Blends With Savanna Grasses

My two oldest step-daughters, Savannah and Kaylee, are hard-core color guard girls. Their program this year was pretty darn awesome. I'm not sure if you can see the detail of their costumes, but they were all done up as the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz.  Had I known the amount of duct tape that they'd all use in making their costumes, I'd have bought stock in the company.

On top of that, Kaylee also plays trombone in the marching band. So she was doubly busy at the performance.

Their program was definitely a crowd pleaser. They had lots of big spectacular moves and maneuvers. The weird thing for me was that they didn't score terribly well in the COC (Contest of Champions). It turns out that the judges gauge all kinds of things that are nearly invisible from a distance, such as the position of your thumb when catching a flag after a toss. Your team gets more points if you catch the flag with your thumb on the same side of your hand as your fingers than if you use a standard "grip" catch where your thumb wraps around the flag pole.  Consequently, some color guards with much less interesting shows ended up scoring higher because of little reasons like that that the overall appeal of the performance.

We've had a couple weeks of respite. And after the holidays, they start in earnest on "winter guard" in which all their performances are in doors.