slime the teachers!

Friday afternoon/night was "Spring Fling" at Gracie's school. From 4:30-7:00, the kids had fun watching teachers get slimed in the sliming booth, eating junk food, playing games & playing on inflatable bouncers. I had fun watching the kids play, entering a raffle, bidding on items in the silent auction & supervising the obstacle course bouncer. Well, I'm not sure that last part was much fun but Chris & I both took our 30 minute turn at it. I actually turned it over to him about 5 minutes early! It was a little hectic with kids wanting to go before I was ready for them to go (we were trying to let the previous kids get to the top before letting other ones go), making sure they gave me a ticket and generally keeping them in line.


This event is sponsored by our PTA and I think we did really well! The lady who coordinated it all did a good job and had lots of help pulling it off. I know Monday night at our meeting she was a little stressed about getting all of the volunteers she needed but I think it all turned out well. I know she was glad for it to be over! There is a service group at the middle school which is right across the street and they sent over a lot of kids to help which was great! The sponsor of that group is a wonderful lady who we actually go to church with (her granddaughter is one of Gracie's friends and is in the Sunday morning class I teach). She really helped us out by getting so many of her "Serteen kids" to help!

It was so fun to watch Coach get slimed! The asst. principal had made the sliming booth. The Spring Fling coordinator said that he "donated" it to be used (he wants to keep it to use at his church also) and it worked similar to a dunking booth. If the ball hit the lever, slime would ooze out on his head! I know he sat there, at least 2 other teachers, the principal and I even saw a guy who I know is the children's minister at the large church across the street. I know the coordinator goes to church there so I guess she "convinced" him to do it. I hadn't heard his name mentioned as one of the people who would be doing it. Lots of the kids know him and from what I saw when he was done, he was quite popular! He was gross afterwards!

All in all, it was a good time! I even won a basket at the silent auction and only had to pay $15! I was a little afraid of how much I'd end up paying because I bid on a lot. I figured I wouldn't win most of them and I was right. Chris had gone back near the end and bid up for me (that was when I was working). I won an art basket-to Gracie's delight!-and like I said, it was only $15. *whew* Gracie had so much fun last night coloring with her new crayons. The basket had crayons, markers, pencils etc.

Each class had joined with other classes to make the baskets. For example, Gracie's class and 2 other classes had a "movie" theme. The parents were asked to send in donations for the baskets. I sent in a Veggie Tales movie and some candy. In those baskets were the movies, candy, popcorn & gift certificates to movie rental places. There were other baskets like gardening, kitchen, chocolate, scrapbooking, etc. There were also other baskets that were just donated items like Nascar, golf outings at local country clubs, etc. Working so much with the PTA, I really hope we made some good money. I guess we'll find out!

Gracie loves art so much. She will draw & color for long periods of time. Last night she was wanting to know what I wanted her to draw. I told her to try to copy Granddaddy's picture that he had painted. Granddaddy is my grandfather (my dad's dad) who died when I was in the 6th grade. He used to paint a lot and one of my prized possessions is this picture that he painted. I was told at some point that I could pick out one of his pictures to have. I chose this one. I found out that my dad really liked that one so I thought I might have to give it up but he said I could keep it. A couple of Christmases ago, Chris had it framed it really nice for me. I thought Gracie did a good job of copying it! She wrote a really sweet letter to Pappy (my dad) that I'm going to send him along with her version of the painting. I think he'll like it!

Today we went to the zoo. Over Spring Break we kept saying we were going to go but never did, so today we went. We bought a pass so I'm sure we'll be going back more often now. It's good for a year and basically pays for itself in less than 2 visits so it's really worth it. It was crowded but not too hot and the animals were out & frisky so it was a good day to go. We ate at Cracker Barrel afterwards which is a treat because we don't have one around here (the zoo is about an hour away). We also went to Kohl's! We love that place and wish we had one here!

Gracie is so funny! I tried on a brown & cream dress at Kohl's and she was with me. It looked really bad! As soon as I got it halfway on, Gracie could obviously tell that it wasn't going to look good. I could tell, too. I started making a face & some comments like, "I don't think so," so Gracie did too. She was so sweet though. She didn't want me to feel bad so she said, "But I think you look pretty in brown!" I love that she wanted to make me feel better!

Tonight Gracie & I went to Wal Mart. Fun! We're having potluck tomorrow so I needed to get stuff for that plus just some other stuff. As always, at Wal Mart I see some real characters. I finally found a lane that wasn't for 20 items or less and get in it. There was a lady being checked out, a couple in front of me and then Gracie & I. There was plenty of room on the conveyor and there was actually a divider there so I started putting my things up. The man in front of me had his cart where I couldn't hardly reach. I kept thinking if he would just move his cart up I could get most of my things out of my basket and be ready for my turn.

I finally just stood there because his basket really was in the way. Well, I started noticing that the lady being checked out was trying to pay. You know, one of those times when the cashier is pushing all sorts of buttons but the transaction is just not going through. The lady was saying something about how her driver's licence # was on the check but apparently it was saying that it needed to see it and the cashier said something about if they're reported stolen or something......I couldn't really hear all of it.

So they talk back & forth and the cashier walks off as if to check on something. By this time the lady in front of me has told her husband to move his basket so I can start putting my things up. So I tell her thank you and proceed. I get this weird feeling that this lane is not going to work out so I stop and tell the lady in front of me, "I think I'll wait" (to keep putting my groceries up there). She kind of laughed and agreed.

The cashier comes back and the lady starts looking in her wallet....and keeps looking.....Finally, she gets on her cell phone and says into it (very loudly & quite emphatically) , "Do you have my driver's license in your wallet?!?!" "Well, you need to get up here to Wal Mart and bring it to me 'cause I can't check out and I'm not leaving without these groceries!!!!" (She had over $200 worth of groceries!) She tells the cashier she might as well shut down the lane 'cause she's not leaving this lane until she gets her groceries. She told her she was not going to void all these and start over. (She didn't seem to care that there were 2 customers behind her---with groceries on the conveyor already!)

I said, "okay!" and started taking my things off as did the people in front of me. The man grumbled something about, "I'm not going to be up here all night" and the lady retorted back with something like, "You will be too" to which he said, "No, I'm not!"

The lady was seriously going to stand there until her husband came to Wal Mart from their house to bring her her driver's license! She told the cashier to close down her lane until it got there!

My question is this: Who tries to write a check without proper i.d.? Also, she obviously had driven without her license. Also, I'd be very leary of taking her check for over $200 at this point.

On a good note: the lady who had been in front of me told me that lane 15 was open. I followed them over there and she even helped me unload my groceries out of my basket! I thought that was sweet! I think we kind of felt sorry for each other having wasted our time in the other lane. By the time I left, the "no i.d. lady" was still standing at lane 11. She WAS NOT leaving! The cashier where I ended up checking out said she really couldn't do that....but she did! I didn't see any manager telling her she couldn't. Crazy, I tell ya!

On another good note: when I was putting the groceries in my trunk, one of the "cart guys" came over and helped me put them into my trunk......at Wal Mart! That never happens there! I must admit a moment of panic when he came towards me (it was dark already) but he simply helped me and told me I'd already done enough work for the day. Another sweet thing!

This is going to be a fast week. I have Ladies' Class Monday night and Chris has a meeting at church also, a PTA general meeting and "art show" Tuesday night (a fundraiser for the school where a piece of Gracie's artwork will be framed "professionally" and I can buy it with a portion of the proceeds going to the school-you know I'll be a sucker for that one!), church Wednesday night and a baby shower at my house Thursday night. I'll be glad to see Friday!