June 27th Carnival/Movie Night

Here we are at the end of our journey of fundraising $7000 for Emma's trip. Looking back at where we were a few weeks ago with money, we are better off than I thought.  I was thinking we were at around $1700 but because of Grammies' large payment to Emma for cleaning cupboards and closets we were at $1490 left to earn.

Derrel's Aunt Joyce sent Emma $100 and her daughter Brenda sent $25 THANK YOU BRENDA AND JOYCE !!

On 6/20 Emma and I went downtown to get her Euros and Pounds.  $150 of each cost us $472.63 holy moly!!

We also went to the DMV to get Emma a Utah ID so she can use her debit card easily, not having to pull out her passport every time.  I don't know what I was thinking...well yes I do.  I was thinking that they give you the card right there but  when they handed us the temporary one and said that it would be 3-4 weeks to get, I remembered that is how it is. DUH! So, she will have a temporary one for her trip.  Hopefully they don't give her a hard time:)

 

Last week was completely dedicated to getting ready for the Carnival/Movie Night fundraiser.  It was super crazy, but so much fun.  Thursday the weather was awful, it rained most of the day.  Every time we looked at the forecast, it was different. It really looked like Friday night would have rain. I was so worried that the weather would be bad, I really didn't want to re-schedule.  We prayed and prayed for good weather and we got it.  It was perfect!!

 

I had so much help from my family and friends making this happen. It was a wonderful night.  Looking back, I would do a few things different but over all it turned out great.  THANK YOU to all who helped.  So many people helped with set up, clean up, running a game or food table, running the auction, bake sale, raffle etc.  So many people brought bake sale items that were amazing.  Here are some pictures that were taken. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I wish I would have gotten one of the movie.  I wasn't sure that it would work, taking a picture in the night and quite frankly, at that point I didn't have the energy to find out where the camera ended up.

 

Well, our final total for the night was $1871.54! NOT BAD.  All due to the wonderful people who came to support Emma, YES THAT'S YOU!! THANK YOU ! We have to pay $400 for the movie so $1471.54 go to her trip putting us at $18.46 left to earn. 

 

We had a few wonderful people, who couldn't make it, give us some money yesterday totaling $160. (Thank you JUDDS, PEDERSONS, TILBYS and HARMS) 

 

SO WE DID IT!!! We made our goal of $7000 and $141.54 over ( this will be great for some of those last minute things she needs for traveling)  YAHOO! I never thought we would make it this far. 

 I really truly never thought I could let my 11 year old daughter go on a trip half way around the world without me and that we could earn the $7000 to do it.  I guess we never know what we are capable of until we try.  THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR LOVE AND SUPPORT!!!

 

Emma leaves this Wednesday, I cant believe it is here. Here is her itinerary for those who want to check it out.  It is pretty amazing!!

https://www.facebook.com/download/631998906869238/Tale%20of%20Two%20Cities%20-%20Itinerary.pdf

 

Only 17 days to go!! it is getting so close and we are almost ready.  We bought Emma's Luggage and got her a debit card.  Now just to get a national calling card and some foreign currency and then pack her bags and we are set.

I don't cry as much when I think of Emma leaving, I know she is in good hands and I will miss her but I want her to have so much fun and soak it all in.  I used to cry every time I heard "On Top Of The World" by Imagine Dragons on the radio.  This song and " Best Day Of My Life" by American Authors have become theme songs for this adventure.  Emma decided in the beginning that she wanted to sing "On Top of The World" on top of the Eiffel tower so I imagine my baby girl at the top of the Eiffel tower belting out this song:)

Well we are so close in getting the funds for this trip.  We have been so blessed by wonderful friends and family who have giving more than we ever expected to receive.  Emma and I got to babysit little Sophia again earning another $50 ($1883 to go) THANK YOU AUNTIE ELISA AND UNCLE MATT!!  We also babysat Jayden earning $40 ($1793 to go) THANK YOU AUNT LISA AND UNCLE DAVE!!

Then Emma did a lemonade stand with her BFF and earned $53.36 ($1740 to go).  They did such a good job drawing attention to get customers, Jumping rope and doing chants. She even had little umbrellas to make the drink look even more enticing.  They work so well together.  Having Dani around really brings out great things in Emma:)

 

Emma also stayed with her Grammies and cleaned out a few more cupboards.  Grammies was very naughty and gave her $250 ($1490 to go) THANK YOU GRAMMIES!! I think Emma should come over again to do some more on that $250 bill.

 

 

 

We had our last P2P meeting with her group of Utah delegates where Emma had to do a project on something of her choosing and present it to the group.  Of course Emma chose the Eiffel Tower.  She did a power point and presented it very well, too bad we weren't in a building with a big screen, that would have been much better. She also showed off one of her projects from school showing food, homes, schools, jobs etc. in France.

I tried to attach Emma's power point here but it didn't work.

 

Emma received her official People to People student ambassador pin and shirt from her leader, Traci Nuttal.

 

 

Here is the group she will be traveling with

 

 

And here we are,  most of the parents/grandparents of that awesome group of kids. 

 

17 MORE DAYS AAAAAAAA!

 

So, to come up with the rest of the money for Emma's trip we are having one last SHINDIG!  On June 27th we will be having a backyard movie night where we will be watching "The Lego Movie" (to be able to do this legally we have to pay $400 or half of what we make on admissions, which ever is larger).We will open the gates early for fun carnival games and food and raffle.  Emma and I have been going around from business to business asking for donations for this activity.  We got a little discouraged when we had no success for the first few days.  Then we went to Sams and right there they gave us a $50 gift card for hot dogs and buns.  This gave us hope and we continued on to other places with no success.  We decided to check back with Best Buy, who we had gone to almost a month ago and hadn't been able to get a hold of Kyle, the assistant manager.  Luckily he was in and he said that he was sorry he hadn't gotten back to us but they were really impressed with Emma and decided to give her an ipad mini and case for the raffle.  I about started crying right there.  It was so much more than we expected.  This will really make the raffle great.  THANK YOU BEST BUY AND SAMS!!! We will keep working hard and see what else we can come up with.