Caution: Professional Drivers, Do Not Attempt

Miles Cait puts on in a week: 543 plus any events on the weekend with work (15 hours) Miles Todd puts on in a week: 226 plus competitions on Saturday with his marching band (7 hours) Gas has remained at around $3.99 here in southern Indiana after hanging out around $4.15 for a while. Ouch. It's not a great year to be heavy commuters. Cait's been lucky enough to join a 4 person carpool that allows her to ease the impact on budget as well as car wear and tear. The idea is to drive 5 times in 4 weeks. Funny hours have her changing her schedule daily to meet up with the carpool after work but it all evens out. Todd drives to his high school band job 3 times a week and drives with classmates who also work there. Not bad. It's still taxing to be in the car as much as we are. The spring will be tough when we're both going over an hour in different directions 5 days a week. Needless to say we can't wait to live within a half hour at most of a job. The apartment is getting closer and closer to looking like a home. We've only been here 2ish months. That's not long right? Well, looking at my math at the start of this entry, if we got our 22 hours of commuting back, a lot could get done around the house. We're JUST starting to get into a routine. Sigh. This Friday is our friend Adam's wedding in Indy at the Historical Society. Should be really neat! One of the few weddings we can attend this fall together with Todd's band competition schedule. The following weekend, Cait heads to Kentucky to work her first Bands of America Regional. Neat! Downside- we drive there. More miles! A weekend where we spend less than an hour in the car will be a blessing. We walk to the grocery store as often as we can and try to go work out together when we have a night (hard: Todd has All-Campus Band on Monday nights, is at the high school Tuesdays and Thursdays, Teaches a euphonium lesson on Wednesday nights and has band competitions until really late on Saturdays.) Hawaii feels so long ago and so very far away. Still hanging on to the memories of floating in the clear blue water staring at fishies and hiking the crater from sunrise to noon. That's it for now, folks. Gotta rest up for the morning commute! CM

Chicago Flooding

My parent's home in Glenview, IL is practically an island! The flooding has happened quickly and they haven't even gotten hit by water from Hurricane Ike! Our center green area is drainage but despite being the size of almost a football field, it's filled and so is the street and the first third of our driveway! Check out these pictures my mom took with her phone!More pictures on my Flickr site: HoldTheCheese/ChicagolandFlooding Updates soon, CM

Strike Up the Band!

Singing the words to the Indiana University Anti-Fight Song (Indiana, you big banana...)was all we could do to make it through Band Day at IU! Cait got a chance to instruct the visiting high school flags... about 70 girls! The IU band department hired her for the day, she got about 45 mins with the girls and NO MUSIC!! :-(

It was a blast either way. The girls had fun and Cait got to perform with a flag on the field of Memorial Stadium. No, Purdue Fans, she didn't burst into flames from my gold and black blood boiling... and She made sure to fit the first to 8's of Hail Purdue into the flag work... happened to be the part that repeated all through the routine :-D Cait's joke that no one got but made her feel better. Todd's fellow students were super friendly and Cait had a lot of fun with them!

Notice the empty part of the stadium and the warm band members with their jackets off during pregame practice. WARM DAY! Here's Cait in her Marching Hundred Shirt for the day. She wore an undershirt with it so the fabric would make her break out in hives ;-)

IU won the game against Murray State! Cait was glad Todd could make it back from his band camp at Columbus North High School to join her for the game and our fence side view... no need for seats when the most familiar view if field level in front of a loud drum line. Cait wouldn't mind doing it next year... Todd'll probably have his own band responsibilities though!

That's if for now from the McCreadys.