A Carnival of fun

This past weekend, we had a carnival at our church. We've done it for years, and it's a lot of fun, although very pricey.  (In fact, I once complained about the cost to a person in authority, who told me that we should save up for the event all year.  Um, no.  If I was saving up for something, it'd be a cruise, or a trip to the Bahamas, not a carnival.)  I have a deep seated annoyance for things that are as expensive as fairs and carnivals tend to be.  I get that because I have a larger than normal size family, things will cost me more, but I really feel like church things should be more receptive to bigger families.   Not to mention, we had a true and honest discussion of the cost of the things that we'd like to let the kids do this summer - a week of Scout camp for each boy, a week of soccer camp for the two older girls, art camp, a few summer courses, and I have REALLY been wanting to take capoiera classes.  Capoiera is a form of Brazilian Martial Arts, and there is a class that meets three times a week about 15 minutes from my house.  But it's expensive, and I've also realized that I need to pay for soccer registration for the fall on June 1.  Basically, I wanted to do a bunch of stuff with and for my kids this summer, including new bathing suits and the girls really wanted Crocs for summer, and none of it was going to happen.  So I wasn't really keen to spend money on the carnival, but I also knew that the kids were so excited about it, and there was no way I was getting out of it.  Suck it up was my basic motto.

The people that be decided to do a few things that were money friendly - in my mind - they offered a all you can ride wristband for $25 for all three days, and my daughter won one.  Nik didn't want one, and so I had to pay $100 for all of them to ride all weekend.  That was good, in my book. We spent a couple of hours there on Friday, before the rain and cold drove us out.  We didn't go on Saturday, due to about 317 soccer games - at least that's what it felt like - and so we were anxious to attend Sunday.

Mackenzie's Irish dance group danced early Sunday, about 11:45.  Immediately after, she ran as fast as she could to sign up for Karaoke.  There aren't any shy bones in her body.  Imagine our surprise when she won first prize - $100!!! I couldn't believe it. 

When the kids played some of the games of chance, they were given white tickets to enter into a drawing.  Emma won a bike!  She chose a pink old fashioned pedal car. 

We didn't win a bunch of other raffles that were called, and I was really anxious to leave.  Riley was melting down pretty badly, but we'd bought tickets for the big money drawing and I really wanted to see who won. While I waited for the tickets to be pulled for first, second and third, I packed up and cleaned up as best I could. 

And, um, we won second place.  In almost the exact amount that we needed, with enough left over to make an extra donation to the Guatemalan children that we sponsor, which is something that I've wanted to do for a while.

We are sooooo going to have fun this summer.  God is good.

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And I did something really neat, something that was on my fitness goal list, at the carnival - click over to The Elff Diet to see it!

Comments

[Lari]

Carmen,

I hope you can take that capoiera class. I took a short one many years ago. It's fun!

[Katie]

Wow, how crazy is that? Congratulations and I'm looking forward to reading all about your wonderful fun summer!

[CharmingDriver]

That is the best church carnival story EVAH! YAY!!

[mary mom to 5]

Wow that is really cool! WE LOVE crocs..DH needed yet another pair and I got him some at Payless Shoe Source and guess what? They are even more comfortable! SO try there for 1/3 of the price!

[Heather]

That's awesome, Carmen!! I love when God works things out that way!

[amy]

Wonderful story! Glad your summer plans will be coming true.

[FishyGirl]

Yay! Congratulations! I love when we get all caught up in worry and stuff and God kicks us in the head - in a good way, of course.

[kalisah]

Wow that's amazing. I didn't know Mackenzie was a singer? What did she sing?

[Christina]

That is awesome! We are ending our homeschool year today so a basic excitement about summer has really started to infest our house! We are all so excited about our plans and our days of no plans and running around ahead. God is great :)

[Paige]

That is fantastic! I love winning things, and so I would have been all through the roof happy. And your kids got to win things, too. Maybe MacKenzie can use her $100 to pay for her soccer camp, or is that being too mean. Anyway, Congratulations! It's so great to hear good news like that.

[Hayes]

God knows our hearts. He obviously saw yours. Love you.

[Brandy]

YAY! God was watching over y'all! Congratulations! AND WTG! Clombing the wall was a great thing for you to accomplish a goal!

[tracey]

Whoa! What a day for your family! Have a great summer!

[dink(y)]

Ok,Carmen, you made me google "capoiera," now you have to elaborate...

[Philippa]

Carmen, I agree 100% with Hayes. Yours is golden.

[Amber]

What a fantastic thing to do with your earnings!

[JTreiber]

Just stumbled across it on the web. Sounds very exciting the plans for the summer. Sorry to hear though that the carnivals and fundraising events for the church have proven very expensive. I wanted to share another idea for fundraising that takes some of the pain and cost out of doing a carnival or bake sale. It's a program I just found out about from a friend last week. It's called iBakeSale. It's a fundraising program where I can raise extra money for my local causes, charity or not, simply by spending at hundreds of retailers in their program. The irony is that there isn't a need for another bake sale and this program is called iBakeSale. If you're raising money for any cause like a kid's PTA, little league, or church, check it out. It makes grass-roots fundraising easy and it's free. Just thought I'd share...