The Fishing Derby

On Saturday, my husband had another Fishing Derby scheduled. What is a fishing derby? Basically, it is where you stock a pond with fish, encourage kids to come out with their parents and give prizes for a variety of categories.

Hubs was sweating the derby all week. He didn't feel as if he had enough help. He was to have a staff member, but that was taken since someone else called off sick.

I volunteered to help. K- was stuck. She involuntarily volunteered.

We got her all excited. She took the name tag and lanyard that Hubs brought home for her to school for show and tell. (We sent her binoculars, too.) I also told her that if she was a good helper, she was only $1.00 off from purchasing the Polly Pocket Glamper (yes, glamper) that she had saved a few weeks for and I would spring for that extra buck and tax.

Hubs left at 4:30 AM. I never really did fall totally back to sleep. K- and I were up and out at 6:45 AM. When we arrived, I told Hubs that I would take the people who hadn't registered or were on the waiting list. I figured that they might give the biggest problem.

By and large, they were the nicest folks. I ended up with about 15 people total who hadn't registered. I had to put them in a waiting area until 8:15 AM. The program was scaled for 200 children. On top of the 200 that registered, we had 20 on a waiting list and we had to give priority to people in a certain order.

I had one lady, though. She started giving me a hard time because the "City didn't have the forms." "I'm so sorry, when did you go to register?" "Just a couple of days ago." "The registration ended on April 23, so my guess was at the point that you went to register, the paperwork had already been passed on." "BUT the city didn't have the papers!"

Hubs came over. He told her nearly the same thing, but we both told her that we were happy to register her then and while we were putting non-registered people on hold, it probably wasn't going to be a problem to let them through.

I was filling out registration information and people kept rambling off the names of roads, but I had no idea what they were saying. I had them spell them and finally had to explain that I came from about 40 minutes south and was just here to help.

She kept coming back and forth complaining about certain things. There was the complaint about parking. "We knew that it would be a concern, so the volunteers were asked to park somewhere else." "WELL JUST WHERE ARE YOU PARKED?" "Right over there [insert finger pointed at my vehicle] on the maintenance drive. We didn't want to take even 10 spots away from participants." "Oh."

She was the one to tell my husband that there was no law enforcement. He was thankful that she told him that, as he had begged for days and his requests fell on deaf ears. For a program to be done on city park land by the county and expecting 200 children + chaperones, we were looking at 500 people. We needed at least a police presence somehow. Thankfully, one of Hubs' volunteers was a council person or something and made a call.

The mayor of the city showed up. He was thrilled that the derby was being held, handled in such an organized way and hung out for quite some time.

When time came to start awarding prizes, K- came over to me and gave me a poke. "Mommy, I don't feel very good." [oh no] "K-, are you going to puke?" [insert sound of a dry heave and burp combined] I grabbed her up and ran her around the side of the van. Typical reflux moment. She had drank pop too fast. She didn't end up vomiting, but the sound scared us all. :(!

We got ourselves back around, handed out prizes and the kids were so thrilled. We had many very generous sponsors that in total, handed out for the two fishing derby events over $6000.00 in prizes. Also, unlike the city run version of the same derby of years past, we didn't charge for participation, there were 4 different baits to choose from that were free, one of the sponsors had embroidered hats for every child and a bag full of fishing givies went to each child.

People left happy. They were very thankful. Even the crabby lady made a point to come talk to K- and me. She thanked us for driving in to help. Part of her crabbiness? She had come, felt that she needed to battle to have the kids participate, we allowed them and then they were late, missing probably about 1/3 of the ability to win a prize. I could tell that she felt like an idiot. Hey, passion gets in everyones way sometimes. I completely get it.

We had people arrive late all morning. We're not talking even just 10 minutes late, either. (Hubs started exactly on time.) The program started at 8:30 AM. There were some who arrived even AFTER the derby ended. Hubs was driving away and they said, "Oh! We're here for the derby!" "So sorry. It's already ended."

In the end, we had a great time. We all walked away exhausted. We went to bed early last night. We felt accomplished, though. We did it together-- as a family. That's the way it should be.

Smiles in my day:
- The 3 hours of church meetings for Sunday night were CANCELED! I don't know why, but I think it was God smiling down on all of us.
- We had a great time at the church pot luck. I ate so many lovely things. Baptist women sure can cook!
- I've been invited to help with a graduation party. This is the same family that had the party where the husband accidentally rocked my 3 month old RAV with a weed eater and blew out the passenger window. The wife ask that I take a bus in [laughing all the way] and I told her that I would just park at the neighbors. Her poor husband is scarred for life.
- Hubs brought home 5 more solar powered lights for our back beds. We had 5 from last year that I had pulled and stored over the winter. Gives us a little bit of light, but not too much. It's nice to look out in the evening and see them glowing away.
- Right now, K- is taking a much needed nap. I might curl up with her. I'm not a napper, but it is a drizzly Sunday afternoon.

Have a great day!