham Lincoln dollar coin and a framed portrait of his beloved teacher, Mr. Jack, doing his famous "Grinch face." Gregory has never had such an amazing teacher.

The week after school ended, both guys started summer track!

G borrowed this Thermos from his friend Stuart...I think it is just like one we used to have when I was a kid!

Also in June, Harry hit 5' 10" and for a minute there, we thought he was taller than me (not quite!):

Hiking at Wolfe's Neck:

The osprey nest:

In anticipation of being on our way to Rome on July 1st, Andy and I celebrated our 16 year anniversary a few days early with some yummy steak and wine.

After Rome, but still included in this brief non-Rome blog entry, was Harry's second trip to the University of Southern Maine's week-long band camp. This year, Harry auditioned and got the first chair alto sax position (!), and also made it into the top jazz band, again as the first chair player. The kicker was, even after we sweated it out with him during all of the the pre-audition practicing and the anxiety-ridden audition itself, he wouldn't tell us how he had done until we showed up for the first concert at the end of the week!! Oh well. He had an incredible week, even more fun than last year, and he certainly had the spotlight on him at the concerts.

Here we are at Friendly's, on our way to go see Harry for the camp's small group concert on Friday night:

The saxophone group played only once at end of the Friday concert, and they were really good. It was great to see Harry for the first time in a week. The weather throughout the week had been crazy-hot (over 100), so we were relieved to see that he hadn't melted (or gotten sunburned).

The next day the jazz band, concert band and chorus all gave their final performances, and this was where Harry really got to shine. The jazz band was amazing and the kids all clearly loved their conductor, Barry.

The neat things was, there were four Cumberland kids at the camp this year, and all four of them got into this top jazz band. Definitely representing!

The chorus was the weak link this year. None of the music was very fun, and the conductor (who was new) clearly hadn't gotten the kids excited or engaged.

Harry's body language changed dramatically from the jazz band performance, throughout which he was giving high-fives and smiling, to the chorus...where he looked like this:

Last, the concert band performed. This was a mixed bag--many of the songs were great, but the conductor chatted a bit too much about a few of them, leaving the kids to swelter under the hot stage lights.

Harry got a little soli in one of these songs, too:

Harry high-fiving the saxophone teacher as he leaves the stage.

Unlike last year, when Harry stayed in a tiny one-room baking hot dorm room, this year the campers were staying in air conditioned upper class dorms at the U.S.M. campus. Harry was in a four-person suite with a central living room area and a private bathroom. He had a great group of kids living with him (two drummer sand a flute player), and the word is that very little sleeping and a lot of partying occurred in this dorm....