What a weekend!!

A few months ago Krystal joined Venturers (which is like Scouts except for older kids and it's boys and girls). She then said that there was a Venturers Ball being held in Palmerston North and could she go... no problem. Ticket bought... very expensive dress bought... shoes, makeup, jewellery etc all bought... transport fell through!!!

Then I get an urgent text... can you drive us??? My car is a little Barina so there was no way... but they organised a car swap... I told them I couldn't leave Mikayla at home by herself but they said it was fine to bring her and that they'd provide us with dinner as well... and so it was all organised.... yeah right!

So on Saturday we swapped cars... picked up 5 teenagers (not the orginal 7 I had been told) and we were off.... however, the ball wasn't actually in Palmerston North... it was in Rongotea!

The instructions to get there were actually really good... and it did give us a practice run for going to Wellington on Thursday LOL Anyway we get down to Rongotea and found the main street:And here's what the MAIN street looks like:

Then we had to find where we were staying... not hard in a town this size!

Think very small hall... one toilet for the boys and one toilet for the girls and 80 people staying the night!!!
In we went and it was pretty much time to start getting organised. The boys were great... suits on, Lynx sprayed and hair done! One of the boys even had a very old suit... mother of pearl studs for buttons, whale bone collar inserts and 9ct gold engraved cufflinks! He even had the waistcoat and braces thing happening!!! Yes there really was a HUGE height difference! In fact Steven helped Chris get his hair 'just right' and I couldn't resist taking a photo!
We also managed to get a nice outdoor photo while the girls were getting themselves beautiful!
Still waiting for the girls so the boys decided to get their beds organised... why did no-one mention hard wood floors to me???Krystal and Amber hogged the only girls bathroom for 45 minutes!!! Yep, there were plenty of irritated girls waiting... but they did eventually get out of the bathroom!The next two photos are especially for you Mum!! Krystal made her own mask for the ball along with all her gorgeous jewellery and then decided to put ribbons through her hair as well :)Then we finally managed to get a group shot of all the kids in their finery :)The venue was just down the road so we took them down.... and there came the next 'surprise'... if Mikayla and I wanted dinner we had to go to the ball too!! Had we have known we would have packed some good clothes... as it was we had jeans, track shoes and sweatshirts... and there was NOWHERE else to get any dinner so in we went! Everyone looked spectacular and the meal was really nice :) After dinner, Julie (the Rotorua leader) showed Mikayla how to make a rose from her napkin:Steven couldn't resist the challenge and quickly joined in as well:Not to be outdone Tim decided to use one of the roses for a photo opportunity!The boys in particular really knew how to 'ham it up' for the camera... Mum a.k.a. 'shutterbug' would have had a field day!!By this stage I'd had more than enough so I went back to the car and made myself a cozy little bed in the backseat and settled down with my book... no sooner had I started reading and there was a 'knock' on the window and THREE security guys checking on me LOL Gave me a heck of a fright but at least I knew I was safe :)

Mikayla stayed on at the ball and took another 200+ photos... I think she takes after her Grandma where cameras are concerned!!! She got some great shots though... like this one of the boys:I have no idea what the girls are up to in this one:There's definitely some Saturday Night Fever action going on in this one:And of course she had to get some shots of her big sister 'dancing'... if you could call it that??By 1am they were all danced out and came back to the hall to 'sleep'... Yeah Right!!!See what I mean about the HARD wood floors!!!

Mikayla did an amazing job with the photos and I couldn't believe how cool these next two were... no Photoshop or anything... these are exactly how they appeared on the camera... SERIOUSLY COOL!!!

On the way home we stopped in Taupo for some lunch and Mikayla made me another rose out of her napkin... really made me feel special :)

Last night Krystal thanked me for taking them all down too which was lovely... so nice to see these kids all having a great time... but I'm so not ready to do it again in a hurry!!!