Just in case you didn't get it out of the title of this post....This is gonna be a bit of a braggin' kind of post!!! I have some pretty talented kids, (I take full credit for them when they do these kind of things!), and I have to document for future reference these major achievements. (This documentation purpose is two-fold-- 1: to preserve for all posterity the amazing achievements that this generation of Rasmussen's conquered & 2:to serve as a gentle reminder of good that Lee and I might reflect back on if &/or when this same Rasmussen generation might make some of those typical-teenage-genius-decisions!)
Now let the braggin' begin!!
Last Saturday, October 16, 2010, the Collinsville Crimson Cadets headed to Stillwater, Oklahoma to compete in the annual Oklahoma Bandmasters Association (OBA) 2010 Marching Band Championship. This is like THE big event during marching band season. It was a pretty long day for the band kids, the awesome booster club parents/volunteers and of course the band directors. This year our school moved up a class from 4A to 5A and as a result, there was a bit of apprenhension with not knowing how well they would do against the bigger schools.
Here is a picture taken during their preliminary performance. The show is called "ZEN" and has an oriental theme to it. Shelby has the honor and privilege of serving as the drum major this year and so to keep with the theme, she and the color guard wear chop stick in their hair.
This is a scene from the show where they gather into the middle of the field.
The above picture is after the drumline puts on this amazing performance (on the left side of the picture) and at the end of this part Shelby and all of them end it with their hands up. It is so very cool and my favorite part of the show.
At the very end of the performance, Shelby turns to the judges/crowd and bows....a great tie in with the theme!
Collinsville was fortunate to pull the 21st performance time out of 22 so only had to wait for one more band to show their stuff before the awards presentation and the announcement of which bands would be going home and which would be staying for finals. For the awards presentation all the drum majors come out on the field and if & when their bands names are called out for an award they then step forward, do their individual and unique "salute" and then accept the award. Out of all the class 5A bands there, Collinsville secured the 3rd place honor! That means they placed 3rd in the state of Oklahoma for class 5A bands. So much for being worried about how they would do up against bigger schools huh?!?!
After Shelby did her "salute" she stepped forward and gladly accepted the trophy for the band! After the top three bands from 4A and 5A were announced the top twelve qualifying bands were announced. And yes, Collinsville made it to finals!
I will spare you most of the details .... here are just a few: they found out they scored in the top 6 bands :-), they found out their finals performance would be 11th out of 12, they also found out they would be performing in between the two first class finishers :-(
After their final performance, (which I took 0 pictures of cause I really had to just wanted to watch it completely and take it all in!), they only had a few minutes to wait for the final assembly.
This pictures shows Shelby as she leads in her band for the final assembly/awards presentation. They call it Massing of the Bands and it is a pretty cool thing to watch. The announcer starts with 12th place and makes his way up to first. With the calling of each band and not hearing Collinsville, I got giddier and giddier!! You would have thought that I was one of those who performed for this award!! Anyway, when they announced 4th place belonging to Collinsville we were all just so happy! That is the highest the band has placed since Shelby has been in it....8th grade I believe. Shelby got the honor of accepting yet another trophy for the band and each member of the band also received a medal for their 3rd place State finishing!
Consider this the "After Party" pictures! Above is a picture of Shelby and her best friend, Sydney. If you look close at the picture you will see a purple bandaid on Syd's upper sleeve......you see, she is a band aide for the Collinsville band!! She is so funny! And I have to say that she does a wonderful job taking care of all the little extras that people don't even think about unless you are involved with bands! Love you Syd!
And this is a picture of the very proud and extremely happy Drum Major! I am so very proud of her and all the Crimson Cadets for the committment and focus. They put in more hours than most people would ever imagine and work so hard on memorizing music and learning each step of their performance. They start their practices before school ever starts--spending countless hours out in the heat working on getting things just right, they are at the football games maintaining the crowd spirit throughout the game, they give up their Saturdays to travel to and compete at different places, every Tuesday evening since school has started has been sacrificed to spend even more hours perfecting their show. These kids (& their directors) are some pretty tough and amazing kids! And my daughter is one of them! I just love this young lady so much!
SECOND BRAGGIN' SESSION!
Carter is just a sophomore this year so we have been extremely surprised and excited to see how much varsity football this young man has earned the right to play! This evening just happened to be the last JV game of the season and Carter was allowed to play in it. (When he starts Varsity, they usually don't let them play JV). He had a pretty darn good game too.
Ok....here is where I have to forewarn you. My dear husband is out of state working this week so had the misfortune of missing this amazing game our son played. I kept him updated through text messaging most of the game.....Thank goodness for modern technology!...but also promised him I would post ALL the pictures I could of Carter onto my blog so he could log on and have the next best thing to being there kinda moment! SOOOO that is what I am doing. If you think there are too many pictures, or that some of them maybe aren't blog worthy because they are grainy or blurry, let me just say "oh well"! My husband just has to see these!
What a beautifully thrown pass..Huh? And look at that pocket he is making with his hands. Yes, Dad, he was listening and it was registering!! Well done both of you!
This has to be the highlight of the game! Carter caught this pass on the 4 or 5 yard line, broke through 3 defenders and made it into the endzone for the first of three Cardinal touchdowns! He was almost as excited about it as I was!!
Carter is a very talented football player and can play very effectively both sides of the ball. Here he is on defense chasing down a Claremore Zebra! I like to think he gets his athletic ability from his mother!
Not the best picture but, (see above for clarification on why this picture is included!) behind those two white jerseys in the middle of the picture you can see Carter in there making a great sack that resulted in a fumble.
A great/bad picture combined. This is a pass that Carter caught and hauled in at the two yard line (Great part of it). It was thrown with only 2 seconds left in the half. He got to the 1 yard line and was shoved out of bounds just as the buzzer sounded. (Obviously the bad part of it). But look at him drawing that ball in after making the catch. He definitely knows what he is doing as a receiver!
Sorry...this is another must see for Dad. Back behind all the players you can see someone on the ground. That is Carter. One of his teammates pressured the QB so bad that the QB made a bad toss to this unfortunate chap whom Carter proceeded to knock the tar out of ... all behind the line of scrimmage I might add! Pretty awesome to watch!
Ok...another one. In this group of football players you will find my Carter. This was a sack that he got. If you look close you will see him in between 64 (in white jersey) and 45 (in red jersey) Carter is closer to #45 and has the QB and is forcing him down. Another pretty awesomely amazing thing to watch!
This is his touchdown catch before he made it into the end
zone. Perfect form and focus as he brought the ball in!
He had quite a few passes thrown his way tonight. Unfortunately not all of them were catchable. This is a shot of him stretching out as far as he could in hopes of getting the ball.
With the end of this game comes the end of his JV career. I can't believe that he is going to be an upperclassman next football season. How in the world does that keep happening to my kids??!! He is a great young man who is a lot of fun to be around and has so very much talent! I must echo my sentiments from earlier in my post....I just love this young man so much!!
