We had all kinds of stuff going on this week, something EVERY NIGHT! It was the "Big Shebang" week at the school, so here's what happened:
Last week on Thursday was Honors Night for the JROTC. Derek was being honored with an award for "Academic and Military Excellence", a pretty prestegious honor for a Freshman!
Here he is as his name is called. There was one award given to each of the schools in the area in each category. Derek is the only Freshman to recieve the award this year.
As you can see, each school has their own "colors" (flags). He's standing in front of the JROTC flag for Bloomfield.
The occasion called for "Class A" uniforms, that is their "Sunday going to church" uniform. I think he looks pretty good.
Ok, son, I think you can go "at ease" now.
Here he is with his award. They actually gave him the wrong certificate, but they straightened it out later. If you look close you can see the medal he gets to wear with his Class A uniform from now on.
This guy is "Major" (I don't know his real name) - he's the JROTC leader for Bloomfield. 
Here's the whole gang doing the "victory dance"!Monday night was Honors night for the student body. Cheni was inducted into the National Honor Society, and both her and Derek recieved special recognition for academic achievement (They pretty much had straigh A's for the year, and that's with mostly honors classes!)
This one's kind of fuzzy, they sat her on the very far end of the stage (they went alphabetical from right to left). She's basically sitting in the dark with the projector in her face.
She had a part in the candle lighting ceremony. She gave a short speech on "Character". (I'll add the video to this post as soon as I can get it off the camera.)Here's the video promised.
Signing the Charter, now she's officially "in"!
Here's the award ceremony for her and Derek. They did this really fast, so these came out a bit fuzzed.
As you can see, there were a lot of awardees this year. The school is really doing a great job preparing these kids for college!
Tuesday night was the Band concert. Derek is a precussionist.
The lighting was really harsh, so these are somewhat washed out. Here's the whole band as they set up.
Here's the only good shot we got of Derek. He's playing the bass drum in this song.
Wednesday night, of course was church night. (No pictures from that - just boring church stuff).
But Thursday night was the Choir concert.
I'm really mad because just as Cheni was about to do her part our video camera decided to be broken, so, sorry, no video!
She was in the all girls choir, or the Treble Choir or the Women's Choir or whatever they decided to call it this year.
All the music was from Broadway shows. The girl's choir did two numbers from "Grease". Cheni had a solo in "Beauty School Dropout"! (Rent the movie and just imagine her singing Frankie Avalon's part in that scene, you get the idea). I'm still SOOOOO mad at my video camera!!
Here's a shot on the ride home after she barfed from being so nervous. (But she did a great job!)
Fortunately, it's Friday. There ain't nothing going on tonight, except me going to bed early. Both the band and the choir are taking part in "Bloomfield days" tomorrow (in the parade). Don't know it that will fly, though, because were supposed to get thunderstorms! We'll see what happens. Maybe more pictures! (and video if I can fix the stupid thing.)
