After driving for 13 hours and battling with the tarp, we arrived at our new home, Los Altos High School in Hacienda Heights, California at 8:00 pm. There to greet us with Valentines candy was the nicest man - Matt Mize, one of their guard instructors. After we got settled in the Hacienda, we changed into our practice clothes and headed for the gym. There we practiced until 4:00 am. Yup - the kids slept on the way down but Jessi, Justin, and I drove the whole way and still stayed up with them in rehearsal...and so did Matt! After rehearsal we discovered that there was NO hot water in the showers so Matt arranged for us to go a local motel that had a heated pool to swim our sweat away. Except Sean - he is a US Marine - cold water doesn't faze him! Getting to bed at 5am was not hard even with the cold-hard floor of the Hacienda. Matt put up these great signs on our doors - "Do Not Enter - Stay Out - Do Not Disturb - Let Them Rest" etc. Too bad people can't read!
Practice in the Los Altos Gym - Matt even went and got a better sound system for us to use
Chance, our modern dance major at the University of Utah, teaching the new dance section
Jessi in one of her creative moments...
Where else can you go to free accommodations and still get to use the motel pool nearby? Thanks Matt! Heated pool in February for a bunch of Utah kids that are coming from snow and 30 degree temperatures! Sweet!
Jessi and Justin Foell spent many times in accommodations like this when they marched with the drum corp, Phantom Regiment. They knew what creature comforts to bring - they just forgot to tell us... of course, if we had known, the local stores would have run out of those blow-up beds!
One of the advantages of staying at the Hacienda was that it provided us with our own little world and we could review the new dance part in the afternoon
Some of the girls had never used false eyelashes before so Jessi gave them a hand and lesson this first time
While the girls put on their makeup, the guys relaxed with Alain's PlayStationII that he brought from home - once again, Matt came through with a TV - now, why would we ever want to leave?
Another great thing about competing in California WGASC circuit is that we can do everything outside - I mean, look at us, we are in no jackets and it is February! There was this cool little stage area that we got to claim to practice in during our warm-up!

When we were all done that night, we went out to celebrate our victory at Chili's. Teri is enthralled with the TV but April is taking advantage of a little nappy-poo. Sean and Justin had lots to "discuss". Matt and his brother George joined with the Los Altos HS band director, Don Wade and met us there and they wouldn't even let us buy them their dinner! After all they had done for us too!

After getting back to the school at 1am, we got up at 7am to leave for home. The trip home went great if you don't count Jessi's van running out of gas! Little rainy slush between Fillmore and Provo but arriving home safely and on time - all in all a great trip!