A Rodeo Days Weekend With A Bunch Of "Firsts"

Wow, I have been busy and distracted over the last month. Better get blogging!

Rodeo Days is often a busy time for our family. Since our kids have a four-day weekend, we often take the time to go out and seek adventure. Sometimes we try something "big," like a trip to San Diego. Sometimes we go "smaller" and pick a few fun local events to attend. This year, for the first time, our family tried a combination of both approaches...by splitting up!

Now that Lorelai is in our charter school's jazz band, she is getting the opportunity to perform in public on multiple occasions. The band director, Mark, has lots of connections both in and out of Arizona, and he likes booking extra "gigs," so the kids get lots of performance experience (something that is usually hard to come by for middle-school bands!). Last fall, the kids had a gig at a local Rotary Club dinner. Then there was the Christmas school concert, at which Lorelai had a solo of her own.

But in 2016, the Great Expectations Academy jazz band traditionally starts its "touring season." There are multiple music festivals the band attends each winter semester, both inside Arizona and out of state. This means the band travels just as a high-school band would; they ride long distances in a bus, spend nights together in hotels, and spend days on college campuses performing and attending "workshops" to improve their skills. It sometimes feels hard to believe my "little" ten-year-old daughter is already old enough to go on overnight trips...and yet, here we are!!

The first band trip of the year was to Northern Arizona University's annual Jazz Festival in Flagstaff, which is traditionally held over the last full weekend of February. This also happens to be Rodeo Days weekend, but NAU doesn't care; Rodeo Days is just a weird "Tucson thing." So it was that on Wednesday, February 24th, I dropped Lorelai off at the school with the other girls, then stayed behind a bit to watch her get loaded up into the school's official bus. She had a small suitcase packed, and I even gave her a small pre-paid cell phone too, so we could contact her when needed.

 

It was heartwarming to see some of the students turn out to give the band students a "heroic sendoff" (they even made several posters for them!). It was also a little heartbreaking to sit on a bench and watch my "little girl" ride away from me (far away!) for a few days. Luckily, there were many adult chaperones along for the ride (including a few personal friends), so that helped me feel a bit better about the situation. Still, though, it felt like a significant first step in my oldest daughter's life. She's becoming a "big kid," and soon she'll be a "young woman." I am still trying to process how I feel about that!

Lorelai wouldn't be coming back until late Friday night, which meant that our Thursday & Friday off of school would be just Celeste, Aurora, and myself (Nathan, of course, would be at work). What to do? The girls were a bit jealous of Lorelai, who was off on a "big adventure," so I decided to take them to a well-known local event our family had never before attended...

...the Tucson Rodeo Parade! I had seen parts of this parade before (before the kids were born, I worked for a company located along the parade route), but I had never taken the kids before. We thought it might be fun to try it out!

We drove quickly and got there early. Some friends had told us to be there 2 hours early because of the crowds, but we made it an hour in advance, and we still managed to get seats right next to the swanky grandstand seating.

It was kind of a long wait for Celeste and Aurora, but I got them some cotton candy and that, of course, made everything better. Luckily, it was a beautiful clear, cool morning, so it was no trouble to sit waiting for everything to start.

The girls were overjoyed when it finally got underway. They love horses, and since this parade frequently touts itself as "the longest non-motorized parade in America," there were many, many, MANY horses to be seen (along with several donkeys, asses, and ponies).

 

 

One of the Sahuarita high school marching bands participated in the parade, and we tried to cheer loudly for them.

I also saw Nancy, a friend of mine, riding on the LDS Church's contribution to the parade--a float commemorating the Mormon Batallion, which marched through Tucson at one point in their long cross-country journey. 

Since every single float/carriage/wagon/what-have-you in the parade was pulled by animals, that meant the parade went on for a looooooong time. The "flow" of this parade was, to put it mildly, not that great. We would see several groups file by in rapid succession, then wait minutes at a time before anyone else showed up. At times, the girls and I wondered if the parade was over!

This "Star Wars"-themed wagon was especially incongruous...Darth Vader being pulled by horses??

 

But we managed to make it through the whole thing, despite a bit of grumbling from Celeste and Aurora on occasion. And afterwards we had lunch at CostCo and the girls went to a playdate, so it all worked out in the end.

The next day of our Rodeo Days weekend (Friday) was fairly laid-back; the two younger girls and I just spent the time doing laundry, cleaning house, and relaxing. That evening was somewhat hectic; Aurora had a soccer game that night, and we had to pick Lorelai up at the school after a triumphant return from her trip to Flagstaff!

I sadly don't have any video of the band's performance (although a few "band moms" who had chaperoned the trip posted a few videos online for all us parents to see). However, everyone came home in very good spirits. The jazz festival at NAU was not a competition between schools; however, each band had to perform in front of a panel of three judges, who then rated them based on performance. Although GEA's jazz band has traveled to this festival almost every year, their grades vary depending on the year. After all, they are competing against high school bands!

However, this year the band exceeded everyone's expectations; the judges unanimously awarded them a Superior With Distinction rating. It was the highest rating the school had received in several years! Everyone was very excited by the results, and all the parents were terribly proud as well. Lorelai had been practicing many long hours on the trombone in the weeks leading up to the recital (as had most of her band-mates, I'm sure). I was beyond happy for them that all their hard work paid off so well!

It wasn't all work on the Flagstaff trip; the kids also got to visit Bearizona, a wildlife park with many "free-roaming" animals. And, of course, they also swam a lot at the hotel pool; to hear Lorelai tell it, that was her favorite part of the trip!

Even after picking her up Friday night, Lorelai's weekend of jazz wasn't done yet. GEA had one more "gig" at which to perform--Jazz in the Desert, an annual festival put on by a Rotary Club branch in Green Valley. Mark, the director, was kind enough to give me a ticket to the event, and so I was able to see my girl (and all her hard-working bandmates) perform, fresh off her victorious Flagstaff trip.

Perhaps I am biased, but I thought they did wonderfully! It was really interesting to compare their performance with the performances of the other bands at the festival; all of which were from local high schools. For years now, GEA's band has competed at a high school level. I have always liked that aspect of our school, because of the way it encourages the kids to perform at a higher level.

I tried to compare all the bands objectively, and I honestly felt that GEA actually had a better overall sound than a few of the high school bands that attended the festival. The biggest difference I noticed was in the difficulty level of the songs GEA chose; they tended to be somewhat easier than the more difficult high school pieces. Other than that, though, I thought they were easily comparable; and GEA's best soloists were easily on the level with many of the high school soloists.

This is just Lorelai's first year in the band, but I know she wants to be a part of it in the years to come! She has blossomed both musically and socially by being part of the band, and I can't wait to see the rest of that progression. I have to give a lot of credit to "Mr. Mark," who does such a great job getting the kids to cohere as a unit and create awesome music. It should be an interesting ride.

And Lorelai still has two more band trips this year! We'll see how they go. But this Rodeo Days was filled with the sound of jazz music; and, I suspect, so will many Rodeo Days weekends in the years to come!