Somehow I have been hurled head first into the world of High School.  I’d like to crawl back into my minivan with carseats and playdates.  But, if I have to face this, I guess being the driver for Homecoming is not so bad.  In fact, I had a blast!  I don’t know how they expect us to cope with all this right at the start of school…Homecoming already!?

I can’t believe all the planning that goes into this.  Once you take a sigh of relief that your child has been asked to the dance then you have to buy tickets, get a dress, shoes, hair, nails & makeup appointments, order a boutonniere, accessories and hope and pray they don’t change their minds about wanting to go.  I spent more on accessories than I did on the dress!  Thankfully Aunt Shauna had a pair of shoes in her closet that were absolutely perfect.  Score!  There was only one purse that Morgan liked and it’s essential to have a place to put your phone and lip gloss.  Turns out her dress had pockets!  Therefore, a purse really wasn’t necessary, but we didn’t discover the pockets until the day of homecoming.  Good thing we stressed about that.Moms worry about absolutely EVERYTHING…teaching manners,  getting dinner reservations, will they know how to tip, who pays, will they sit with their dates or ditch them to hang with friends, is there an after-party and will any parents be home, should we call the dates’ parents, what’s an appropriate curfew, and do they even know how to dance?  It’s an endless list really and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that has slept very little this past week.  Give me a break – this is my first time doing this as a parent!

Since Morgan’s date, Alex, doesn’t go to her school he had to fill out this super scary form and have it signed by an administrator.  We realized he forgot to sign the bottom and we were too embarrassed to give it back to him to sign so we called in Jake to sign.  He was practicing his best “Alex Dandy” signature and going through every pen in the house to find one with the same color blue ink.  The pressure got to him so Brian stepped in to illegally sign.  Kids, I don’t ever recommend forging signatures!  But in this case, we figured this was not a life or death situation.Morgan’s group of friends had a ‘group chat’ going to work through all the details of the night.  We planned to go to Lake Quivira for pictures because the setting is beautiful and we knew that all the other hot spots would be packed.  There was a slight hiccup when we realized all of these parents that were bringing their kids out to the lake did not get on the guest list successfully at the guard station…oops!  We had to take a pit stop at the gate for awhile while we worked through that.  It was pretty embarrassing for these 14 year olds with nerves skyrocketing but we finally made it in and took some beautiful pictures.  Don’t these kids look stunning!?

We met Alex’s parents who were delightful and he said goodbye to his dad who was being deployed overseas for 9 months.  Ugh – that’s a tough one to handle and everyone was really hoping Alex would enjoy his night despite that distraction and the fact that he was going with a group of kids he didn’t know.  What a trooper!  Aren’t they a gorgeous hoco couple!?

After pictures we crammed three couples in Stacey’s van and dropped them off at SPIN pizza for dinner.  The boys were holding the door open for the girls which was a great sign that their parents had spent some time coaching them on going on a date.  Our fear of them sitting at the table on their phones and not talking was put to rest as we walked through quickly to use the restroom and spied for a second.  They looked to be having a wonderful time!  Most of them ordered kids meals…too funny!

After their dinner was complete, we got back in Stacey’s freshly detailed and cleaned minivan to drop them at the dance.  Somehow they were not embarrassed that we pulled up front and center to let them out.

There was a big white tent entrance with decorations, candy tables, cotton candy, shaved ice, photo booth, DJ, and lots of dancing…none of them slow danced though!  Too embarrassing and awkward I guess!?  Stacey and I went back to our house to eat some dinner and discuss every little detail of the night thus far.  Then we stopped by another friends house to check out her post-hoco party preparations.  Before we knew it, it was already 11PM and we were back at the school watching all the kids come out of the dance.  It’s the best entertainment!By 11:30 we were in the driveway of Will Brock’s house nearby where they were having an after party.  The girls changed into their tank tops and nike running shorts and ditched the heels to go play pool and ping pong in his basement.  We sent them with snacks and prayed they didn’t do anything stupid.  By 1am, after Stacey and I had roamed every neighborhood passing time and cracking up, we were back to pick them up and get the full low-down.  From all accounts it seemed like Homecoming 2017 was a success!About 4 hours later our alarms were going off to get out the door for 7:30 a.m. soccer games – ugh what an unfortunate game time after a very late night!

Needless to say, Morgan and I both took a nap later in the day.  Word of advice to all High School soccer coaches…don’t enter into a tournament on the weekend of homecoming!  Much to her dismay, Morgan missed the hoco football game Friday night to play soccer and then had to skip her soccer game Saturday night for the dance.  It was well worth the skip.  These kids are great fun and awesome memories were created.  Thumbs up for Homecoming 2017!

Whew!  So happy I made it through my first Homecoming!