Fundraise, Touchdown, and Sleepover

We had a full social agenda last night.

We attended a carnival at DSU! It was a fundraiser to help cover the medical expenses of a friend of mine who works at DSU. She is being treated for a recurrence of cancer, and the department in which she teaches and numerous other groups on campus (student organizations, departmental clubs, etc.) organized a night of food and fun-'n'-games to raise money to help cover the expenses of her frequent travels out of state for medical appointments. The King Pavilion on campus was the center of the carnival with numerous games and food booths set up on the surrounding grounds.

We bought $40 worth of tickets and then took the girls from booth to booth where they

1. got their faces painted,
   
2. had their fortunes told,
3. played musical rugs,
4. had their photo taken with DSU's mascot, Buster Blue Hawk,
5. fished for toys,
6. threw balls at the target of a dunking booth (and sent my own departmental chair into the water--a colleague then told me, "Don't expect a raise."),
7. jousted with oversized padded sticks in a gigantic inflated boxing ring,
8. threw footballs into a hole cut out of plywood,
9. played a ring toss game,
10. did a cake walk, and
11. tossed footballs into hula hoops lying at various distances (the farther the target, the better the prize).

We ate supper from the taco-in-a-bag booth and admired the bake sale table but didn't buy any goodies (although Susan had donated a couple pans' worth of bars to the cause). We listened to music provided throughout the night by students from the Music Department and by a local DJ service. Some agriculture students had a chicken there so that people could play chicken bingo: pay so many tickets to select a number from a grid underneath the chicken and then hope that the chicken poops on your number so that you win the prize. We didn't play that. There was a great turnout; I hope that they ended up raising a ton of money for my friend.

Suzanna had a friend (Brittany) sleep over last night, so Brittany came home with the girls after school and accompanied us to the carnival. Hillary was invited to sleep over at her friend Ava's for a birthday party, so after the carnival, Susan dropped Hillary off at Ava's house. Susan also dropped Abigail off at her friend Hannah's house for a sleepover last night. Then Susan came home to get Suzanna, Brittany, and me, and we all went to the DHS homecoming football game at DSU's Whitney Stadium. Hannah's parents brought Hannah and Abigail to the game, too, and Susan and I ended up sitting right behind them in the stands. Brittany and Suzanna joined their friends down in the front; they were wearing T-shirts upon which they had written a letter each so that, when they stood side-by-side, they spelled out "D-H-S-!"

Afterward Suzanna and Brittany got into their pajamas and hunkered down beneath blankets to watch a movie. They slept in pretty late this morning. Susan and I tried to, too, but a telemarketer had other plans for us in the wee hours of the morning. By now both Abigail and Hillary are home again, and they've shared stories of all the fun they had at their friends' homes. It was a pretty fun way to start the weekend.