Busy Weekend

I had a pretty busy weekend with cadets. Friday night was our annual awards banquet which is a very nice formal dinner with cadets, parents and special guests.

The staf had a table right at the fun so we had front row seats for all the fun!

Half of the awards are handed out at the banquet and a few are handed out at the annual parade. These are my level two cadets who won the two years of perfect attendance award.

The cadets get a small plaque to take home and their name is engraved on the larger trophy for eternity.

There is also a tradition at the squadron where after three years of service you receive an order of the moose coin. At annual you must remember to bring your coin as at any time you can be challenged to produce your coin... if you do not have it then the round of "pop" is on you (we are working with youth after all). If everyone has their coin than the round must be bought by he who began the challenge. It is guaranteed that you will be challenged to produce your coin during the annual awards banquet.

The usual pranks were also played throughout the night... John had this balloon-a-gram delivered to him in the middle of the dinner.

Saturday was busy as well. Kelly had his son and daughter this weekend so we took them down to Glenmore reservoir for a few hours to play at the park and throw rocks into the water. There is a water park down there and it should be open by June 1st but they had not turned it on yet which was kind of a bummer.

Sunday bright and early it was time for the annual parade. I had to be there at 7am which really sucked! When I got there I heard that there were half naked soldiers running around the parade square but unfortunetly they wouldn't let any of the females in to see. I guess a bus came in on Friday night and they gave everyone cots and housed them at the armories so that put a bit of a delay on the beginning of the day but we caught up and were ready to go by the time the parade started at 10am.

The kids looked absolutely awesome! Every single cadet was in uniform and their drill and deportment was really really good. HUGE difference from the beginning of the year.

There was a drill team demonstration, a pipe band demonstration and a demonstration by our squadron military band. The mil band again was just super impressive. I heard tons of very positive compliments about the performance.

The parade went well. We got a new squadron picture taken on the steps of Mewata, had a quick bar-b-que, and then headed home.

Busy Busy Weekend!