Maddie's Field Day & Riverfest 08 Opening Night

This has really been a busy May so far. I am trying to wrap up all of my work at school while making sure that our schedule is full of the end-of-the-school-year events. For those who may not know yet, I have been accepted to a doctoral program to being this summer and this week I went to a luncheon for the people who are graduating as well as to be introduced as the new cohort (there were 10 people accepted for Cohort 17!). It was really a great event because it really showed me that I have chosen a program that really fits my needs and I know I am going to have great experiences with my research in the next three years.

The program is Educational Leadership and this is the first year that non-school system administrators has been accepted. Most of the students are planning to be superintendents or other district level administrators. Since I am interested in college level admin, it works well. Also, the research that is done is about understanding problems in rural school districts and assisting in the change process. Also, very much social work, so this is really a perfect fit for me, I'm excited.

On Friday, I took the afternoon off to volunteer for Maddie's field day at school. Rather than competition (like when I was a kid) it is more an event where each child has a card pinned to them to check off when they have gone to each of the 20 stations around the field. There are bumper things, foot races, shooting baskets, getting tattoos, lacrosse-like activity, and hula-hooping, which was my station. So we had fun having the kids hula hoop and try to put more than one on and sometimes they would try 4 or 5 hoops at a time. They were silly.

John was saying that when was a kid, he loved field day because he was always in the top three in every event and he would get ribbons for all the things he won. That's nice John...but what about the 300 other kids who came out feeling like losers? Now he understands the effort to take out the competition from field days! I'm not sure I ever won one of those ribbons he's talking about... That is Maddie running in the pink. She and her partner didn't really care about getting to all of the stations. Some kids were obsessed about making sure they got them all. But Maddie quickly figured out that if there was no prize or award involved with rushing to get to them all, then she would spend her time doing what she wanted. Like scoring as many tattoos as possible, drinking bottled water, and just do whatever she pleased. It was fun.

So after field day, a luncheon was planned for volunteers. It was really amazing. Each teacher made a dish and they had a beautiful spread. There was hummus & pita, fancy salads, chicken, fruit, and lots of dips and treats. It was really nice. The 5th grade orchestra played for us and it was OK but we found ourselves listening more to their mess-ups...they are cute.

I am sitting with a couple of other moms talking about summer plans and all of our kids accomplishments...we also were discussing the River Fest and if we were planning to attend the opening parade and concert. I really had not planned to go since it is so much work to get all the girls anywhere and try to corral them for hours in crowds of thousands. Literally, there were 30,000 at the parade... One of the moms asked if we were interested in making a few dollars at the River Fest and get to see the parade anyway. So we listened further.

This mom's friend owns this vending company where she sells fresh lemonade out of a huge lemon and also sells roasted corn on a stick. Two hours prior to the parade she needed some people to pull carts full of cotton candy through the parade route a few times and sell it. It sounded kindof fun, the kids would enjoy it and we'd have front row access to the parade. So we agreed and oh my gosh, it was crazy!

These kids took turns pulling a heavy cart though the streets of downtown yelling chants about "cotton candy! Right here in the Box! Cotton Candy! Get your Cotton candy!" They saw school friends and we saw family of ours, not to mention a few people from work (I'm sure wondering what in the world is she doing??? Oh, how nice...volunteering!") No idea, I am just cheap and make my child work for a free ride at the River Fest!

So after selling the candy we had to make our way back. We tried to beat the parade but we were not successful. So the parade caught up with us and we pretty much just included ourselves in the walking and tried not to take attention away from the real purpose of the evening! Yikes! I was a little embarrassed to be right up in the action. This picture shows how close we were to the marching band as they went by...the kids loved it!

When we brought the carts back, we got paid $25 each (the adults) and little did we know but the big lemon we were returning to was in the gated off area for the concert. So not only did we make a little money but we also got to see the concert for free. It was Colbie Caillat http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=8777613 and she has a beautiful voice. The little girls love her song "Bubbly"

The money bought our totally over priced dinner. 8 bucks for noodles... but we did share funnel cake and that is always fun.

Maddie made a friend and she finally danced! I have been trying to get her to dance for a while so I was happy to see her bust a move!This is Ben, Maddie's future husband (I hope) He is the sweetest boy. He lives down the street and is really a boy version of Maddie. They get along great. It was his mother that got us all into this whole event. Yeah! What a day! The night ended with fireworks and a long walk back to the car. It was cool to spend time with new people and become better friends of our acquaintances!