...And all of the Night

For some reason I thought it would be a swell idea to volunteer to be a chaperon at the all-night grad party. Truthfully, I had been involved with the meetings and fund-raising all year long, and it was just a core group of people involved, so I felt like they really needed the help.

We also had a farewell roast to attend that night, so we went straight from that to the Habu Pit (O Club on Futenma), where the party was being held. Seeing all the ideas that people had, all come together was pretty sweet! Every room we walked through had happy kids engaged in something...




Board games (which kids got CASH for winning)...




Dancing...




And more dancing. There was karaoke, too. (I let the kids have their night, though. It wasn't about me and I'd have hated to own them all. After tonight, though...game ON!)




The biggest hit of the night was "Fear Factor". Weeks ago, in voting for what would be offered at the party, Fear Factor was pretty much a mandate. Troy was confident he had his round in the bag, too. He loves all kinds of gross stuff.




As popular as it was with contestants, it was more popular with the spectators.




For the first round, they had to blow up a balloon and let it pop in their face. I think the first 5 got to advance. It may not seem very fear-inducing...but it was. Some kids couldn't do it.




See that lovely little plate of happiness? 3 giant green olives stuffed with cloves of garlic covered in Crisco. They have to fish the olives out of the Crisco and eat them entirely. The only catch was, they had no idea what they were eating, or what the stuff was they were covered with. It sounds like no problem...but it's the unknown that gets you.




I only include a small clip here so you get a visual of what it was like. The reason it's only 7 seconds long, is at about 8 seconds, the first olive came back up, and I didn't figure you wanted to watch that. The Crisco was his undoing. He didn't even know what it was (I don't think I've ever had it in the house) and his mind got the best of him. If that had been raw octopus covered in whipped cream, he would have been fine...and olives stuffed with garlic? That's a snack!




There was also this awesome music video maker set up in a room with props and such, where kids could make their own DVD's to take home. I wished I had thought to jump in and do my own like these cool grownups did! I guess it was for kids at heart, too.



It was fun watching what it looked like in real life vs. what it was going to look like in the video. That blue screen is magic!




Just thought I'd share some clips with you here. I was unable to import the file in it's original form...so I did a ghetto-style improvisation. Clever, no?




Troy is in this one...and it's a longer clip than I wanted to share here (sorry) but my laptop overheated and shut down three times while I was trying to edit the parts together to make it shorter. As it is, this final attempt required me standing, holding the laptop in one hand, while blowing cool air on it from the blow dryer with the other. I am determined, however, to drive this laptop into the ground, after which I will never purchase another Dell. Ever. But I digress. Anyway...can you find Troy? Wait for it...




Soon it was time (midnight) to load up the buses for the bowling alley...



Where they spent the next two hours eating all the pizza they could hold...



And bowling to their heart's content. After about an hour, kids started drifting to other things...



Like teen drama (He's holding up this sign to his friend who is having a fight with his girlfriend in the corner. So sweet that he's got his friend's back.)...



Re-enacting the musical number from graduation...



And using the temporary hand tattoos to give each other tramp stamps.

At 2 AM, Cliff had to head home to get our other kids tucked in bed, and it was time to once again load the buses to head over to the gym for another 2 hours of fun and games. The kids got extra prize drawing tickets for each of the activities they participated in. The air conditioning wasn't working and it was the middle of the night, but these kids were great participants:











Go Troy!



I chose to help with the game right by this fan, too. I'm no dummy.

After the gym (about 4:30 AM) we headed back to the Habu Pit for Bingo ($100 prizes x 7 games!) and breakfast...followed by the prize drawings for things like...2 computers, iPods, Bose earphones, gift cards, etc. I was practically dead at this point and apparently wasn't alone in this. Kids could barely keep their heads up.

We finished up right before pick up time (7 AM) and waited outside for Cliff to come pick us up so we could get ready for church. We had a long day ahead of us, still.



Josh and Troy picking through their prize bags looking at all the cash they "earned" for showing up to have a good time.

I should explain, Project Graduation is a national movement, whose purpose is providing one heck of a drug-free, alcohol-free, blow-out bash on graduation night, that kids WANT to come to, so that they don't go out and make their own "fun". That is why we fund-raise and plan all year. The kid's volunteer hours are kept track of and they are paid for those, too. Prizes are purchased and donations are solicited. This came about due to tragic graduation night deaths as teenagers discovered too late they really are not invincible. It's a wonderful program, really...and I'll be involved in it with each of my kids. Attendance is usually very high here (75-90%) because kids want to be with their friends...and a LOT of work is put into it to make it totally fun.

The funny part is, Mormon kids are used to "drug-free, alcohol-free" because all their parties are this way...and they are also used to having to volunteer their time to plan and carry out any party they are involved in...so the idea that they were paid in cash and prizes to be here was really odd to these two. Josh said he almost felt guilty. I don't think I sensed any guilt coming from Troy as he counted his cash, though.

I survived, and am SO glad I have a year off until it's time to start planning for Patrick's party. I did not, however, make it to church. I thought I'd just shower to refresh myself and keep on going until I could catch a nap. Evidently, the last time I pulled off an all-nighter, I was a lot younger. All the shower did was shut me down. I just "hit the wall", crawled to the phone to call in sick...and then to bed. (Mental note for next time...just let everyone know I won't be at church the next day and arrange a substitute for my class.)