Casino night

Not "Casino night" as in "we all went to a casino and drank and had an awesome time together", more like, oh yay, it's time for Kermes again and we have to do something to keep the kids busy for two hours... let's do a casino theme!! It actually worked out really well. As you can probably tell, I wasn't too thrilled over having to do Kermes this weekend. Things have been stressful in the clinic, I've been doing a ton of early morning med runs and the only thing I want to with my free time now and crawl into my room and be antisocial. This kermes was really easy for me though. I missed the initial meetings so I wasn't part of any of the planning, they just assigned me to a job and that was that.

Kermes is always a little nerve-racking for me because there's a decent chance that the kids are going to get bored and leave half way through the activity. Luckily, this one went incredibly well. There were different "games of chance" set up in the cafeteria. The kids could go to any station they wanted, as frequently as they wanted. If they win the game they get a ticket. Once they have three tickets they can trade them in for a chance to pull a prize ticket out of a hat. Half of the tickets were blank, the rest would give the kids prizes ranging from lollipops to stuffed animals. I think that was the secret of the Kermes success. The kids would have gotten bored with the games after 20 minutes, but the promise of toys and food kept them motivated. Everyone really had a great time.

This was our station (it was the ball-hidden-under-one-of-three-cups trick)

Kim shows her skill with the cups. She was seriously really good. At first we were taking turns with the cups, but we determined that Kim was better for the trick and I was better for congratulating kids :P

But not good enough to trick the babies! ;)

At first we were taking turns with the cups, but we determined that Kim was better for the trick and I was better for congratulating kids :P

Charlotte and Jack had Lanza de Aros, or Ring Toss. It was probably the hardest game of all of them. I tried and didn't even get close.

Knock down the cans. I'm really glad this wasn't my station, they did a lot of can picking-up.

I don't really know what the deal was with this game except that you had to pop balloons with your butt

The babies enjoying their hard earned prizes

Group shot!

Hooray for a really fun first Kermes for the new volunteers