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Our scouting year always includes a banquet called the Blue and Gold. It's a time to celebrate what the boys have accomplished during the year and to simply have time to enjoy the friends we've all made through scouting.

This year the banquet was in a truly lovely facility very close to home. That the banquet facility overlooks the Burger King drive-through was just an added bonus for some.

The scouts don't have to pay for their banquet tickets because that is covered in the $$$fees$$$ we pay to our pack for other scouting-related expenses. Parents must pay for their own $$tickets$$. But the event represents tradition and we enjoy it.

Like most banquets, there are raffle baskets and EVERYONE $$participates$$ and dreams of what he or she will do if they win one of the really good baskets such as the Family Fun basket with the board games, the restaurant gift cards, the ice skating gift cards, the football, and the snacks.

During the Blue and Gold, without warning after dinner (during which my friend's husband discovered a very long hair in his mashed potatoes), a raffle ticket number was called and no one answered. Without much hesitation, the emcee called a second ticket number and that is when my son raced out of the restroom waving the first winning ticket. Some quick thinking on the part of the emcee left my boy with his dream basket: yes, he won the Family Fun one.

We played two house rules games of Monopoly today (on the new board even though we already owned one) and a couple of games of Chinese Checkers. We LOVE Chinese Checkers, but have learned the board we got in the raffle basket is too flimsy and easily ruined when five or six people play. Not to worry though. I've already $$bought$$ a new Chinese Checkers game because we can't let the enthusiasm die, can we?

What a $$bargain$$ that banquet was !! I don't regret a single $.

Have you ever won a raffle before? What did you win?