Family Fun

You've probably already noticed from my previous posts that my husband, Bill, is quite a character.

My Superhero

He likes to be different...exotic...unique...ODD!

Yes, that's underwear on our heads - his idea - another story...

This past Friday, his niece, Kaylee, graduated from high school.  He has been dreaming up a unique way to give her a monetary graduation gift and he decided to do a Trivia Challenge!

First we needed to create the backdrop for the challenge.

We installed an in-wall ironing board in the construction project we're doing and found the empty box for the ironing board a perfect vessel for this.

He was going to leave it brown, but I decided it needed to be wrapped.  Unfortunately, all I could find sufficient was funny papers....oh well, if anyone gets bored at the party they can just read the box!

Next up was to create the pockets that would hold the envelopes containing questions and money.
We decided to ask her 10 questions and offer 10 reward envelopes filled with various monetary amounts.
So, I placed 10 of these pockets on the left side of the box and 10 on the right side (made from the envelopes you get in the mail for sending money back to pay your bills).

Of course, a BONUS question is in order, so I put a 'golden' envelope in the center.

Looks a little plain...needs more pizazz....I don't have much to work with here as I'm 30 minutes from Wal-mart and on a bit of a time crunch....

Add a crusty old bow....better.

I was so excited for Bill to see it when he came home, thinking "he's gonna love this!"

He walked thru the door, bent over to look at it and just didn't say anything...I knew then that he was not pleased....darn!

So, he made a few more adjustments and this was our final product.  There is a slot cut into the top of the box for future use.

Yeah...I guess that does look better.

Anyway....off to the graduation party.

Kaylee looked so pretty and you could tell she was happy!  She graduated Salutatorian in her class and has been accepted into the University of South Carolina's Honors College!  We are very proud of her!

She opened gifts, read cards, and even got a little weepy when she opened the quilt and card her mother made for her.

She and her mother are very close since Kaylee is an only child and I know they will miss each other very much when Kaylee heads off to live in the dorm.

It was all so beautiful!

The time came for Bill to do his game show host thing....he stood up and led Kaylee thru the rules:

She was to choose a question from the left side of the box and hand it to someone in the room to read to her.  At the same time she would choose a mystery money envelope and hold onto it.  If she got the trivia question correct, she could open the money envelope and keep what's inside.  If she missed,  she had to put the unopened money envelope into the slot on the top of the box and WE keep it!!

We purposely made some of the questions hard and some easy - we wanted her to miss some of them!  :)

There were questions about her childhood, family information, and also some trivia questions about the town she grew up in, a Harry Potter question and one about the college she would be attending.  It was a pretty good mix of topics.  Turns out she missed 5 and got 5 correct - PERFECT - just what we wanted.

Now, for the BONUS question.  This one was a spelling question...a backwards spelling question!!  Since she is salutatorian, we were pretty sure she'd get it right.  Bill proposed to her that she had two options:

She could take the money she won and quit, or, she could go for the bonus question and win back all the money envelopes that she had to put back into the slot in the box.  Of course, she got the question right and we were so happy to hand her that big box and let her tear into it to get her winnings!

It really was a lot of fun!

Congratulations, Kaylee!  We love you dearly and wish all the best for you in your future!