Middle School Lock-in!

It's one of my favorite things when my adult children ask for my help!  So...yesterday was the Cheboygan MIddle School lock-in and Emily asked for my help.  Unlike lock-in's I am used to, this one lasted only until midnight.  (I guess after a day in the classroom, the teachers cannot spend the night with their middle-schoolers without thoughts of killing them!)

There are about 530 students in the school and when the end of the day bell rang at 3:10, they could choose to participate in over 15 different activities.  The activities repeated every 50 minutes.  There was a DJ in the cafeteria, pizza for dinner, bottled water (no sodas!), a room showing continuous movies, art projects in the art room (paint a clay pot which I suggested was a great way to have your Mother's Day gift ready in plenty of time!), and lots, lots more.  It was very well organized.  Emily was leading 3 separate sessions.  Remember last week when she had the spanish project of cooking those elephant ear things with a spanish name (still haven't got that in my mind yet)?  Well, the kids loved it so much, we did that for 2 hours.  She had prepared 100 dough balls and had to make 2 more batches.  We ended up FRYING over 200 of those!  Then for the 3rd hour, the wonderful lunchroom ladies had baked 48 DOZEN sugar cookies and we spent our final hour helping the kids ice and decorate those cookies.  Between the elephant ears and iced sugar cookies those kids won't sleep for the next 3 days.

From 2pm until 6:30pm, I was in the Life Skills room (the old Home Ec) with middle schoolers!  There are posters all over the walls and I was able to read most of them during my "incarceration"!  Here are a few of my favorites.

"Stand up for what is right even if you're standing alone."

"A good angle to approach any problem is the TRYangle."

"Don't eat any meatloaf but your Mom's."

"Never sell your teddy bear, letter sweater or high school year book at a garage sale.  You'll regret it later."

I had a great time.  Several of the children told me I talked funny.  I so love my children and the adults they have become.  They're all very good people!

Remember my snow pictures?  Well, Wednesday it warmed up to almost 50 degrees and on Thursday, I saw my driveway for the first time in over 2 months.  Today when I looked outside, the driveway was once again covered in snow!  I knew I should have photographed that asphalt!

Happy Big East Conference, Happy SEC Conference and Happy all those other conferences.  Go CARDS!  Go CATS!  And all the rest of you, GO Safely into this world.