A Western Themed Day

I woke up early Saturday morning to take the 8th and 9th grade Girl Scouts to volunteer at Aspire Therapeutic Riding. We cleaned the horse barn, picked up "apples" from the pasture and winterized the memory garden. The girls worked very hard!

I was pretty tired when I got home and accidentally parked with one wheel off the driveway. Click here for a story about another one of my bad park jobs.

That night I watched Emma perform in an unbelievably good junior high performance of Oklahoma! 

I once saw a performance of Oklahoma! that starred John Schneider. I met him after the show, but was completely star struck! Look how pretty he is!

After Oklahoma, we hosted the cast party for about 30 kids at our house. It was great fun and I would totally do it again!

When we were finishing up at Aspire Therapeutic Riding earlier that day, a lady said she had a leftover sheet cake and wondered if we could use it. Yes! I was actually going to make a cake for the cast party, so that would save me some work! I couldn't believe my good luck (hehe see the horseshoes?) when I saw the cake because it was decorated PERFECTLY for Oklahoma!

I posted a couple notes for the party to keep the kids out of trouble.

When I started planning the party, I googled "How to plan the best junior high party." Well. WELL. What I found was advice written by junior high students. A couple of the suggestions were Spin the Bottle and a Makeout Room. That's why you don't let kids plan their own parties!

Instead, I bought the latest Just Dance Wii game and set out games like Jenga, Twister, Spoons and Apples to Apples. They did play the games, but I learned that the key to a good junior high party is to have plenty of pop (soda for you non-midwesterners...click here for the rules of my blog). I tried not to hover too much, but I did quickly intervene when a group of about seven boys and girls locked themselves into the bathroom. That's when I announced the rule about one person in the bathroom at a time. Next time I'll write a note about that. Seriously, I will.