Skip to main content

Our First Foray Into Formals

One thing that seems to concern people about homeschooling is: "What about prom?"

Many people seem to think a prom is the highlight of high school and that four years of "traditional" schooling is a small price to pay for the chance to attend a formal dance.

Well, guess what?

I don't remember my prom being all that great of an experience. My boyfriend and I had just broken up and I wound up going to the prom with a guy I didn't particuarly like. He was probably a nice enough guy, but he wasn't who I wanted to be at the prom with. I knew plenty of other folks in the same boat. High school romances are not known for being long-term, and many of us were frantically searching for dates at the last minute.

I remember two main things about my prom

1. We danced for too long before we had our pictures taken and I'm sweaty and my hair is a mess in our official prom photo; and

2. Fending off my rather handsy date later in the evening.

Seriously, I can not tell you one other thing about my prom. I don't remember who else was there, what anyone wore (except me, and that's possibly because I have a photo) or what the theme of the prom was (in the photo we are standing next to a wishing well and one of the seven dwarfs - I suppose that's a clue, but it doesn't bring up any other images for me).

Add to that, the fact that I attended a number of fraternity formals in college, and (too many to count) formal balls as a military wife.

So, I really don't understand the idea that a high school prom is some grand life event that my kids will forever mourn having missed.

However, if you feel a high school prom must be in your child's future, guess what?

Homeschoolers have formal dances too.

Ben attended his first formal this weekend. A homeschooling family from our church arranged the entire thing. As Ben does not own a suit, tie, or a pair of dress shoes (or dress socks for that matter) this became a major shopping event for us.

Luckily, Kerry has a fabulous tie with matching suspenders which I knew would be a big hit when the guys started shedding their jackets as the evening went on.

I was right.

I stayed long enough to snap a few pictures. Here is Ben with some of his best friends.

This is the sort of prom I wish I'd had.

Rather than just stranding a bunch of teens in a room with music playing, this prom included some fun games and some dance instruction. They learned to do a line dance, a reel, and a waltz. Names were drawn out of a hat to provide partners for dances. No one had to try to work up the nerve to ask a girl to dance, and no one was left out.

There wasn't a single wall flower at this dance!

I believe Ben's enjoying being unsocialized.

Comments

  1. How fun! That's exactly the sort of prom our homeschool group does. It's perfect.

    ReplyDelete
  2. GOOD LOOKING GUY! Glad it was such a success.

    GG

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ben's Feet

Ben went camping with his youth group this weekend. He said it was the best weekend he's had since we've been in Hawaii, and possibly in his entire life. The one negative part was that he stepped on some coral out in the water and cut his feet up pretty good. He swears it was all dead coral - you shouldn't touch live coral, much less walk on it because it damages the coral. No one ever mentions that it also damages your feet. They just tell you not to damage the coral. Also, coral is a living organism . If you step on live coral and a tiny piece breaks off in the cut, it will continue to grow. Did you see the movie Alien ? If some creature incubates in Ben's feet, then breaks out and eats us all one night, I'm going to be quite miffed. (Make sure you read the inscription on his tee shirt in this picture. It's quite appropriate.)

Mammogram

I'm having my annual mammogram today. I always hear about how painful they are, but honestly, I've never thought they are that bad. Not the most comfortable, but not painful either. Every time I have a mammogram, I'm reminded of this story. It won the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition and I still get a kick out of it every time I read it. So I'm posting it here today for your reading pleasure: Erma Bombeck Writing Competition 1st place in Humor Category Winner Leigh Anne Jasheway of Eugene, Oregon "The First Time's Always the Worst" The first mammogram is the worst. Especially when the machine catches on fire. That's what happened to me. The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister - right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamped the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside o

A Week After Surgery

Katie went back to the surgeon yesterday to have her foot checked.  It was the first time we saw the stitches.  When we saw her after surgery, her foot was already wrapped up in three inches of gauze and it's been wrapped like that ever since. The doctor decided that the sutures were not quite ready to be removed. There are stitches in the side of her foot where they inserted one of the screws.  The surgeon told us that she has to be very, very, very careful not to put her foot on the ground.  Any pressure at all could cause the screws to shift or break and that would be very, very, very bad. They knew we were going out of town for the wedding this weekend.  In order to protect her foot as much as possible, she was put in a hard cast.  It will come back off on Monday so they can check the sutures again.  This cast has a very limited time to be signed! Katie may not get to have a lot of people sign her cast  but she currently still has the initials of the sur