Prom King

Junior got asked to the prom by the young lady above who is a senior at his school. She is a very sweet girl and she was really respectful of all our rules for Jeremy. I was even pretty happy with her dress compared to what I saw. Her parents even bought the tie for Junior to match her dress and they made a dinner for a huge group of "theater" kids from the school. What I really liked was the fact that the school does this "after prom" party, I assume to keep kids out of hotel rooms, etc. and from drinking and so on. They sell tickets to it just like the prom and it starts after midnight and goes 'til breakfast I think. They fill the gym at their school with all these inflatables and fun things for big kids and give out all sorts of cool prizes. Of course, we didn't let Junior go since Prom was on a Saturday night and so none of the fun started 'til the Sabbath. Junior was totally cool with it but it was extremely interesting to hear friends of his (from church) explain how the Sabbath doesn't begin until the sun comes up, etc. I still think it's a good idea to keep kids out of trouble on prom night though. What was crazy about the school prom was it was held on the weekend before the "great flood" where we had crazy thunder/tornado storms and right as I start driving Junior to this young lady's house, tornado sirens go off. Do I turn around? No. All I can think of is this poor girl who's planned this for months and is all dressed and ready to go so I keep driving and I get Jeremy there and myself back home just minutes before a pretty bad storm hit. I walk into our house and the rest of my family is huddled in the hallway with animal crackers and ritz crackers and cheese (I think the first thing everyone in this house thinks of during a storm is food!) except my husband who is outside staring in amazement at the blackening sky. We yell at him to come in and probably one minute later the lightening and hail and whatnot hit. I'm hoping Junior and this girl (Maggie is her name) aren't driving in this and they weren't. They were actually safe the whole time. Our next door neighbors had a tree fall and crush their fence (and it's still lying there right now) and many other people had similar mini-disasters. Luckily no one knew the next weekend would be worse with the flooding. I'm starting to miss Arizona.

Now the weekend before the school prom, Junior got to go to a church priest/laurel prom in Mcminnville, TN which is about 2 hours from here. He asked a young lady from Kentucky to be his date and she had more like 4 hours to drive. To have enough kids to make the prom fun, they have to invite huge regions here in the south. I wish they'd done stuff like this when I was a kid because the boys have made so many more friends from church than I ever had although they all live pretty far. Of course, facebook and texting make those friends a lot closer. This girl (Eden) I really like although I've never met her because it sounds like she gets Jeremy's weird sense of humor and goofiness.

Here's Jeremy with those other 2 boys that got their Eagles with him. They really are like brothers because they fight and get along at various times just like family.

And I just have to say I am SO glad I got to send a boy to these proms. I cannot even imagine the cost if he'd been a girl--the dress, the hair, the nails, etc. Yikes. He just used the suit he had and the only expense was the corsages which I am glad to say kids still like. I was so worried they were just an 80s fad. I did notice in many of the pictures (mostly from the school prom) that matching vests for the boys are very popular. I'll have to remember that for his senior prom next year.