Halliday Family Blog

Today Metea Valley High School had a great celebration and kick-off for the year at the building with scrimmages for all the fall sports teams.  The marching band played their pre-game as well as performed their halftime show for the crowd.  Things are really coming together for the band and she LOVES being a marching leader.

After the band played, the football team came out and had a scrimmage game.  It was fun to see the new uniforms of the team, the cheerleaders, the pom squad, and others.  One of Sarah’s friends from Seminary is the starting quarterback of the football team and is the team captain as well.

The more activities like this we go to, we get more and more excited for the kid’s experience at Metea.  Angela and I dressed up in our Metea band shirts and supported the school.  We need to get shirts for the kids as well!  🙂

A new record has been set!  The 2008 Halliday Family Album DVD is now finished!  Normally it doesn’t get done until Christmas of the following year, but it’s August!  This year’s theme is “Unplugged” and refers to no flashy dress-up like in the past (i.e. previous years were things like Halliday Incredibles, Meet the Hallidays, and Halliday Cars).  This year it’s purely,  hence the term “unplugged.”

Cover graphic for the 2008 Halliday Family Album.

The DVD this year contains not only the DVD video, but also:

• Two web albums (flash based and standard) for viewing in the browser and for future posting on my web site
• The video created in .WMV format for streaming on the Internet
• All the full-size photos used in the creation of the DVD

There were so many photos from 2008 (730 of them) that the video had to be split across 2 DVDs.  Last year a dual-layer DVD was created and couldn’t be viewed on some DVD players or on computers without dual-layer DVD players.  Becuase of this, I used single layer DVDs.  Not sure what we’ll do next year as there will be even more photos.  🙂

Today Angela and I went up to the new high school to the Metea Valley High School Marching Mustangs marching band parent preview.  We met with the marching band director and found out about all of the schedule for this season, including more details about the Disney World trip during spring break.  We then got to be the first group of parents out on the new field to learn how to march with our students.  It was pretty funny.  It’s amazing how the kids do what they do.

After learning some fundamentals (“fundies”) on the field, we got to go up in the stands and watch the marching band perform the first part of their halftime show.  This year it’s a Beatles theme titled “The Magic Mystery Tour.”  They did a great job, especially since they only have 57 members!  🙂  We were surprised that they took up as much of the field as they did with that few band members!

What was also cool is that there were friends of band members who showed up who play on the Waubonsie marching band.  They wanted to come and support their friends which meant a great deal to the Metea students.

Sarah is on the front row, third from the right.

Sarah is in the front between the two saxophones.

After the show on the field, we went back into the school where the band performed the rest of their show (music only), performed the fight song, and their patriotic pre-game show (“America the Beautiful” and the National Anthem).  It was great!  We are so proud of Sarah for all her hard work!

After the performances, we picked up our “Metea Band Wear” for the season.  Angela got a t-shirt like Sarah’s with the name of the show and all the band members on the back, I got a cool black polo, and Sarah got some Metea Valley Marching Mustangs sweats.  We’re all ready to go to support the band!

Even though we had a birthday party as a family when Zach turned 5 on July 5th, he still wanted a friend birthday party, and today was the soonest we could do it.  Angela worked really hard to pull it together.  The theme?  Spalsh Bash!  Zach invited 11 friends over for a backyard water party.  They had a TON of fun!  I did my usual job decorating the cake.  It was a beach and water cake to go along with the theme of the party.

The kids played all kinds of water games from relays filling up buckets with water from sponges, using squirt guns to soak a paper bag pinata until it broke and bags of candy fell out, breaking apart ice blocks with toys inside of them, sliding on the slip and slide, and getting each other wet!

Sponge relay game. Water from one bucket to another using a sponge.

The new Charlie's Angels!

Paper bag pinata. Break it open with squirt guns rather than a stick!

The kids loved the cake, ate ice cream, and Zach opened presents.  Each person went home with a squirt gun, a bag of candy, and a beach towel as their gift bag.  We had a hard time getting Zach away from the water long enough to thank and say good by to his friends as they left.  It was pretty funny!  Brittany, Kirstyn, and a couple of their friends did a GREAT job helping out with the party.  I got there just as things were wrapping up and helped clean up.  🙂

To celebrate the party being over, Angela and I went out for a quiet dinner together at a great little restaurant!  🙂

Today was quite the busy day!  While the kids were having fun at home, I was having fun at work.  I went to a seminar from LanDesk this morning (about workstation patching and software license management) at a movie theater in Rosement that was supposed to be a casino.  It’s an incredible theater!

The presentation was good, but after that, they gave us $10 vouchers and we were treated to the new G.I. Joe movie!  Now THAT’s a great seminar!  🙂  The movie was pretty good if you were there for great action (GI Joe meets Ironman)!  The large popcorn and large pop didn’t sit too well the rest of the day though!  🙂

This afternoon and evening was the student and parent orientation for Metea Valley High School, the new high school where Sarah will be going this year.  The picture below is a little old, but it shows the entire campus from above.

It’s amazing at how fast the building was put up and completed.  Just last Friday, Sarah and Angela went in and helped set up the band and orchestra equipment (music stands, instruments, etc.).  The band played the new fight song for both sessions of orientation, and Sarah did a wonderful job!  They have a very small band (only 58 compared to the 130 something they had last year at Waubonsie).  That’s pretty good, however, considering that only 2 grades (Freshmen and Sophomores) will be at the campus this next year.

Metea Valley Mustang Marching Band! Sarah is the third one from the right on the front row.

After the principal and other spoke to us, we got to walk around the school and check it out!  There are many pieces that are not finished yet but will be soon.  The school is move-in ready, however for the first two grades.  The science rooms were amazing (see picture below)!  They looked like college labs!

One of the new science rooms at Metea.

The courtyard area at the new high school. It's right off the commons so the kids have both an indoor and outdoor place to hang out.

Angela standing by the music stands she helped assemble for band and orchestra.

Temporary band and orchestra room at Metea. They will move into the larger "official" room when it's complete.

The girl's locker room at Metea. The only time I'll ever see inside there! 🙂

It was an exciting experience and one that I think energized the students to be excited for school.  While we were in orientation and walked around and checked out the school, the students had a dance which was fun for them.

When we got home, I took Brittany, Kirstyn, and Zachary over to the elementary to watch an outdoor movie (Race to Witch Mountain).  We couldn’t hear a thing so we packed up, went to Wal-Mart and rented the movie from the RedBox kiosk.  We came home and watched it there.  We were much more comfortable and we could hear it!  🙂 While we were doing this, Sarah was spending the evening with friends having a great time!  All-in-all, a GREAT day!

Happy Birthday Angela!  37 is still very young!  🙂  We had a little party for Angela tonight and had one of her favorites…  Key Lime Pie for her cake.  Kirstyn baked cupcakes for her as well which she loved doing for her mom.  Brittany made wonderful honey butter the other day for her Young Women’s activity and put together a jar of it with a ribbon.  Zachary raided our closet upstairs, found something for his mom (which she had bought already) and wrapped it.  It was really cute.  Sarah made a friendship bracelet for her.  Angela got all kinds of other presents from a fruit juicer to chocolate from Benjamin.  We enjoyed singing happy birthday to her and watching her open her presents.

After present time, we sat and ate Key Lime pie until we were completely stuffed full!  She also wanted to go camping for her birthday but it looks like tomorrow will be dismal and rainy, so we’ll have to take a rain check on that one.

Angela also got many happy birthday e-mails, and calls from friends and family.  One of the women in our ward brought her a bouquet of flowers as well.  We all appreciate Angela for being such a great wife and mother!  We all know that sometimes we drive her crazy, but we know she loves all of us anyway!  🙂

All this week, Brittany has been in a leadership program sponsored by the City of Aurora.  This “Aurora Leadership Institute” was held at the Illinois Math and Science Academy and taught them all kinds of leadership skills such as:

• Ethics
• Teambuilding
• Communication
• Relationship Building
• Team Dynamics
• Values
• Service

Today Brittany graduated from the program and was honored by the Mayor of Aurora for her achievements.  We attended the graduation ceremony where she got her diploma.  We found out that this is the first one held and from the positive experience that came out of it, they hope to do this in many years to come.

Brittany with Mayor Weisner of Aurora and the Police Officer on the staff of the program that mentored her.

Brittany and her graduating class of 2009 from the Aurora Leadership Institute.

Congratulations Brittany!  She was in the program with a friend from Still (and fellow track team member) Katie Benson.  It was good for her to have another friend with her.  After the graduation ceremony, we treated them to frosties at Wendy’s on our way home.  🙂