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Posted in Children, Family, Parenting, Photography, Trains, Travel, Vacation, tagged Busch Gardens, Busch Gardens Tampa, Children, Dreams Come True, Family, goals met, Journey, Joy, Life, Love, new beginnings, Parenting, roller coasters, Summer Vacation, Tampa, thank you!, Thanks God!🥰, Traditions, Trains on May 30, 2021| 2 Comments »
Posted in Band, Children, Family, Life, Parenting, Photography, The South, Travel, tagged Caged, Drum & Bugle Corps, Family Fun, Freedom, God Does Things, God is Love, Marching Bands, Southwind, Summer Vacation, The Cage, Touring, White Gloved Lady, You’re Always Right! on July 7, 2019| 4 Comments »
Today marks the start of the annual tour for Southwind, an elite drum and bugle corps representing the Southeast region’s best percussion and brass players.
(Oh, and coincidentally, today marks this blog’s 8th anniversary – thank you to all my readers and friends for 8 incredible years!!! xxxooo). Back to Southwind:
They will travel nearly 6,000 miles in six weeks, performing and competing in cities throughout the Eastern seaboard and the Midwest, culminating with a world class competition at the Colt’s football stadium in Indianapolis.
Southwind began 40 years ago and carefully selects its members from rigorous auditions and recommendations. This year, its members hail from 15 states. Lucky for us (and our son who plays the euphonium), they chose our county as Ground Zero for their many weeks of rehearsal camps leading up to today, so we didn’t have to go far to visit him.
Last night they held their dress rehearsal, before they leave tonight for Valdosta, GA, their first stop on the tour circuit. We will catch up with Southwind again next Saturday in upstate Alabama for one of their competitions, before they head north for New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Michigan and points beyond.
Some highlights from yesterday:
The schedule is dizzyingly intense, with few breaks
Shoe blow-out is common – these students engage in marathon-training conditions in blistering heat and are fed special high-energy diets and go through gallons of water a day
Did I say “blistering heat?” This was what the sign said yesterday as I was leaving camp at 4:30pm
The supplies and resources necessary to pull off a tour of this magnitude are phenomenal. How every detail comes together is a miracle of the many staff and volunteers who expertly think of everything!
You just never know who’ll show up on tour with Southwind!
(wonder if this guy ever wishes he’d taken up the trumpet instead?) Everyone helps haul the instruments, props and supplies
Meals are served outdoors and consist of lots of high protein, high carb foods. I’m told that spicy and sugary foods are off the list for the most part.
It takes a crew to wash the uniforms, a crew to cook and clean up, a crew to keep track of the students, a crew to organize and pull off the tour, etc. Check out the Southwind website to see their talented Visual Staff and Percussion Staff.
Warming up on the field while the rest of the Corps unloads
Full percussion warming up with brass getting ready behind (note everyone’s gallon jugs precisely at their sides)
Just like a pro ball team, each position/section has its coaches. For the Corps, this includes experts in fine-tuning (literally, as in ensuring drums are properly tuned). The coach listens to each drum carefully, getting down to drum-level with his ear and instructs each player accordingly to ensure perfection.
Each instrument has to be inspected, each day
For each performance, they have a very short amount of time to assemble all instruments, props and supplies, so they learn, among other skills, how to, um, for lack of a better term, haul ass
The drum majors take the field. Yes, that is a roller coaster in the far background but it was so hot we didn’t see anybody on the rides!
The dress rehearsal turned into an un-dress rehearsal, as the searing heat even after the sun went down, prompted them to spare the uniforms for the tour and they did the rest of rehearsal in their bibbers (and white gloves – never ditch the white gloves, so sayeth the Lady, no matter what the conditions!)
The choreography, precision and talent are mind-blowing!
The performers put their heart and soul into each note
This year’s show is called, “The Cage,” in four movements. The first movement portrays what it is like to feel caged – the constraint, the sacrifice of self, the pain of stuck-ness. The second movement illustrates the frenzied attempts to break out of the cage, unsuccessfully.
Movement three is about what we might call learned helplessness, or accepting our circumstances, perhaps complacency and/or ditching the dream to be free and happy. Choosing to settle. Learning to be “happy” and giving up on potential.
In the last movement, the cage finally opens and we experience the joy of true freedom, being able to live life to its fullest capacity and the relief of being out in the open at last.
The show is copyrighted so we are forbidden to upload videos of the performance (plus we don’t want to give our secrets away to our competition before the tour!), else I would have loved to share the power of the sound and theatrics this talented group of students and staff produce.
And, just like a ball team, they have their own mini-ambulance
Away from the action, empty hangers, backpacks and instrument cases line the fence
Ready to roll up the road to the next venue!
I caught up with him after last year’s show in Hiram, GA
Thanks, God, for opportunities You give us and our children to exercise talents, discover new skills and to experience great adventures. Thank You for freeing us of the many cages of our own making in which we ensnare ourselves….and may we always fully trust and be free in Christ.
(This hot summer – and now 16 and driving! – he values a shorter haircut than last year lol) – Godspeed, Jonathan William and all of Southwind!
Posted in Children, Family, God, Inspiration, Life, Photo A Week, Photography, Postaday, Relaxation, Vacation, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged Beach, Birthday, Blue, Butt Sledding, California, Drive Thru Tree, Driving, Fun, Gleiser Blue, Journey, Klamath, Mt Shasta, Multnomah Falls, needed you there, Oregon, Redwoods, Smith River, Sneaker waves, Snow on January 13, 2019| 5 Comments »
Much of our recent trip west was spent enjoying The Great Outdoors …what splendor and awe we found, most often in the most secluded and rugged places.
Boy meets Pacific Ocean
Redwoods at Jedediah Smith State Park
Yup, I drove through one!
Majestic Mt. Shasta
Beach boy meets snow for the first time!
Fortunately there were only two spots where there were rocks in the road with no place to swerve but off the cliff. Woo-sah, I can still drive high elevations after all these years!
Smith River…my favorite place to see a shade of blue you never see except deep in glaciers or geyser pools
Oregon coast
Now we know what a “sneaker wave” is!
Multnomah Falls
Thank You, God, for an incredible trip, for the privilege of being able to share Your inspired creation with my son, for spectacular shows of nature and for happy memories. God, may all people experience the natural revelation of You. May we serve You through caring for this world and its people, preserving these special and awe-some sights for generations to come.
Posted in Children, Family, Inspired, Life, Parenting, Photo A Week, Photography, Postaday, Travel, Vacation, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged Clouds, Journey, Multnomah Falls, New, Oregon, Planes, thank you!, Wonder on December 31, 2018| 6 Comments »
Being fashionably late to everything, I’m just now stepping up to the challenge due to the hardships of cross-country travel.
But here is what’s NEW through my lens…coming home to Oregon for the first time in 17 years AND getting to share it with my 10 year old son, who was born and bred on the subtropical beach of his parents’ adopted second home.
He had as much fun beholding majestic wonders from above as I did, answering his gazillion questions about the earth, aviation, nature, God, geology, geography and all manner of why-cuz.
His very first flight ever…he remained fixated on the skies both to drink in the experience and to conceal his cheek-busting nonstop grin
Why are we at this angle? What if those rivets weren’t tight?
Mommy!! “What IS that down there? What’s happening to that side of the land?” That is where snow fell. “Why did it just stop at that line?”
The clouds seem to mirror the mountains below. We managed to fly over 12 states total!
Is that frost on the window? What’s it doing way up here?
Rocky Mountain High!
Later, when he got up close and personal to the live, giant Christmas trees, more questions arose which challenged my memories of college biology and botanical reproduction: How do they get so tall? Why are they so sheddy? Why are there so many pine cones and what do they do?
More adventures to come….
Posted in Children, Christmas, Faith, Family, Life, Photography, tagged Christmas, Family, new beginnings, Parenting on December 25, 2018| 2 Comments »
Glimpses into our day…
Local farmers’ take on Santa, a combo of hay bales and spray paint on the side of the road.
One of the stores we purchased presents from, had this sign. Although this sign may well have been posted also at our local Victoria’s Secret, where they locked us out after opening time and otherwise shunned shoppers, quelle horreur!
Thank you, aunts and uncles, for sending us all manner of healthy Stuff! The cheeses are going into my unnoticed 14 cheese mac&cheese on Christmas.
This is what it looks like lining up Stuff for each of 4 kids’ stockings on Christmas Eve, lay it all out! Are your stockings too heavy to be hung by the fireplace with care?
Present-wrapping
Posted in Children, Christianity, Family, God, Life, Photography on August 5, 2018| 5 Comments »
Evidently the children were busy doing other things besides bike riding this summer…
…and their parents were evidently too busy to tend to the garden and weeding!
Thanks, God, for new opportunities this summer, for the children being able to explore other places and things, and for Your protection and oversight as they do. Thank You for an enriched life, that we may serve You through and in all the paths You guide us.
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