We had a presentation down at Plumb Nellie Days in downtown Branson on Saturday. It was announced via email on Monday. Since it was announced on such short notice, it was a Response Team (non-mandatory) presentation, and by Thursday, only Jess and Jo had signed up. It was hoped that Jenny and the interns would somehow be enough to make up the difference.

Then, after practice, Jory made an appeal for presenters, and about eight others volunteered. Jorge and Kristi went home, relieved. Andrew and Jenny stayed to present.

The lineup was Pledge, Honor, Spirit, Gifter, End, God Bless.
(Translation: Pledge to the Flag, Honor to Serve, Spirit of America, Gifter, End of the Beginning, God Bless the USA)

We (or shall I say, they) practiced like wild people for an hour and a half Thursday night, and then arrived 45 minutes early Saturday morning to practice. It was rough. Everyone forgot everything, and that's not much of an exaggeration. Jorge made a run back to Rolfs' house to get some props that were left behind.

We arrived at the presentation location in true AIM style, fifteen minutes late. That's about when I realized that I had forgotten the patriotic CD. Thankfully, I had Pledge, God Bless, and Honor on other CDs, but no Spirit. Throughout the first presentation (there were two, one at noon and one at 1 PM), Andrew tried in vain to get his mp3 player to play it, but we finally had to punt the song. :( We were able to get it running in time for the second presentation, thankfully.

I didn't see much of the presentation itself, since I was busy trying to get Spirit to work. I did notice that Gifter was... shall I say... interesting. There were only three girls, and four angels were required for the song, plus Eve. Ethan and James have a lot to learn about angel technique. Jessica posted on the AIM message board about some of the things that happened during the presentation; you can read her post here.

In addition to all of the problems that you can read about in the above post, there was one other complicating factor: it was hot. Really, really hot. Standing in direct sun in 90+ degree weather for two hours is no fun - plus, you can get a really cool mime tan if you don't sunscreen before you put on your makeup. ;) It was so hot that some of the people were starting to get sick. In fact, Jenny told me afterward that during End, her knees were wobbling, she was seeing stars, and she felt like she was about to pass out. Lovely. She said she thought it was because she hadn't eaten any breakfast, so Kristi went to get her a corn dog, which she told me afterward took her two hours to finish. Why am I not surprised? As Jessica put it one time: "Jenny is known for not eating much at all. She has no breakfast or lunch and eats only a small dinner. She lives on coffee." This is completely accurate.