"Let the Games Begin!"

We had our grand yearly party this afternoon, and it was great! This year's theme was the Olympics, which was a timely one. We wanted to kick off and get everyone ready to watch the Olympics when they start next Friday, on 8/8/08, at 8:00 PM local, as we learned in our Olympic trivia part, LOL.

When people arrived, we gave them nametages and a flag, which we put around their neck backwards, so they couldn't see it. Then they had to ask other people "yes or no" questions to try to identify their country, like, "Is it from a country in Asia?" or "Does it have red in it?". The kids did really well at that, and after everyone had figured out their flag, we formed up on the side of the house. Sarah B., as the oldest "competitor", had the honor of carrying the tissue paper torch that I made. They marched around to the front of the house to the "Olympic Fanfare by John Williams, which played from a CD of Olympic music I bought. As they came in front of the adults, they said the country name for the flag they were wearing. Then we began the games.
First we had a "land swimming relay". I divided everyone up into teams of 4, which was a challenge, and the kids picked which stroke they wanted to run across the yard doing. Here you see Caleb McC doing the backstroke.
Next we had a "relay pentathalon", consisting of a running part, then walking on the balance beam curb, then long-jumping across our driveway, throwing a frisbee in a kids' swimming pool ("discus"), and finishing up with shooting a basketball into our little hoop.

Originally, I had thought we would also have a plain running relay, but it was just. too. hot. So we commenced our medal ceremony.

We handed out gold medals to everyone (I had a challenging time finding these, but I finally was successful at Target in Ohio, in their party section. Yay!!). Then I played the national anthem, and everyone sang along with the words, which I had written on the back of the poster of Olympic rings, that you can see David holding up there in the picture. Bob waved the flag around behind David, so it was really nice! I love hearing people sing the Star-Spangled Banner.

Then we rushed inside to cool off in the air conditioning with lemonade and gatorade, while we got the final food touches ready. We had an Olympic-themed meal--pizza bagel bites, spiral deli roll slices, carrots, celery, and red pepper strips with ranch dip, pineapple rings, grapes and blueberries, chips and pretzel rods, and for dessert, 3 kids of cookies, all of which Nathan made, and some cute little cupcakes with sprinkles that our neighbor Theresa brought and were a huge hit with the kids. So did you catch the themes? Circles (bagel bites, tortilla slices, pineapple rings, and cookies), "batons" (all the vegetable sticks and the pretzel rods), and balls (blueberries and grapes. Well anyways, I thought about it, LOL. I had thought maybe no one would be too hungry because of the heat, but the food was wolfed down, and we basically had no left-overs. We ate 180 bagel bites! There were 41 people here! Of that, 26 were kids. Whew! While everyone was eating, I asked them a bunch of Olympic-related trivia questions I had dug up. I learned a lot from that!

We sent everyone home with a photo-copies schedule of events and when medals would be awarded each event, as well as with a "medal bar graph", where they can fill in how many gold, islver, and bronze the U.S gets, and compare that with 4 other countries--China, Russia, Germany, and U.K. So my hope is that everyone went home excited to watch the Olympics, and knowing a little bit more about them.

So that was our day. It was tons of fun, but now I am so tired. At least I am done for the year with big parties!! I am going to post some more pictures of our decorations, but after that, it's bedtime! Tomorrow is another big day, as we leave to take Nathan and Luke up to Camp Caleb right after church.