Our 4th of July

We had a great holiday! The Montrose Community Band kept Mom busy and the boys tagged along and helped with everything, now both being officially called "band roadies"!!!

Thanks to the band, we all had a busy, busy day!! We had to be in Telluride (an hour and a half drive from our house) at 10am, to perform in their 4th of July parade! They loaded us up on a flatbed, being towed by a dump truck (welcome to small town America!!) The parade is rather "funky"....we are definitely the most "conventional" group in the parade!! This was our second year to do this, and both years we won the parade competition for "best Band"......funny, as we're the ONLY group presenting live music in the parade!! HAHAHA

Here we are, playing our way down the main street in Telluride!

And our leader, Toby, conducting us from inside the back of the dump truck! Classic!!

After performing "The Washington Post" and "The Thunderer" marches through Telluride, we were all invited to join them in their community park for the BBQ done by their volunteer fire department. One of the perks for us is that they pay for all of our lunches....a yummy meal of BBQ chicken and beef, potato salad, rolls, corn-on-the-cob, baked beans, drinks and watermelon for dessert! The crowd really enjoys us and we can barely walk a few yards without somebody stopping us to compliment the band and thank us for being there! That's pretty cool!!

We had a few hour break, to get back down the mountain and "rested up" before we were due at the Montrose RV Park to perform in the evening. It was so very windy (up to 35 mph!) and we almost cancelled, but the manager of the park (who had contracted with us to play) suggested that we eat dinner (yes, we were being fed AGAIN!) with them and wait a while to see what happened with the wind! They had invited us to join them for dinner, and the people who were staying at the RV park had put together a lovely potluck in our honor.......hot dogs, multiple types of salads, drinks, and many kinds of desserts! It was feeling very much like the 4th of July!!!

After eating, we decided to try it with the wind, which was dying down a bit. We set up our chairs and music stands and as we started to play, the wind all but quit!! Dusty said that the band out-blew the wind! We played many of our prepared pieces, and it was fun! There were only about half of our original group at either performance yesterday.....it's so hard to get people to make the committment to perform, especially on a holiday. But those of us who were there, made it work, leaving out the pieces that required instruments or people who weren't there!

This is the group playing under the gazebo, at the RV Park.

Here are Dusty's sister, Vonnie (Yvonne!) playing her sax and me, playing my flute. I thought it was great that Dusty was able to get such a good picture of us playing together!!

After the RV park, some of us took the percussion instruments back to the high school, where they belong. James, Dusty, Vonnie, John and a couple of friends decided to stay at the high school and watch the fireworks from the baseball field there. While waiting for the show to start, James played catch with his Uncle John and Aunt Vonnie, using a baseball he found on the field.

We were treated to this beautiful sunset, while we waited for the fireworks to start!

It was a great show, but I was so tired! It was a long, long day and my lips hurt from playing so much!! Hehehe

We hope that you had a wonderful July 4th weekend....may it have been filled with fun and much family love!!