Mardi Gras Success

Ahhh, I can taste it. Mardi Gras was, for me, a great success. The school halls flowed with people, moving, milling about, checking out each room that had a game in it. Bobbing in and out in a single direction was nearly impossible, but that's part of the excitement.
Now, I spent my morning getting ready for it all. I woke up at 6am to bake a cake for D to decorate for their contest (I forgot about it until I was about to fall asleep the night before). Silly, now that I think about it, but I did promise him, so that's that. Made the icing, and he went with Happy Faces, which made me smile :o). Looking at it now, I realize it just doesn't make much sense visually. Oh Well. I sent the Mr over with cake & raffle tickets (plus money) in hand to take D to school. He didn't come back until nearly an hour later. I guess he volunteered to help the other PTO members who were there, which was really nice of him. He reported that there were some fantastic cakes, and that D probably wouldn't win anything. *sigh* Oh well.
After D was off to school I spent my time at my sewing machine finishing up the bags I was making for the prizes. We had started with envelopes, and on each one was written the value of the package it contained, but as we swapped them around they just became scribbled. I thought they were ugly, and as I'm trying to get rid of my fabric collection (hopefully by using it), I decided to make matching bags for all of them. No time really, about 3 hours in all, over a few days. Anyhow, finished up the (pretty green gingham) bags, and headed over to the school to transfer all those prizes from ugly envelopes to pretty bags, and also, to number thew all. See, I made a master prize list. We weren't going to do any of the announcing, and to make it easier (and quicker), I thought I would make up a list of the bundles that I had, and number them so we could keep track of which one we were on. In all, she announced for about 20 minutes, and we made it through our entire 54 Item list. Not bad timing. The only thing I forgot was a master list. It was my first time doing it, I was bound to make a mistake. After all was said and done, everyone swarmed the stage to ask if they'd won anything. Great. In the end I just said if you won, we'll call you to tell you about your prize. Did I mention my committee and I had a blast up there? Laughing at each was lots of fun.
Now, I started my night out by buying my dinner there. The boys & I, and MIL sat and ate at their cafeteria (which is also their gym) tables. Afterward we picked up some game tickets & milled about, waiting for the game rooms to open up. I did a few last minute things, and then caught up to the family, who were visiting the Jail & the game room behind it, when the sheriff arrested me. Now, I'll admit it, it was a comfy jail. I didn't mind being forced to sit & do nothing for about 5 minutes, it was quite nice. Besides, H was busy winning himself some prizes. Continue on. Though we did try and get to most of the games early on, they were all pretty crowded, so it made it a bit tough. Eventually the family sat in the gym, while I went up on stage to help get the raffling going. We all ended up on the stage, wanting to make it go as quickly as possible. Two of the committee members won, plus a number of PTO members. I wasn't one of them. Kinda sucks. BUT, I did bring home a fish. Only because I couldn't leave a live animal there in the PTO closet over the weekend...and because I need to phone the person who won. I only hope they're willing to take it.
After we were finished I hiked down to take the boys out to play some more games. We had a ton of game tickets, and I wanted to be sure we got our money's worth. The lines had died down considerably, and waiting wasn't so bad. We stopped at the Knock -Em - Down game, where D surprised me by knocking them all down. He always did have a great arm, and a damned fine aim. Made me proud cause it took everyone in the room by surprise.
We headed to the dart/balloon room, where he popped a balloon, and even got his face painted. It was lots of fun, and I'm actually surprised that we came out with money left over. It was only cause I didn't have enough time to bomb around & spend it. I could've easily spent it on the Basket Raffle, or Spirit Wear, or heck, I could've even gotten myself some popcorn or Cotton Candy. But...alas. I gave the leftover cash to D, and he went out this morning with dad after ice skating. They hit a game store (as he actually received some cash in the mail in b-day cards from other relatives) and bought a couple of new games for his DS, as if he didn't already have enough to play. It was a fabulous success, and I'm happy it's over and done with for now. I'm looking forward to relaxing some this weekend. I've already edited all my pictures, I now just need to get them off to the yearbook person, and I can veg all I want. I guess I should go do that...