Found in Fishers

Reserve Grand Champions - RCG

The Royal Command and Guard left Louisville, Kentucky with a trophy for first place and all the caption awards for their class as well as Reserve Grand Champion. Congrats to the RCG! The rain held off all day long for our band and guard. The drive to Kentucky was uneventful and with overcast skies, the colorful uniforms popped on the grassy field.
The competition began with a preliminary round. At the end of the round we received the caption awards for best color guard and best percussion. They did a nice job. We also received first place. After a two hour break, the group drew to perform last in the finals. That was a great advantage. Usually we get a horrible order and tease the director about his bad luck. But it paid off this time.

As we waited for the final round of competition, a groups of parents tail-gated in the parking lot. That of course is fun. Arriving at finals, we were able to see the ten best bands representing a variety of classes. After the RCG took the field, they performed a second time for the day receiving a higher score in this round. The challenge this year was to beat Henry Clay, and they did it!

I drove home with John instead of my carpool group, the Northcraft Fun Bus, after the competition as he worked all day snapping thousands of photos. I entertained myself since he quickly fell right asleep in the car only to wake up just as I turned on Brooks School Road in Fishers. It was a long day for him even though our friends tease him that only his index finger should be sore.

This has been an unusual year for the RCG. I would call it a whimpy year for many. This year we have had more injuries and kids passing out. When we did some more exploring, we found out that some of the kids are not eating but then drinking energy drinks. They get a quick rush then hit a big low. We even had 4 kids pass out while posing for pictures last month. If there is a crack to trip on, someone will. A hole to step in, someone will. Mono has passed through the band as well as some head colds. Jeeze, they need band boot camp to toughen up.

We are off next week and then in St. Leon, Indiana on the 11th. Keep checking on their progress through competition as we get closer to the Grand Championship Competition held Nov. 3rd in Ohio.

Announcing Lost in Lansing

Announcing www.lostinlansing.com.-
the sister site to foundinfishers.com

After years of talking about it, my sister was able to get her blog up now too. Since I am Found in Fishers, she is Lost in Lansing. We hope you enjoy checking out what both the Reichanadters and O'Briens are up to.
As many of you already know, I grew up in Lansing, a south suburb of Chicago. I am a Chicago girl at heart even though I now live near Indianapolis. Chicago is an amazing city. I don't miss the traffic, especially construction traffic. In the three years I have been in Fishers, I especially am fond of my 7 minute commute to work each day and being just 2 minutes from the high school makes life convenient. I hate being so far from my family but am lucky to get to see them often and with cell phones now I still talk to my sister almost everyday. Thank goodness for that! And, although we don't see each other as much as when I lived up north, we have the best slumber parties ever!

With band competition season in full gear, the weekends are full. Today we are off to Louisville for the Ballard Competition. This competition is very exciting as we will be competing against a couple very strong bands. I carpool in the Northcraft Fun Bus, a group of crazy parents who ride together to each competition.

Not even a storm can stop the RCG

Twenty-four bands from throughout Indiana came to Hamilton Southeastern High School for the 2nd Annual Royal Invitational on Saturday. So much for weather forecasts. Sunny and 81 turned windy, rainy, and downright chilly. Rain delayed the competition more than two hours, but it didn't stop the show from going on! Not even a storm can stop the Royal Command and Guard.

Bands started arriving about 2:30. By 5 the weather looked very threatening and with lightning in close range, we made an announcement for spectators to take shelter in their cars or in the school's cafeteria; band students returned to their buses. Unfortunately the storm sat over the school for quite a while so we prepared to possibly continue the musical portion of the competition in the gym and placed the tarp down. The directors got together with the judges and agreed to try and ride the storm out. Two hours later the show started up again! Due to the delay, many spectators didn't stay and for those who didn't already arrive, many chose not to come. A couple bands decided not to stay with a late schedule and many went home immediately after performing, instead of staying for awards.

The weather had an impact on my concession stand and our gate receipts, too. After the rain stopped and before the bands played, those who already went on came to the concession stand all at once. We could hardly get the food cooked fast enough. As stand manager, I was grateful to the awesome workers I had in the stand with me. They worked their tails off! I even had a 4th grader helping. He was such a hard worker and because he was small, he could move faster between workers to get hot foot in the warmers. The good news of the night: The new artificial turf field that Hamilton Southeastern Schools just put in this summer did it's job! With a grass field we would not have been able to return to the field after rain due to water on the grass. But the turf drained just like it was suppose too!

Not all was lost. I did sell 250 brats, 300 hamburgers, 500 hotdogs, 360 soft pretzels, and 225 nachos. We did not sell as many drinks as I hoped but we just did not get the crowd like last year. John spent the entire day on the field. His business, Indy Event Photos, took action photos of all the bands during their performances...more than 12,000 photos to be exact. Some 4000 of them made it online. You can view the invitational's results online as well.

Off to take some more Ibuprofen.

Gettin Ready for the Royal Invitation

Whew, what a week already. I have packed and unpacked my car so many times I feel like a moving company. Check my sanity, I agreed to manage the concession stand again this year for the Royal Invitation. And it is this weekend! We have 24 bands coming from throughout Indiana. I purchased 600 hotdogs, 300
ha mburgers and 300 brats. 18 cases of soft pretzels, enough chips for 250 nacho trays and 12 gallon cans of nacho cheese. I wonder how many calories I have transported this week.
Tomorrow I am off the Wal-Mart after work to get 30 cases of PowerAde and all the candy at Sam's Club. I also need to purchase 500 bags of chips. On Saturday 70 extra large pizzas will cross the counters.
Concessions are always a gamble. If the weather is nice, and it should be, we will sell large quantities of soda, water, and Powerade. I hope people feel like snacking too. But, you really never know how hungry people will be.
I learned a few things from running it last year. Keep the coolers with soda outside so the floor does not get wet, buy cheese cups for the pretzel cheese and feed the band kids outside of the concession stand. Have a clean up crew come at the end so that you are not stuck mopping the floor alone at 2 AM.
I suggested that whoever takes the stand over for next year work with me, but nobody has offered. I am thinking they are thinking I will keep doing it...not quite sure about that one.

Congrats RCG, Stay dry

The first competition of the year for the Royal Command and Guard was yesterday in Columbus, Indiana. Our band grew this year so we are no longer a AA band but a AAAA band. The category is determined by the number of marching band members not including guard.

Rain threatened all morning. The RCG had a backup plan to wear their t-shirts and shorts instead of uniforms if the weather did not clear. It was a bit windy, but dry so the competition went on as planned.
Our kids were amazing! This was the first competition and so there are some details of the show that have not been worked out but the music was strong. At the end of the night, we won all the caption awards in AAAA and 1st place. The caption awards are things like best color guard, best visual, best music, best percussion, etc. We won them ALL. Then out of the 20 bands competing, we won Grand Champion. GO RCG! Grand Champion means we had the highest score of all the bands performing regardless of score. This win was really powerful for the new band members. Especially since so many of them are in junior high or Freshmen.

I was hoping to post a picture but was unable due to the incredible amount of rain we are getting today. The wind and rain has caused great flooding in the Chicagoland area. John left early this morning to stay at my sister's this week while he worked at Rush. Needless-to-say, the flooding not only put 2 inches of water on his floor boards, but he did not arrive to Sarah's until early evening. Since I forgot my camera yesterday and he is dealing with horrible weather, I don't have the pictures yet from him.

I hope the rain will hold off, but I hear there is more to come. Today they already evacuated the northern part of Lansing and some of the schools in the region have already announced they were closed tomorrow due to the floods. In the Indy area we had quite a bit of rain but we have escape, so far, any flooding.

A busy fall already!

The first band competition is this weekend in Columbus, IN. This is one of the few close to home and with only one performance it will be good to ease into the whole competition scene again. We love it each year and are worried our social life will be over after Mark graduates in May.
None-the-less, band life keeps us extremely busy. This year with the opening of Lucas Oil Stadium, the band was offered and took the Oil Can Grill at the stadium. It is the busiest concession stand at the stadium and needs 26 workers to run it during a game. Last Sunday when the Colts let the Bears win, the Oil Can was on TV a couple times. I even saw John on the screen!
So you are probably wondering why is John working since Mark is a senior. The same reason both Mark and I worked already this year too. They still need help staffing the stand so we decided that we would. It is a busy night and by the end of the work session, my feet were throbbing. Although Mark's band account is paid up, we decided that our time spent in the Oil Can could benefit some other student.
Fortunately, we have been able to help a family. There is a family in band whose father recently lost his job and they were in danger of having to quit because they could not meet the financial obligation. John shared that we would help them out. They kids started crying. It was very touching. I am glad we could help out another family.

Holy Cow, did we have fun!

It was the last weekend of summer so Mark and I decided to trek up north to visit with the family before band competition season starts in two weeks. It was Dad's 70th Birthday too! After spending the day with him celebrating, we decided to stay longer and go visit Fair Oaks Farm about an hour south of my family. It did seem kinda silly at first to drive an hour closer to home and go back up north but we have talked about going to the dairy farm for the last couple of years.
When we arrived, we immediately signed up for the bus tour and off we went through the visitor's center. We enjoyed the 3D-4D movie. Had to wear special glasses. The even got squirted by a cow when it was milked. Of course the big boys got a bit tired of the grade school activities. While waiting for the bus, I did get a chance to see a calf born. It was kinda strange sitting in on bleachers watching cows giving birth. Even more strange were the large number of people snacking while watching. Weird. My nephew Liam did not stay, he felt like he was going to throw up and Sarah, well she was not prepared to tell him where babies came from yet. "From God" is not going to work for too many more years!
As we took a tour of the barns by bus and saw the milking carousel, we wondered if Sarah's new employer provided food supplements for the farm. Found out on Tuesday they do!
After the tour we stopped to eat at the restaurant. I had an outstanding Cheddar Cheese sandwich.
Before leaving, we all had to taste the ice cream and check out more of the activities for kids. It was a great visit. Coincidentally when we got home I was watching Dirty Jobs when they featured Fair Oaks Farm and the birthing of cows. We also got our question answered about impregnating the cows. That was the dirty job. Isn' t science great!