LO09 ...and a tradition was born

Back at the beginning of the summer, Skye and I were sitting in my living room dreaming up fun things to do during the summer...knowing that most of them would likely never happen...however, every once in a while an idea so amazing comes along that you just cannot help but see that idea come to life!!

That is what happened with LO09. Skye and I started talking about how awesome it would be to have a day dedicated to playing/ competing in lawn games...a "Lawn Olympics". As we threw out more and more ideas of things that would make such an event absolutely AWESOME, we got more and more excited!

We decided to pick a few weekends that would be possible for us to do this wacky and crazy fun event and then we started asking around to see if anyone would A) be interested in coming, and B) be free on our available weekends!

Once we settled on weekend, I started doing some research...amazingly enough, we were apparently not the first people to come up with this awesome idea...no, there are others that have been inspired by the fun and excitement of a little bit of lawn competition! They have been having Lawn Olympics since 1999...so, while we cannot say that we came up with the idea first, we were able to put our own "style" into the games!

This past weekend was our first annual Lawn Olympics...and I would have to say that it was a resounding success!!! I think that all involved had an awesome time...and we have already been talking about things that we could improve upon/bring back for next years games!

We left home in caravan fashion Friday afternoon and headed up to the mountains...site of the games. We made a couple pit stops. We had to go pick up Skye at her house...and this is how she came to meet us:

Once we collected Skye, we headed on toward our destination, but we were overcome by an insatiable desire for Boiled peanuts...we saw so many signs that Jody just HAD to have some! :) I didn't know before this trip that Jody loved boiled peanuts so much...but she even had JP picking them up off of the ground when a couple fell out of the bag! ...She loves her some boiled p-nuts!! :)

Once we arrived at the game site, we had our opening ceremony. This years event was dedicated to the lawn gnome...and so, we had mascot, lady of the lawn (aka Skye) come ceremonially light the grill...we had some small problems with this...first, Kevin prematurely lit Lady Gnome's torch via bug spray and a lighter...secondly, Lady Gnome had constructed her torch out of a stick and some fabric scrapes...so, as she made her ceremonial lap around the cabin, pieces of flaming fabric were falling to the ground...thus, Chico had to follow her around the cabin putting out all of the fire that she started! Thankfully, the Olympic Flame was successfully passed to the grill, and we could commence to cooking the Pregame banquet.



While the grill was heating, we had the t-shirt unveiling. Each team of 2 had a team name related to something found in or having to do with the lawn, and they were to make a t-shirt reflecting their name. Skye and I were not disappointed! Teams rose to the challenge!! Paul and Jody didn't get to make t-shirts...they ran out of time (mostly my fault for waiting to the last minute to send out team names! sorry teams Flamingo and Jockey...next year!!) Jody felt a little under dressed, so she improvised!

Teams:

Skye and Chico Team Bird Bath

they were experts at camouflage

Zack and Paula Team Lawnmower


Kevin and Lauren Team Grounds Crew


Embo and Patrick Team Wind chimes

Jody and Paul Team Flamingo (aka flaming mango)

J and JP Team Jockey

BJ and Jonathan Team Gazing Ball (in absencia)

After t-shirt unveiling, we had the team march. Each team's anthem was played (a song they picked out prior to arriving) and they ran/walked/danced around the cabin.

Team anthems:

Bird Bath: Something by Daddy Yankee
Jockey: Beat it by Michael Jackson
Flamingo: More than a Woman by the Bee Gees
grounds crew: Take it Easy
wind chimes: song of the 50 United States
Lawnmowers: The Heat is On by Glenn Frey

This was pretty hysterical and we all had a BLAST!! After the march, we headed inside for dinner. We had hot dogs and hamburgers, fruit salad, potato salad, mac n' cheese (best ever according to J. I have to agree that they were REALLY good!), and dirt cake.

Skye didn't want Iago to go hungry!

After dinner, we hung out for a little while telling funny stories and then headed to bed.

Saturday morning, we went out to the blueberry bushes and picked blueberries for blueberry pancakes. Poor Chico was worn out from a long run and bear scare earlier that morning and he almost napped through breakfast. Thankfully he woke up and made it to the table before Skye was able to pour the entire bottle of syrup on her pancakes.

breakfast of champions!

After breakfast, we headed out for some Lawn Olympic fun. We had several games set up; corn hole, horse shoes, and ladder golf. Teams were paired up and we had 10 minutes to play each game. Then, scores were recorded and we switched to another event. The morning scores were tallied and medals were given. I made medals shaped like mushrooms out of model magic, paint, and ribbon.

Jody proud of her 1 point contribution to horseshoes

Morning standings:

Gold Mushroom: Grounds Crew
Silver Mushroom: Wind Chimes
Bronze Mushroom: The flamingos

We took a break for lunch and laughed and talked...we somehow got on Skye's favorite subject: Teratoma's. Thank goodness Lauren happened to have a Pathology book lying around so that everyone could be educated/grossed out...


...then we were back in fierce competition. We started the afternoon with watermelon seed spitting. Then, we transitioned to Croquet and Badminton...finishing the day with Bocce Ball....competition was feirce, but sportsmenship was excellent! We even decided, half way through the game, to speak only in a British accent while playing Croquet...unfortunately, we later found out that Croquet originated in France!

Afternoon standings:
Gold Mushroom: Grounds Crew
Sliver Mushroom: The Flamingos
Bronze Mushroom: Lawn Mowers

*The Windchimes had to leave after lunch, so it's hard to know how this would have affected the afternoon standings.

Overall Standings:

1st The Grounds Crew

2nd The Flamingos

3rd The Lawn Mowers

Spirit Award
The Bird Baths

Yoohoo Award:
The Jockey's

All in all, I think that everyone had a great time and everyone seemed to be interested in making this a tradition. Yay!! Success! We had such a good time that I cannot wait till next year! We had a lot of games that we were not able to get to...maybe next year we will be able to stretch the games over a full weekend...

Embo and Patrick, Kevin and Lauren, The Deatons, and Skye all had to go home on Saturday night....we were sad to see them all go! Chico, Zack and I stayed in the mountains until today. I think that Zack and Chico played about 20 badminton matches...it was a badminton marathon! It was crazy! I decided to rest instead! :)