The END of RED Ribbon WEEK, and the Start of a RED-Letter WEEKEND

Red Ribbon Week is over.


I had to wear real clothes to school today, and one of the kidlets had the nerve to tell that I looked "professional".


Then I pouted for the rest of the day.


It's hard to go back to conservative colors and sensible dress slacks after a week full of 80's days, crazy hats, and serious salutes to nerd-dom.



And then there was "Colorful Day". Colorful day was pretty awesome.

I enjoyed every minute of it ... until I got busy and ran upstairs to the faculty room to make some copies during lunch. The teachers who were eating up there, well, they were not celebrating colorful day and seemed more than a bit surprised that I was celebrating it. Yet another reason to spend lunch time in the lunch room with the kidlets and Valerie.

Friday was Crazy Hair Day. The kidlets really committed to this one. I was soooooooo impressed.

My own style was more odd than truly weird, but I will repent and do better next year.

When Saturday dawned, I was in danger of suffering through a serious post-theme-week-weekend-funk.

Thankfully, it was the weekend of the giant craft show that Elizabeth and I attend each year, so I had some great shopping to distract me.

Then Valerie and I went to check out the town's newest snack shop ...

... before cheering on the high school marching band at their competition.

Having been raised with three self-proclaimed "band-nerd" brothers, I am no stranger to the finer points of marching bands.

But this time, I was there to cheer on one of my original perspicacious kidlets and yearbook Jedi: SPENCER! His proud parents were kind enough to invite me share their Spencer-centric afternoon. I made sure to take a lot of photos, but I tired not to embarrass him too much.

The band looked and sounded great, and it was so nice to visit with Valerie without the sounds and smells of the junior high cafeteria in the background.

So all things considered, the weekend was fairly successful. And by the time the first storm clouds of the season rolled in to cover our cute little mountains, I had stored up enough music and fun to see me through.

Plus, I bought one of these beautiful dress/skirt/top/wrap/thingies from these folks at the craft fair, and it should keep me in "colorful days" for quite a while.