Ever Play Outhouse Toss?

I think the children's summer vacation has started very well!
Saturday we went up to the church to help set up for the Sunday School's fundraiser "Caring Carnival" on Sunday. Travis and Katie were okay with this, though they'd rather have gone to the pool, but Ed says that driving all the way to church twice a week is reckless extravagance. Gas is $3.98 a gallon here now, so I see his point.
Sunday we went up early, to do more setting up, but even Ed conceded that the carnival was quite a bit of fun. The kids had made prayer beads, note cards, bookmarks, and candles. Two of Travis's pieces of art and one by another child were framed and set up for "silent auction." We also had hot dogs, chips, and assorted baked goods. And then there was the "carnival." Our carnival games were things like hop scotch, croquet (first time our croquet set was out of its bag since the day, several years ago, that I bought it, handed the mallets to my children, and almost immediately realized that croquet required a maturity that they had not yet reached!), stomp rockets, a cupcake walk, etc. The most popular was one I had never heard of before and which may be an "Appalachian Mountains" thing -- the outhouse toss. No, not tossing outhouses, thank goodness. We had two wooden boxes with toilet seats over their tops, and players stood at the distance they considered "sporting" and tried to toss rolls of toilet paper through the seats. It was amazing (and gratifying) to see how many people, especially older men, would put a twenty dollar bill into the bucket after a particularly triumphant round of tossing toilet paper.
In addition to games, we had a petting zoo. There was a darling little donkey, which I would happily have brought home, some goats, turtles, rabbits (Katie bought one particular baby bunny three times. I kept returning it and explaining that she wasn't allowed to have a rabbit, but I finally had to take her purse away. It was a cute rabbit. I think Harry and Emma would have liked it very much.), and an Appalachian Lion. The lion was contained in a horse trailer, and kept peeking out and wanting to play with people. He was/is actually a middle aged golden retriever whose owners shaved him, leaving the fur on his neck and shoulders for a "mane"and a tuft on his tail. He looked very cute, and definitely enjoyed the attention. (He got to come out and mingle with the crowds.)
By the time we left, the children had made a profit of $573 (the counters were still counting, but I think that was most of it), which ought to buy a fair lot of rice for the poor orphans in India. One of Travis's framed pieces went for twenty-five dollars, which we thought was terrific but which upset him because he had hoped we could buy it. Next time we will explain the idea of "fund raiser" to him more clearly. Anyway, it was fun and it is a great relief to have it over with!

Today our book group (which seems to have given up reading books for the time being) had a lesson on bees. The teaching mom had put together an interesting talk, and had the kids make lap books, which is one of those things that kids seem to enjoy and which I would never bother with so I'm glad when other people do. Next week, barring rain, we are going to meet at her house and look inside a real bee hive.
After book group we picnicked and then went to the pool. The pool was very noisy and very crowded, and the kids had a marvelous time. I had a marvelous time watching them, and succeeded in keeping my public pool phobia under control. Mostly.
Then we went to the doctor's for Katie's allergy shots. She fussed a little for the first one, but then settled down and took the second like the good child that she really is.
Then we came home and collapsed, and here we are.