Training The Army. . . Seriously.

(I started this post a couple of weeks ago and then got busy and didn't return to it. It makes sense to post it tonight because we are headed out of town with our army buddies in the morning and we'll soon see just how helpful our training day was!!)

Sunday was "training day" out at the army base. And we were in charge. Seriously.

Fortunately it wasn't combat training, it was audio-lighting-canopy training. . .

Each one of us had an "expert" position with a team of soldiers ready and willing to learn from us. Rob was the "expert" in audio, Kurt was the "expert" in lighting and I was the "expert" canopy setter-upper. The first two make sense but I'm no expert in setting up the canopy! But I still knew more about it than the crew assigned to me so I faked my way through it with a lot of help from Rob and Kurt. . .

The whole point of our training day was to help prepare the army band for their big trip up North over the 4th of July. . .

They have purchased a canopy like ours and will be taking it to Sandpoint for two concerts. . .

We set this thing up so often in the summer with a very small crew (IF we have a crew at all!) so it was really nice (and kind of funny) to have such a large amount of people working together to set it up! It took about the same amount of time, though. . .

We've gotten to know some of these guys pretty well over the last year and a half and I really have a new appreciation for what they do.

Once everything was set up, the band did a full rehearsal and even had their evaluations done by the commander. . .

It was all very interesting . . .

It took the better part of the day to set everything up, have the rehearsals and then take it all back down. . .

In spite of the the long hours, I really didn't have to do much so it wasn't especially difficult!!

Wish we had this much help on every event. . .

We leave for Sandpoint on July 1st for what I hope will be a "working vacation". . . We'll see just how restful it really is. . .