Mustang Mile!

My friend Kristen and I chair our school's annual fundraiser, the Mustang Mile and Fall Festival.  Or at least, we have 2 out of the 3 years it has been in existence.  It is a lot of hard work, but we love it!

Last year, the weather was PERFECT and the whole night was awesome.  The event starts with a 1 mile fun run and then it is followed by a festival with games, 2 big bouncy things, colored hair spray, food, a DJ, prizes, and the biggest draw - a dunk tank where kids could dunk their teachers.  We earned $950 from the dunk tank alone last year, and $34,000 for the fundraiser as a whole.

The night was so perfect last year, and I was so proud, that I invited my parents out for it this year.

Fast forward to this year... we have THREE bouncy things, we added a full cookout with a food tent, 2 giant  outdoor lights that required a giant delivery truck and a generator and an additional dunk tank.  The flash floods had already happened, and since Colorado NEVER gets rain in the fall, we figured it couldn't possibly rain again so close to the flooding.  The day before - 70 degrees.  The day after - 70 degrees.  The day of - high of 42 degrees and raining!  I am an eternal "weather optimist" so we waited until the very last minute to call it, but finally we decided to bring it indoors.  The run was still done in the rain, but the festival had to be moved inside and people had to run to the food tent in the rain to get their food.  Not ideal, and I was CRUSHED that my parents were there and it was all sub-optimal.  But, we survived it and it went pretty well.  Instead of a dunk tank, we put teachers in jail and kids could pay either to: 1) get the teachers out early for good behavior, or 2) get in jail with their teachers.  We weren't sure how it would play out, but kids were desperate to get in that jail, and we ended up earning over $1,000 from it!  And, our total for the fundraiser went up from $34k last year to $43k this year, so financially it was a huge success.

My kids in jail:

My kids were also thrilled with this:  I ordered 3 ticket banners for our ticket tables.  They were supposed to be 4 feet by 18 inches.  They came in at 4 feet by 18 feet!  We are now the proud owners of 3 giant Ticket Slip N' Slides!  I know Beckett's face is blurry in this picture, but if you look closely you can see the absolute joy that can only come from an 18 foot long plastic slip n' slide mistakenly being delivered to your house.