What a whirlwind trip!
My voice is a bit hoarse from the SCREAMING!
A few words to describe this experience:
Amazing kids!
Long blended days
Yeah for Chartered Buses with movie screens
Hard Work & Dedication = Rewards
Sense of Accomplishment
Surprised!
Cold toes
Good Parent support
Great friends
Love
Note to self: Lost and Found box would be helpful!
We (myself, Josh, Tanner and Landon) left Sky View High School on Thursday morning around 9:30am. It's quite a "show" watching everyone pack their belongings underneath the buses and band trailer. There is STUFF everywhere.
We arrived in Fillmore for lunch break around 2pm. Great park where the youth could stretch and enjoy the sunshine. Arrived in St. George at 6:30pm.
It amazes me how all the parents go to work once we arrive. We planned this trip on a shoe string budget...and the kids were fed well and had every need met! There were 122 band students including guard, approx 45 chaperone's and 5 staff. We stayed at a local high school in Washington City, Utah. We practiced on their field, slept in their gym (yes a bit unaccommodating, but we all survived). I think the group preferred to be all together, actually. We put the boys on one side, the girls on the other with a parental barrier down the middle. =) We fed the group outside near the football field. WE were SO grateful for beautiful weather!
The first night the head band mom, Katie and myself slept outside. Hey -- yes it's October, but it's also St. George! I haven't done that in so long. The stars were beautiful. I couldn't help but wonder about some high school kids arriving early for school and wondering who were these transient women! I did have cold toes by 3am.
The band had a long hard workout on Friday and performed Friday night at Red Rocks Competition at Dixie State College. They didn't place that night in the top 3, but they sure did wonderful! The Utah circuit is getting to be tough competition, plus there were a few other outside the state that competed that night.
Look at all the shoes (this was only a 1/3 of what we polished!)
We arose at 5:30am Saturday morning to pack up and head to Las Vegas! We performed at 10am at UNLV at the Sam Boyd Stadium. PRETTY COOL! We were the 3rd to perform out of 23 bands. It was such a perfect time to perform. It was warm, but not as warm as it was later that day as temp's rose to 80 + degrees. All the band parents hurried to the top of the stadium and screamed our hearts out for the band.
At that time of the day there isn't many fans in the seats, so we had to make sure our kids knew they were appreciated. I think the judges noticed --- not only their fabulous show, but the support in the stands.
The top 10 were announced at 5pm. Sky View MADE IT! It was thrilling. This is the 2nd year in a row that they have made top ten. Such an accomplishment for these kids and their staff. Considering the staff has only been together for 3 years. Many tears and hugs - such a close knit group. Ms. Allred (the band director) drew out 5th...so we had about 3 hours to feed and get ready for finals.
There were 4 Utah bands that made it to the top ten...we all cheered for them as well! The rest were from California and one from Oklahoma.
It was a good thing we made top 10 as we all needed the adrenaline boost to keep us going! We knew it was going to be a long night!
There was magic in the air and the kids felt it. It was just so neat to be there with my boys! Something that I will always always cherish.
We (the Mama's) weren't as nervous the 2nd time around as their goal of making it to the top 10 had been achieved, but it was surprisingly still nerve racking as you just want them to do well!!!
Of course we all sat together and whistled, screamed and screamed with what voices we had left. Bands of America will not allow you to video tape the performances -- you have to buy those! So all I can share are a few pictures from the stands. They DID the best we've every seen them perform...it just all fell together and they were amazing! I just loved the fact that a mid-sized band can really come in an hold there own agaisn't some of these big name bands that have such a tradition of winning.
When it was time to announce the top 10 rankings - we really didn't have a feel for where we would place. If we were 10th - we'd been happy! I know that the kids wanted to do better than that though.
As they proceeded to start with the 10th band -- It wasn't us! It was a band that had placed 4th in last years finals and our mouths just dropped open!!! Then they announced the 9th place (a Utah band), 8th place, 7th place....and still NOT US! We just sat there in disbelief and our hands covering our mouths! We all had big eyes just staring at each other speachless. Sky View took 6th!!! Ms. Allred told us later than she had thought they had forgotten Sky View! lol.
American Fork High School from Utah was the Grand Champion -- which was so cool as well!
The screams, hugs and excitement did not wind down until almost 2am. We had a long drive through the night arriving at the High School around Noon Sunday.
I have to tell you what transpired during the competitions behind the scene. The staff decided not to inform any of us until after the compeitions were over.
- On Friday's competition at Red Rock we took 6th place out of 6th.
- We placed 10th out of 10th place in the semi-finals at BOA
- We jumped from 10th place to 6th place in the finals! Just AMAZING!
What a way to end a band season!
One of the band dad's told the kids on our bus "You left your hearts out on the field and we left our voices in the stadium"
Can't say it any better than that.
Landon drooling over the drum line at family night
Tanner on the field.....center stage!
