Linn-Mar Competition

Week two: This week we got all of the drill on the field. Today we are practicing at Kennedy, then we are heading to Linn Mar, and then to Pella.

Now normally this week we would be going to Irondale, MN. However they moved their competition to this coming week, which is the same week we host our Five Seasons marching band competition and is also our homecoming weekend. Obviously we aren't going to be going to Irondale then. This is highly disappointing to our seniors because Irondale is a highly anticipated competition. Not because of our chances of winning( actually we are usually 7th out of 9, because most of the bands are bigger than us and audition to be in the bands, and you don't audition usually, if you don't want to make the group) , but because we get to stay overnight and then on Sunday go to the Mall of America as a band after eating all the food at one of the local Country Buffets as a band . I turned 16 during last year's Irondale trip, and being surrounded by my band friends on a band trip the same weekend as my first homecoming dance with a date was something very special indeed for my sweet sixteenth birthday.
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We had a practice starting at nine am before we headed out. The girls needing their hair done were to get there early so the moms could do our hair beforehand instead of in the buses. I thought we had to get there at 7:30, when it was actually 8:30. Colorguard had to get there at 7:30. So I show up at 7:30 to find that only guard is there, so I got my hair done and spent some time just relaxing and eventually everyone else got there. We were planning to have a practice on the main field, however we(the band) weren't told that the JV football B team was playing a game at Kennedy's field at nine am. So we had to lug all of our equipment and instruments out to the north field to practice and then pushed the equipment by the trailer in the parking lot and then ate walking tacos made by the band moms for lunch and signed up for our buses. An advantage of braiding our hair beforehand is that we don't have to have all the braided ones on one bus, and the cliques can spread out onto our own buses. However it takes 25 minutes to load the trailer and we were told that we were leaving 10 minutes prior to departure. If people don't want to have to wait for trailer to load, we should be told in time.

At Linn Mar we had to unload, get uniforms on and equipment set up, load the equipment on the trailer to transport to the other side of the campus, unload it, perform, load it, take it back to home base, unload it to disassemble it and load uniforms and load it all again. The trailer crew was NOT happy. After we watched awards, we loaded onto the buses and drove off to Pella, over two hours away...