2008 Marching Band Season is DONE!

Shout it from the roof tops! Our crazy fall with marching band centric life is over! The final commitment for both of us happend over the past 5 days at the same event! Music for All hosted the Bands of America Grand National Championships at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis for the first time. Columbus North, the high school where Todd is on marching band staff, placed 9th on their day of competition and advanced to the Semi-Finals. A very competitive event, they did not move further but had a very successful season of growth and improvement, their reputation for being a great band getting stronger. (see Cait's take on the event: Tales of On-Site Event Graphics Production)

As Todd begins his midterms, Cait slips back into the pattern of pseudo-sanity, creativity and perhaps some freelance work before the holidays.

To get everyone up to speed, much has happened since Mike's wedding in late October!

Cait traveled to St. Louis from October 16-18th to help put on the Super Regional Championship for Music for All. Fast paced, unforgiving and again, highly rewarding. Quick turn around straight into more prep for the Grand National Championships in a week or two. Attempts to see local family were thwarted with the aggressive event schedule and left Cait wanting to see her St. Louis family even more!

November 1 : We headed to Purdue to witness a hard earned Boilermaker victory over Michigan at Ross-Ade Stadium! We caught up with Cait's mom and brothers and saw some friends. It's hard when you get very little time to talk and really visit but enjoying a game will tide us 

over until the next time. Pictures from top right, Sam greeting us at Slayter double fisting Dr. Pepper, Todd hugging Max and the Purdue Band gets to turn their hats around for a Big Ten win!

We were also lucky to get to hang out with Libby Gephart at the game while her dad was busy. I'm a pushover: totally caved to her request for cotton candy. And boy was it good! She shared some but ate it like she hadn't been fed in days. One behavior we left in our youth.

The following weekend was spent actually being in the same place for once! We cleaned, and went to see the movie "W." and ate a meal together! Simple things really but out of the ordinary for us right now yet. Planning for Thanksgiving in Chicago with Cait's family, Todd's upcoming Senior Recital at IU on euphonium, and Christmas in Indy & Chicago. Wrapping up his coursework, Todd is looking forward to student teaching this spring!

Next weekend is our trip to Purdue for the game against Indiana with some friends. After that, the holidays come fast and furious but we'll share our adventures as the season progresses.

Have a great week!

Cait and Todd

 

Another One Bites the Dust

Mike and Steph got married on Saturday, October, 25, 2008. Congrats, you two!

More pictures here!

Cait drove to Chicago, celebrated, stayed the night and drove back home. Todd went to a band competition with the marching band he is on staff with. Neither can wait for marching band season to be over :-)

That's all for now!

A Liberated Weekend

Work called me to spend time at the office this Saturday. That kept me from going to Kentucky for an event but allowed me to see the IU opera tonight with Todd. Details later. Where did this week go?

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.

We got Maui'd !!!

Still on Hawaiian time, work is hard to focus on. We had an absolutely amazing week that I can't wait to post pictures of and comment on. Here was the brief run down:
Sunday- 9hr flight, arrive, swim, pick up snorkle equip, eat, swim, sleep
Monday- 3am out the door for sunrise at Haleakala Crater, 6 hrs hiking, swim, eat, sleep
Tuesday- 1 mo anniv, morning sea kayaking and turtle finding, lunch, swim, eat good food, swim, sleep
Wednesday- wake early, explore state park and southern coast, eat, swim, eat, swim, sleep Thursday- wake, drive road to Hana, hike and swim in waterfalls, eat good food, sleep
Friday- sleep in, swim in ocean and look at fishies, eat, rest, play card games, shop, eat, swim sleep
Saturday- Cait's 25th B-day, more sea swimming and snorkleing, pack, check out, return equipment and eat Maui Tacos :-), shop, eat, fly 5 hours
Sunday-chill in LAX 1.5 hrs, fly 4 hours, pick up in Chicago, family b-day party in Glenview, IL, drive to Bloomington, Indiana, eat, watch Bob Saget get Roasted on Comedy Central, sleep More later, From the Honeymooners