Why a duck?

"There's a duck in the back yard!" said Thomas, earlier today.  Well, duh! I thought, but no, he meant besides Pretzel and Zachary.  And indeed there was.  An actual mallard - smaller and prettier than either of ours, and presumably capable of flight, otherwise how did it get there?

He seemed a bit confused.  Maybe he saw the other ducks while passing and assumed this is where everyone was hanging out.  It's not even as if we have a pond at the moment, as we're draining it prior to re-structuring.  Clearly he got bored, though, because he's gone now.

More of Thomas with adorable French moppet/limpet

These appeared in my email inbox a few days ago. In both of them, you can see the small satellite that Thomas has acquired.

We were told that one of Thomas's most valued skill was his ability to tirelessly jump on their trampoline with their kids (the two little ones--the other tuxedoed young man is a fellow Michigander FYSO kid, Martin, who was staying with this host family along with Thomas--Thomas insists that he, Thomas, was more popular).

(Shortly after Thomas arrived back from France, he went "out for a drive", came back, muttered something about "the frame is the wrong size", and went out again. Naturally we were curious about the intended purpose for said frame. On his desk there now sits a felt-pen drawing of an American flag surrounded by pink and purple hearts and stars, proudly framed. I'm pretty sure I know who the artist was...)

Last Showcase EVER (sniff!)

Here Thomas is part of the Honors Percussion Quartet, as they accompany the Youth Chorus. A few seconds from the end of the song, a Whiting usher flashed a blinding white light at me and told me to shut off the video camera--taping being against The Whiting policy. Yes, that makes sense for professional concerts but how can that possibly apply to this event? And why was I targeted when every other parent and grandparent was taping THEIR kid?

Here he is, being announced and officially graduated. The entire percussion session gave Thomas enthusiastic applause.

Although I was too intimidated to tape Wind Ensemble or the orch (both pieces taped from earlier concerts), I did throw caution to the wind and tape this Star Wars collection, which I had attempted to tape before but my battery died half-way through.

Granny Knits Big (by knitting small)

Granny took part in "The Big Knit" and gets interviewed at the 52 second mark (but is visible on the right of frame right from the start).  Note that this is a newfangled 360 degree video, so you can move it around to see things that are not in the frame otherwise.

Tea day

Apparently today is National Tea Day in Britain.  Well, I'm doing my part over here.

Grandpa's Book Club

Every so often (and lately more often than not) exciting packages arrive in the mail containing fat volumes.  Apparently we have a mysterious Amazon-hating (they're typically via Alibris) bibliophilic benefactor.  Now we need to lie on some beach somewhere for a few months...

Only in Flint

Those first two are self-explanatory.  The second two are of a cricket game that breaks out every time it's nice weather.  We have a sizeable South-East Asian population, actually in the neighbourhood of the AirBnB place mentioned below, and they love them their cricket.

Scouting out AirBnB locations

So Granny and Peter will be visiting in the second week of May, and being the hip millennials they are, they're using AirBnB to find somewhere to stay.  There aren't that many places near us (people aren't, you'll be amazed to learn, flocking to Flint to get that tangy lead-tinted water) but this one is.  I thought I'd check it out to see if it was down a gang-infested alley crunchy underfoot with crack vials, and no, it isn't.  In fact, Frederick and I have walked within about 50 yards of it every time we've walked from home to my office.  It's within a professional-baseball-player-stone's throw from the Public Library and therefore also the Flint Institute of Music.  I pronounce it "shabby but safe".  I saw a Subaru parked in a nearby driveway, so this might be the Lesbian district of Flint.

Finally figured out how to get photos off Thomas's phone onto this blog

And it took so long I don't have time to write comments, so those will be added in a few hours.

Thomas camera dump

I lent Thomas my camera for the trip but he only took pictures on it for what looks like about ten minutes before giving up because "they got blurry". Anyway, here are the non-blurry ones. Maybe he'll explain them one day (yeah, right, as he would say).

That's not to say that Thomas didn't take more pictures - he did, just on his phone, and we have to work out how to download them all.

Old Photos: Meet the Orchestra, February 3rd

Every once in a while I do a google search for Thomas to find out what he has been up to. This morning I found an old news article on the FYSO's Meet the Orchestra Day which was on February 3rd. The kids had rehearsals from 8 am until around 6 pm, then an hour free to eat and change clothes, and then a 2 hour performance at The Whiting. Here are some photos of the percussion session a professional photographer took:

FYSO's return to Flint makes local news

Because of terrorist concerns, we were warned to not discuss any details of Thomas's trip--flight number, concert dates or locations--on any social media. I don't know if such precautions were actually necessary, but establishing these rules seemed to give some parents ease of mind so they allowed their children to go. As Davin mentioned in the interview, there was such strong concern after the bombings in Paris last Fall that there was pressure to cancel the trip. Thomas announced that he would go alone, if it came to it. I guess that's what they call a slow news day.

Thomas's last weekend in France--hanging with his host family in Lyon, gadding about with fellow HPQ percussionists

Near the end of the best days of Thomas's life, Thomas and his fellow percussionists (all in the Flint Youth Symphony Orchestra, three in the Honors Percussion Quartet), hit the town and end up acting rather silly.

Didn't we take a picture of Thomas doing exactly this on a nearly identical bouncy chair in Bury Meadow in Exeter when he was two years old? His feet didn't reach the ground then:

This must be Saturday night, before or after their last performance.

What's this--Thomas is smiling?!? I didn't know that was possible!

Here it is again! Signs of happiness on Thomas's face! (And who is that adorable miniature moppet who seems to have attached herself to Thomas?)

As we have pointed out so many, many times before, all good things must come to an end. By now, Thomas is fast asleep (hah!) so he is well rested before being woken up to be taken by his host family to the bus station at 4:15 am (!!!) to begin the grueling journey home. If all goes well, he will be arriving in the parking lot of the FIM tomorrow about 3:30 in the afternoon--to get ready for all day exams the next day at school...and then another 3 hour rehearsal to prepare for the concert to end all concerts, his senior year Showcase concert which is now only two weeks away.