BANG!

I like to decorate, it's true.  But when it comes to certain events, I feel that decorations could be kept a tad more simple.  Ward Christmas party-- More elaborate.  Scout activity-- Less is ok.  Not everyone agrees with me.  Hence a Blue & Gold Banquet that had 14 adults (that I can remember off the top of my head) and more than 20 kids helping to set up for more than 3 hours on Saturday afternoon.  This time does not include the hours upon hours upon hours she took to gather all supplies, and paint all of the cardboard, as well as transport everything to and from the event.

This entry setup looked exactly the same on the other side!

Look at the detail of just one of these 4.5' boots.  She made four.

Notice the banners hanging from the ceiling-- she cut all of those out, having the boys decorate one hat and one boot at a recent scout activity.

Do you see the hand-painted 3' cacti?  How long did those take her to paint?  Between the stage and the exit is the Wanted Board which I'll show you below.

The hay bales were cardboard boxes covered with a type of plastic table cloth stuff.  They looked so authentic, a little girl fell through when trying to sit on one.

Notice the "Stable" above the exits.  Randy and I got placed in charge of that on both sides.  Her idea, but I think we did a pretty good job executing it.

See the "corn field" above?  Well, the "fence" is actually a brown paper that she folded into thirds and taped so that you could assemble it there.  Probably 50'+ of folded paper.

The centerpieces were mason jars with actual straw and lights inside, with a balloon weight and fun western balloons blown up while we were there.

Do you see the wagon wheel on the bottom left of the above picture?  She painted and cut all of those out as well.  The jail that you see near the blue divider is made out of PVC pipe and the same plastic table cloth material as the backdrops, and wooden barn-like wood.

She also made a Wanted Board with a poster of each boy.  The boys got to pick out their own names, as well as their "crime."  Tyson's photo was voted #1.  He's pretty proud of it.

We ate and had the awards ceremony and then opened up the other side of the gym for games, while those that could helped clear tables and start the cleanup.

There were stations, with five minutes planned at each, and everyone divided up into teams dependent on the color of their bandanas found on the back of their chairs at dinner.  There was a game where they bounced ping pong balls to try and knock down a tower of red cups, human balloon pop, tug-of-war rope, lasso the rocking cow, pin-the-tail on the cow game, and ours: Rodeo Roundup.  They had to hit a badminton birdie over the net into a 4' blowup cowboy barrel.  They got six tries.  If they got it into the barrel, they got a bigger treat.  If not, they could grab a small treat, so they didn't leave empty-handed.  It was fun to have kids come that had never played before who'd come back for more at the end of the night.

Even with the 45 minutes of cleanup from many adults as their kids played games, it still took another hour to get everything cleaned up and out the door.  3 hours set up, 2 hours take down, and hundreds of man hours, all for a 2-hour activity.  She's done 6 Blue & Gold Banquets in a row now, this being her last.  She figuratively and literally went out with a BANG!