Day of Payson Competition: The RESULTS! (Dun dun dun!!)

I woke up at 10:30 yesterday to get to the competition, so the day started out relatively good, since I actually got 8 hours of sleep.

Kenna picked me up and we went to the high school, and sat around for what, an hour and a half? The strap on our flag bag apparently broke on Friday night too, so that's no fun.

When the bus got here, we were all happy! It was a handicapped bus, which was perfect for our floor (since it's REALLY HEAVY and not a lot of fun to have to fold into the bottom). And we were off! The bus smelled exactly like Dracula's Castle at Lagoon.

Then, our bus broke down. BROKE DOWN. On the side of Bangerter, I think. So we waited a while while Angie -our awesome bus driver- and Mama Tripp -our amazing color guard mom- tried to figure out what was wrong. Then we waited a more while while we waited for a guy to come and fix it (but, apparently we knew he wouldn't be able to fix it, since I guess Malea is bad luck and knows that transmissions aren't easy to fix since she's had 2 go kaput on her... apparently, I have no knowledge of any of this). Then we waited a more while while Angie went back to base to get us a new bus, and while Corey - our fantastic instructor- kinda sorta freaked out, which makes sense since the time we actually got back on the road was approximately the time we were supposed to be arriving at the competition. So we manually figured out the wheelchair lift (manual! I'm so glad we actually figured it out), and waved at people from the side of the road in skirts. (I wonder, what they were thinking?)

Then our bus arrived again! And we folded the floor onto the bus, since it was a normal bus, which I am actually very glad of since this one smelled normal. And by this time, with an hour's drive left, we all really had to go to the bathroom. Which was quite funny by the time we got there, since we all were sort of dancing while we waited to be checked in.

But the point is, we got there! Yaaaaay! (I bet Corey was super duper relieved.) Then we went right into warming up, while listening to another guard's song, Sally's Song (even though we were told to concentrate on our own show... it's Nightmare Before Christmas! If you can ignore that, I admire your self control.) Then into warm up 1, then warm up 2, and we didn't really have much concentration.

Then... we performed. Luckily, there was only one side that was audience, the other was a wall (a lot less stressful than audience everywhere you look, let me tell you), and we actually didn't seem to have as much tension. I dropped my flag at our toss in our circle work, but Chelsea said that I "didn't miss a beat" in getting it back up and getting back in, even though in that second it stretched to just about ten in my mind. BUT, at the end of it people were cheering, and we got our floor folded calmly so we didn't get in trouble with that, and everyone was saying how amazing it had felt. Performing is amazing. The adrenaline rush is awesome. I guess I could say, Color guard: for thrill seekers. And many other people told us we did really great too.

So we watched other guards barefoot (since we didn't go back to get our shoes...) and they were good. I totally loved both of American Fork's shows (Jr. and Sr. guards). Junior started out with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", with a blue floor, everyone dressed completely in white, and many many balloons (I believe they took first). And senior was really awesome too! They were all mime's, which I think is an awesome idea! I really loved their facial expressions. I don't remember what school it was, but there was also one to "Jailhouse Rock", and that was good too, I loved the cops and the jailbirds, it ended up quite entertaining (I believe they took third). And Bingham was good too, I really liked their waves (which may or may not be the right word, since I can't think right now! Ah!). (I believe Bingham took second).

So we went out to eat pizza... and had at least our third laugh ATTACK of the day (on the broken down bus, something made Kaylien laugh, and her laugh is almost more funny that the joke, so she can always make everyone else laugh too.) :D

And back barefoot to the stands to watch the independent guards! In Urban Expressions, Patrick wasn't performing, I guess since he had missed practice that morning and they rewrote stuff. I was kinda disappointed that they cut their floor, since they had it rise up in the back, so it was really cool and had earth, but now it was only the moon... But anyway, they did great, and took first in their class. And, there was also Wasatch Independent. I believe that they took on the most cheering of ANY group there. THAT WAS AWESOME!!! Their floor was quite blocky, and everyone was wearing black and wearing different sweaters or jewelry... and it wasn't until about a minute in, when there was a gunshot and someone fell over dead and got back up to dance with candle sticks, nooses, rifles, and pipes that we all realized: CLUE!!!! It was SO AWESOME! It was definitely the coooooooolest idea I had ever seen!! They took third, and I wish they had at least taken second, but it was still good!

Then it was retreat! Everyone lined up in the gym, and I guess we all had time to burn, since everyone started a MASSIVE game of "Ride that Pony" (Or something... I'd never played it before). And into awards! We were the last to receive a participation award... which had our guard pretty psyched! (I don't believe it is supposed to go in order of place, because last time they said "in alphabetical order", but this time they said nothing. I thought it was going by reverse alphabetical order, but everyone else seemed to think it was going in order of lowest to highest...) And we yelled our cheer, and got out of there!

SHOES are LOVELY THINGS!!! I <3 SHOES!! They're so much comfier than just ground beneath your feet. :P

So we got onto the bus... and immediately started shouting and saying how good we did and how we thought we placed, and Corey was yelled at while having trouble getting the paper out of the envelope, because we all wanted to know WHAT PLACE WE GOT!! So, she told us that when she first looked at it, she saw that there were ten guards. So she's thinking, okay then... and she pulls out the paper more and starts going through the guards, from last to first, to see when she'd see "Copper Hills"...

WE GOT FIFTH!!!! YEEEEEAAH! Imagine now, if you will, about 12 SCREAMING girls. SCREAMING FOR A WHILE girls! And then imagine another hour of soda and NONSTOP laugh attacks that lead to "orange soda out the nose onto the floor" times on the way back! That's the right way to end the night! Oh yeah!!

(Last time we got seventh place out of nine guards, and this time we got fifth place out of ten! That's a big deal to us! Woot woot!)

I love Corey, Mama Tripp, Angie, Brittany, Malea, April, Kaylien, Kenna, Bronwyn, Miranda, Crystal, Kaitlyn, Chelsea, Amber, and maybe other people I am forgetting, and Allysa, even though she's not doing it I still love her, and myself! Yeah!