Weekend of McKinley-Part 1

Here we go with Part 1. Don't check back tomorrow looking for Part 2, it's already been written. I know, I know. But when have I ever made sense.

Our middle school has a banquet every year for the school. Everyone can attend for only $10. There's food, entertainment, and fun for all. Of course for girls...it costs more than $10. The dress, the nails, the hair, the shoes. It can certainly add up. Since I take McKinley to the local beauty college it is cheaper, but still, $20 could buy me 20 days of Sonic drinks!

Kidding.

Sort of....

We lucked out with the dress at the first store. It has been worn for an honor choir, Christmas piano recital, Christmas voice recital, and now the banquet. I'm getting the $27 worth of value out of it by golly. I found a hairdo on Babes in Hairland and she vetoed it right away. I tried what she wanted and it just wasn't possible with the multiple layers in her hair. Without okaying it with her I did what I had wanted. She loved it! We added a flower because it had a bit of a bare spot. With the flower no one even knew. We both did her makeup and she slipped into the dress.

We met with some friends at one of the girls' houses and 200 pictures later we headed to the banquet.

Here are a few of my favorites.

She was so glad to have an adjustment at the orthodontist in the week before so she could match her rubber bands to her dress.Isn't it cute?? I was so impressed with myself. I did my own thing on the twists near the front but got the idea from the same website.With six cameras pointed at them there was no way to get a picture with everyone looking. Still beautiful though!I think I took a picture of McKinley with every girl one on one but this has to be my favorite. Maybe since Becca is like my own.We finally made it to the banquet and it was so cute! It's an incredibly dark room and the fun colors and lights everywhere made it perfect.Michael Jackson performs every year without fail. Following his death this year we were all surprised when the music started and out he came. He still has all his moves.My favorite part though had to be the 8th grade slide show. It shows their baby picture and current. The baby picture is shown for a few seconds alone and when the current picture shows the crowd reacts in the funniest ways. Since a teacher and former student did the show this year she made it more interesting. Since our school is 100 she thought it would be fun to showcase the parents who went to our school.

Soooo.....here's me!! That's me of course in the black and white picture in my choir uniform and McKinley in her show choir uniform. Pardon the blurriness. I had on my telephoto lens which makes me shake a bit.We lost a teacher this year to a horrible accident and he was honored. I don't think there was a dry eye in the place. His wife, two of their four children, and his dad were sitting close to me and I was overcome with their emotion.And then, surprise! Me again. The girl on the left is the mom of Evan, Reagan's betrothed. She has changed quite a bit and was not pleased to see this. I've always thought she was beautiful!A few more pictures after the banquet were of course necessary.And because they hadn't had enough fun yet, we headed to Pink Swirls, a local frozen yogurt bar. They don't allow pictures in there because of competitors but they let me snap this one.But then something happened. A good song came on the radio. The group of girls got up and started having a dance party! I was so worried we'd be kicked out but instead the staff turned the music up, joined the dance party, and took pictures for their bulletin board!I'm so glad McKinley wasn't bothered that I wanted to experience all of this with her. She has never minded that I go to the banquet and sit at the back to take it all in. I'm also glad her friends like me and think I'm cool. I would have hated to miss this evening!

Even though I took some beautiful pictures of all the pretty girls this is still my absolute favorite from the whole evening! And since I'm not smart enough to own my new Droid phone I took this video sideways. I know, good grief. It also took me 20 minutes and Shawn's help to get it from my phone to my computer. But I learn from my mistakes!

Sometimes...