Down syndrome ball

I've got an unexpected day at home today as I've suddenly developed a crazy allergic reaction with swollen face, itchy eyes and streaming nose. It was reassuring to look back over my blog and discover that on 24th Feb last year I posted that exactly the same thing had happened. I must be allergic to some particular pollen or grass but when I looked on the Internet it seems a bit out of season for anything.
So I've taken an anti-histamine and decided to stay in with the doors shut and the air-conditioning on.
Hannah is working like crazy on the programme for the ball to celebrate DS we're holding on World Down syndrome day (March 21st - day 21 of month 3 for the 3 chromosome 21s in DS) We had given a deadline of March 1st for replies. By then we had 27 people who had replied and paid and we needed a minimum of 50 to hold the ball, knowing how late people leave things we decided to go ahead anyway and now have more than 100 people coming -30 of them with Down syndrome or another intellectual disability. The programme has a photo and short profile of these 30 people and it makes amazing reading - probably scientifically proves that people with DS like High school Musical?!? Certainly it shows that people with DS all have their own individual personality.
We are now getting lots of buy-in from the community too, mainly thanks to Hannah and her friend going round all the shops. We've had gifts to put in goodie bags, spot prizes and decorations donated. A music band from a local high school is going to play free of charge.
Last night I asked a friend at our home group who likes flower arranging if she could do anything. She has now got purple and orange (NZDSA colours) flowers donated from two nurseries and her flower arranging group are going to make table centrepieces, big displays for the room and corsages for each of the kids with DS attending.
It's suddenly become quite exciting. Beth and James are coming down from Auckland for the ball (and also to say goodbye to us before they go to Australia).
Tomorrow we get to choose the menu which the caterer has kindly discounted from over $40 down to $30 a head. We are tryigng to get some media coverage too as it's quite a big deal for some of the kids who've never been to a ball before and are hiring Tuxedos and the like.