Sunday, October 26, 2014

Wildcat Carnival

Almost every year since Carrick was born, I have taken him to the public school on the last Saturday in October for the Wildcat Carnival. This annual event draws a crowd of hundreds of parents and children from all over the Sedona and Verde Valley area. It's the school's biggest fund raiser of the year. They don't use the proceeds for sport team uniforms or new desks, they use all the money raised to buy curricular materials. The Wildcat Carnival literally funds our children's education.

The currency for the carnival is tickets. They are $.50 each, but if you buy them ahead of time, you get bonus tickets. Carrick spent his $10.00 Fun Dollars this pay cycle to buy 20 tickets, and he received 5 bonus tickets with this purchase. I also spent the last $10.00 of my Fun Dollars on the same purchase. All together, we had 50 tickets. Tickets are used to buy food, drinks, activities, games or a chance at winning a gift basket at the raffle area.  Every class is assigned a theme and the students all donate one new item that goes with that theme. The items are then assembled into gift baskets. I took a look in the office the day before the carnival and there were some pretty awesome gift baskets. Carrick's class's theme was dinosaurs. Some others included gardening, movie night, baking, games, hiking and children's books. 

When we arrived at the carnival, we started out paying 9 tickets for three slices of pizza. The kids were so excited about the games, that they had a hard time concentrating on lunch. Carrick requested a bag of popcorn while waiting in line for the bungee jump. Under normal circumstances, I would have explained to him that he should have had more at "lunch", but since the day was just a fun and relaxing time for us, I saved my motherly speech and just spent 2 tickets on a bag of popcorn. 

At the bungee jump, they put Carrick in a harness and he climbed up on the giant trampoline. Then one of the workers hooked both sides of his harness to clips suspended from two poles on either side of his trampoline. Then the worker raised up the clips and Carrick rose slightly into the air, dangling from the bungee cords, and then the worker gave him a tug downward toward the trampoline. He soared up into the air, with giggles flying out of his mouth. "More!!!" he shouted, so the worker gave him a harder tug, and Carrick shot up light a rock from a slingshot and he burst into fits of laughter. I couldn't even keep from laughing my self as I watched him shooting up and down. 

He also scaled the rock wall...all the way to to top. He marched right up to the guy working the ride and announced, "I'm 40 lbs!" (he remembered almost not making the weight requirement last year.) He fearlessly put one hand over the other and climbed all the way to the top. After pressing the siren, he let go and slowly descended on his harness with a huge smile on his face. 

In addition to the rock wall and the bungee jump, the kids played the duck pond, ring toss, bean bag toss,and mini golf. The bouncy house, and bouncy slide also kept the kids entertained. Lily tried her hand at the bouncy house, but was quickly overwhelmed by the motion. She's still only 22 months old, and much smaller than the other kids in there. She did, however, thoroughly enjoy the bouncy slide (as did I.) After Carrick went down three times, I decided to pay a ticket to take Lily down it. Hearing her bust up into laughter as we slid down was priceless. 

We took our paw prints (the tokens the kids won at the games) to the prize booth before we left. Lily picked out a purple snake and a bead necklace. Carrick chose a yellow bulldozer to add to his car collection as well as a pair of binoculars. Carrick requested some extra time on the playground before leaving. I saw that there were seats in the shade next to the playground, so I let him and Lily run around for a solid hour. I hung out with some mama friends of mine, taking a breather in the shade. We were all exhausted from being out in the sun (even though it was cool and there was a breeze, the sun was still intense) and walking around with our children for several hours. 

Spending $10.00 Fun Dollars on Wildcat Carnival tickets was the best choice I've made with my money in a while. Carrick and Lily enjoyed themselves tremendously. I was more than happy to share this experience with them, as well as support the school Carrick attends now. It was great way to close this pay cycle.

Tickets to the Wildcat Carnival- $10.00
Balance this pay cycle- $0.00       Happy Spending!

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