I have my own Army {sort-of}

Most of you who have been following me for any length of time on any of my other blogs, probably already know my kids are in a Fife & Drum corps. year round. It’s a huge part of our life. In fact, our summer is jam packed and I have a feeling the first day of school is going to come up pretty darn quick for us and we’re going to feel like we had no summer. Not exactly thrilled about that, but we do love what we do, so it’s worth it.

These pictures are from last weekend. It was for Lewis & Clark Heritage Days in St. Charles.

It was so hot, they took off their wool jackets for their last parade of the day

John Dengler started our corps. in 1992. When we pass his store on main street, we always 'present arms' in honor of Mr. Dengler. As you can see, the city flag, the two muskets and the sword are at 'present'. American Flag stays upright, always. The four kids pointed out are mine.

Fifes and Drums. My daughter, Melissa is now Fife Sargeant and her boyfriend Braden is now Drum Sargeant. This was their final parade as Privates before taking over their role as Sargeants.

Pictures from the newspaper and friends:

Opening Colors - LCFDC in background

The first parade - Saturday - They call it a Massed Bands parade, because all of the corps. that are present separate by their groups - all color guard and weapondry in the front, then bagpipes, fifes and then drums. Commoners and families in period dress are typically found walking on the sides or in the very back.

Fifers playing Yankee Doodle during their show. If you can see in the photo, they are playing each other's fife's with their right hands, while playing their own fife with their left. My daughter Melissa is the 2nd one in line.

Our Color Guard before opening colors

Downtime:

Brielle & Lucien - During downtime we hang out with family and friends from other corps. Effie (Lucien's momma) is a former neighbor of ours who we have reconnected with because of fife & drum - very crazy story! So happy though. Effie wasn't there this weekend {and very much missed} but we were able to snag Lucien for a photo and say hi to her hubby Jim and his friend Chris.

Sisters of two of our corps. members - beautiful girls!

Dylan {left} and my son, Ryan {right}

Because I can:

This precious little dude came to hang out with us on Sunday. This is my nephew Alex and I can proudly say, *I* am the one who made him smile for this picture. I love this little guy so much! Sorry about my stray strands of hair that happen to have fallen in the way of his beautiful face. ♥