Minutes to Memories

(Warning: the graphic nature of the words in the next paragraph is intended for a mature audience.)

My youngest daughter blew chunks all over the school hallway this morning. It was pancakes and syrup, with Sunny Delight, for those scoring at home. The poor janitor had clean-up duty. I just had to pick up the perpetrator and give her a ride home.

I received the call about 9am or so from Nurse Mary that Hillary was throwing up. The good news was that she didn’t have a fever. The even better news was that she takes after my wife instead of me. Periodically, both of them puke their guts out and then feel better than they’ve felt in a long time. Me? A puking episode leaves me in a death watch. Thankfully, this was one of Hillary’s “feel better” puking stories. Today was the first day of school she has missed this year, but as it turned out, she would have been just fine the rest of the day.

I was really glad she didn’t turn out to be sick for several reasons, chief among them was the fact that tonight was our Children’s Halloween Party at church, and Hillary was really looking forward to it. We have LOTS of kids at our church, and it seems that this particular party has the biggest turnout of all. Maybe it’s the novelty that a church is having a Halloween party instead of calling it a Fall Festival? Who knows, but for whatever reason, we always have a really big time, and tonight may have been the biggest of them all.

We had Jack Sparrow in attendance, along with the cast from the Wizard of Oz. We had cute little brides in their white dresses, and a pop star princess. We had a policeman, Spiderman, a skeleton, Yoda, Harry Potter, little bugs and butterflies, princesses, the scary dude from Scream, Raggedy Ann, some pirates, the green Power Ranger, a bumblebee, and the most adorable witches I’ve ever met. And I’m sure I’m missing some…

Herman rented a Space Walk. There were several fun games spread around the church yard, and a LOT of good (spooky) food in the fellowship hall. A lot of folks worked very hard to set this sucker up, a lot of folks worked very hard to make sure the kids had a blast during the party, and then a lot of folks worked very hard to clean up afterwards.

All the hard work was worth it. The kids were adorable, and they had a blast.

And as far as I know, no one blew any chunks tonight.