Sue - she plays trumpet, and loves it.
Pam - I am SUCH a fangirl of this show! Marching band today is not at all what it was when I marched 30 years ago. What these kids can do on the field simply blows my mind, and I put in enough years on the field to know it's impressive. I did about 5 years with a mellophone, and two years with guard between HS and college.
I'll definitely share the final show. Someone is always doing a video. I've generally been on the track, which is not a good vantage point. I'll take a turn off of prop duty some home game so I can see the final show, but for the moment, the parent army they already have isn't enough, so I'll be on the field with them setting props (as will Jake). Rob has been on pit crew every single performance this year, and he's been on the equipment trailer crew every time we've traveled. Now THAT is a job! Our main trailer isn't big enough to just roll stuff in - it has to be packed very systematically or it won't all fit. And it takes at least 60 minutes to load. I've been on uniform duty for all of the home games, and most of the kids now recognize me as someone who can resolve uniform issues.
For the moment, Rob and I are the only new freshman parents who have volunteered at this level. And it's tough, because there are a lot of upperclass parents who are "alphas", and I was shocked to learn how exclusive they can be. But Rob and I wanted to be involved, so we pushed and shoved our way in, regardless of whether they wanted us or not (kinda how we did with scouts, come to think of it
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
). I've seen many other freshman parents show up once, and then just stay the heck out of the way. I need to keep this feeling in my head, because Rob and I don't want to turn into *those* parents a few years down the line. Jake is looking at starting on drums next year (6th grade), so we're potentially looking at 8 straight years of booster work, and could very find ourselves on the board at some point.
Next week will be extremely rough, because we're traveling 3 hours away, and we don't have nearly as many parents making the trip. AND, it's the same weekend as Rob and Jake's cub scout pack camp, and with Rob being a pack leader, he can't exactly skip. The campground reservation is in his name, and he's the pack cook. He does all of the shopping and cooking for 4 meals for about 100 people.
![Shocked :shock:](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
I've found myself a carpool though, so I'm sure I'll be on the prop crew again.
Thanks for watching the video and taking an interest. I'm going to start sounding like Chirsty pretty soon - where the "what did you do this weekend" question can be answered on my behalf by anyone, because it's the same thing all the time. But I've been looking forward to this for a very long time, so it's all good.