Before we get to August, I realized I should probably catch up with the July blog (my chromebook is going real slow these days, so it's taken forever to get pictures in order and such).
I've also been working on taking less pictures. Yup, less. Enjoy the moment more- take less pictures. That came into practice during the 12th Annual Waterstraut Olympics. I invented these 12 years ago as something fun to do on the 4th of July that involved not going out among the masses, and not having to deal with firework traffic. And, it's stuck as one of everyone's favorite family traditions. Of course, there are always some rotating events which always culminate in the annual frozen tshirt contest. That event needs 'real' medals, the others get candy medals.
Since we were still pool sitting, we did the Waterstraut Olympics at the neighbors. It's been like this the last few years, and I fear it'll be less fun whenever we don't have the pool. We had cashed in on the bogo chicken tenders at PDQ, so before we got started, we had ourselves a nice lunch.
That morning, Dom and Nando had invited us down to the lodge for the 4th of July party there. While the kids were still getting up and around, Asa and I went down there. Then when we told Dom and Nando about our traditions for the day, they were interested, so they stopped by to check them out as well, and we involved them in some of the random games. First, we played float pong, which is like beer pong, but in some rafts we picked up last year from Five Below (still going strong, that's impressive!)
And your medalists for that event... (I stopped making a podium when I realized the pool steps worked just fine for it).
We also did the duck hunt- where you have to use your water gun to knock off your opponents ducks from the orange cones on the other side of the pool. Dom was shockingly terrible at this for a military guy.
Your duck hunt medalists...
Then we dumped everything on the pool, and used the pool noodle pieces with letters written on them, to see who could collect and make the longest correctly spelled word in 3 minutes. Hayden won with his word extraordinary.
But Dom was so excited to make it on the podium and win a Reeses, which he would later eat after it completely melted.
And then it was time for the frozen tshirt contest. I had brought them all over to Vince and Alicia's freezer earlier in the day, so they were ready to go.
This one is the same every year: get your shirt out of the frozen block of ice first and put it on. Olivia illed us all this year. Like, it wasn't even close. I'm not sure how she did it, but she was WAY ahead. Hayden and I were neck and neck for second and third with Asa not very hard behind. But I was REALLY trying. I have only competed in this one that last couple years, but I had never been on the podium before. And, I squeaked out in third place.
The most shocking event of the day was Asa not getting on the podium at all. He's losing his frozen tshirt contest touch. But, he was not all that far behind me and Hayden. For whatever reason, Calib was TERRIBLE this year, and when he was the only one remaining Dom asked if he could help too, so he 'turtled' it for Calib (a Waterstraut phrase for finishing something off that's 90 percent done).
Anyway, look at your 2023 Frozen tshirt contest medalists! I'm on the podium. And, Olivia is a back to back champion like it's 2014-15 (our shirts have the years people won on them). I'll have to add 2023 to her shirt before next year.
With Dom and Nando there, someone could actually take the picture of all five Waterstraut Olympics participants!
And then, per the usual all hell broke loose. We played around in the pool, and everyone ganged up on Calib. Also, there are no photos, but we played hungry hungry hippos in the pool again this year- Asa and I were a team, vs Dom and Nando- but they killed us. It wasn't even close. I take the blame, I was the raft person, Asa was just the driver.
And then, per the usual, there was some volleyball. Some summer I'm going to build an actual net out of pvc pipe, because I think it'd be super easy to do and it'd avoid a lot of re-dos for being 'on the line'.
And that's it for the 2023 Waterstraut Olympics!
Next up: A New and Improved True American!
No comments:
Post a Comment