Band trip to Everett

I still haven't decided which trips are more memorable, the ones we take as youth or the ones we CHAPERONE! I had the privilege of chaperoning Rachel's last band competition in Everett. What a great time we had. We met at the high school at 6:15 on Friday morning to load the truck, van, trailer and bus. At 7:20 we were off. We stopped in the booming metropolis of Cheney, WA to use the EWU field for 3.5 hours of practice. We fed the kids lunch from our food truck that travels with us and then packed up and headed for North Bend, WA.

Rest stop at Ryegrass.


We stopped for shopping and dinner at the establishment of your own choice. We loaded up for one last short leg to the Middle school in Everett that we were staying at.

After unloading the bus, setting up camp in the gym (Boys on one side, girls on the other) instruments were unloaded and rehearsal began again.




Showers in the locker room and then it was lights out at 11pm. We were awakened at 7 to eat breakfast, prepared and served by the parents. Then it was into uniforms, on the bus and head for preliminaries. The band warms up in an area separate from the pit crew (marimba, gong, xylophones, etc.). We competed and were back to the school by one. We fed the kids lunch from the food truck and then took the afternoon for some down time. Rachel did her homework during some of that time, don't worry I let her have fun, so that I didn't have to help her with it when we returned home on Sunday night.


Our little band

As our band exited from prelims Mt. Spokane High band was just coming back after finishing their show. We were sharing a middle school with them, we had the small gym, they had the big one. They made this tunnel for our kids to come through and were shouting U-Hi! as they went through it to get to the bus. We beat them in prelims by .5 point and they beat us in finals by the same amount. We were grateful for their support and friendship and returned it by doing the same thing for them at 11 that night when we all returned to the middle school.

Down time photos.

One tired, hard-working dad.

Seniors with the trophies, we took every award available for the A band division. Way to go, kids!

Because they did so well we didn't compete in finals until 8pm. It was raining so hard most of the time. Our kids were very wet but did a great job! 7th overall and the only A band to make finals. We got back to the school around 11 and fed the kids dinner at 12. Showers and lights out by 1am.
Sunday morning up at 7, breakfast, break camp, load gear and leave by 9. We got to Pike Place Market at 10 and spent 2 hours there. We had to eat before getting on the bus and then rode home arriving back at the school at 5:15. Rae and I made it home by 5:45.



This was the group we spent our two hours with Sunday morning. Kai is the senior in the center, he plays a lot of horns, don't ask me which. Michael is a freshman who plays in pit. He is home-schooled but comes to U-Hi for band class and to participate in Marching Band. Rachel has a wide variety of friends. I was watching her over the weekend and noticed that she gets along with such a variety of ages, instruments and genders. The boys she hung out with Sunday morning are not the same kids as the night before, the afternoon before or on Friday. They are all like a little family and are good friends with one another.

Here's the post of their final's performance. It was so cold and wet.