TGIO!!

The Cornhusker Marching Band always holds a party on the last night of band camp, after the exhibition performance. The party is called TGIO (pronounced 'tiggy-oh'), which stands for 'Thank God it's over." Speaking as a perennial band camp widow, I can say that truer words were never spoken. Although the days did go by pretty quickly this year with minimal stir-craziness for me, I am always still glad to get past band camp. The long hours of Cliff being gone are crummy enough, but it's really the stark contrast from the previous 2-3 months of summer break that make band camp rough for me. It's a total feast or famine thing. Anyway, it was nice to not set an alarm this morning and let the kids wake us up, have a lazy morning together and then take a family trip to the park. Band camp went well, and I think Cliff is learning a lot by working with this massive ensemble (290 members). He and the other band graduate students get to help conduct the pregame show at each game. Cliff gets to conduct from a tall ladder in the south end zone--very cool. They ended band camp with an exhibition performance before 10,000 people in the stadium. Some high school bands actually come to Lincoln just to watch this show--pregrame, marching basics and some drill down exercises. Needless to say, the Cornhusker Marching Band is highly thought of in these parts.

The kids and I continue to enjoy meeting the neighbors. Often, if somebody is outside playing with their kids, somebody else will come join them, then maybe somebody else....... We were out on our front lawn a few days ago, and within an hour, there were about 5-6 adults and 7-8 kids playing in our yard. Laura loves having a 4-year-old next door; they like to race their bikes up and down the sidewalk together. One of our neighbors hosted a potluck cookout last night that the kids and I attended. Everyone is very nice, and there are some international couples too. Also of note---we have a large proportion of Mormons from Utah on our street. Apparently there is a Mormon professor in the law school, and he often recruits for UNL's law school at a law convention in Utah. It's still just kind of weird---almost everyone one we meet came here from the same place!

Well, that's all for now. We're still getting the wall hangings up, so we're not quite ready to post pictures of the new place yet. Stay tuned....

Gina