#JustYouth: Costume Party

On Saturday was Just Youth! We did a Costume Party and a Penny Carnival and it was so much fun! We as a family decided to be Star Wars characters (Steve was Han Solo, I was Princess Leia, Dez was Luke Skywalker and August was Darth Vader). 

We had high hopes for everyone to come in costume and were pleasantly surprised by the amount of people who dressed up, or at least painted their faces. 

We started off as usual with Steve sharing a message. It was about how we wear masks in our every day lives and about the things we hide behind but how God knows our hearts, our intentions and loves us just how He made us.

Pastor Sergei from our church, showing the proper amount of interest, ha ha:

We forgot to count how many people came but we'd estimate 70+ which is the biggest crowd since spring, which makes sense because so many people go away during summertime.

Steve and I thought that we were just hilarious because after his message we quickly went to the back and swapped costumes. 

No one even batted an eye!!! We were highly disappointed that we're not as hilarious as we think we are, ha ha.

We had some prizes for the best costumes (basically for the people that put in the most effort).

This baker and her cupcake won for best group costume:

The other best group costume was these homeless "ladies":

A mime:

The smurf won....not his lady friend.....

After that we started our penny carnival! We had ten different games and to play, the youth had to pay one coin of any denomination and if they won, they got some candy. 

We had a ping pong game where they bounced the ball trying to avoid different kinds of disgusting drinks: 

Pop a balloon with darts to win a prize:

Hockey shooting accuracy:

A cup stacking game where you had to beat the clock:

Darts:

My game was a candy guess - whoever was the closest at the end won the entire jar: 

We also had a ring toss game, a singing game, this game with monkeys: 

Everyone had a fantastic time! This was by far the craziest week of preparations I've ever had to do for Just Youth - I put together 8 out of the 10 games so I was running around all week gathering supplies for that, buying ridiculous amounts of candy (SO MUCH CANDY! And we still have tons left!), and sewing all four of our costumes but it was by far one of my favourite evenings that we've put together.