Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Settimana Otto

I just ordered my blog book for the first half of 2015. I must say that I need to cut back somewhere. Perhaps on my blathering, or maybe on the huge amount of pictures I include. This latest book was the biggest yet. Huge, really. If I keep up like this, I will need to divide the year into thirds. But I like adding a lot of pictures. It is my blog after all. I can have it my way in this tiny corner of cyberspace.

That said, let's review week eight. We started the week with Olympics. Not those regular, boring Olympics with field events or ice skating. That is so cliche. How about an entire Olympics centered around popcorn. Creative and tasty.

The girls signed up for the events they wanted to participate in. (Most chose all six events.) We began with the every popular Popcorn Toothpick Swap. In one minute you try to move as many pieces of popcorn from one bowl to the other using only two toothpicks.


The girls did a good job in this event, but I rocked it. (Yes, I know I am an adult competing against children, but I hardly won gold in all the events. In fact, I stunk at some of them.) There was a tie for third between Daisy and Robyn.


Next event, the Popcorn Straw Blow. This is the only event we did inside which is good because the backyard was strewn with popcorn by the time we were through. For the straw blow, two contestants lined up and on the mark they blew their popcorn across the table trying to cross the finish line first.


This was a little trickier for the littles. It was hard for them to keep the popcorn going in the right direction.


As for the rest of us, if you got a good enough puff, you could send the popcorn across the table with one gigantic breath.


Our third event was the Cup Drop. You stand on a chair and drop the popcorn from your forehead hoping it will land in the cup. I was awful at this event, but I'm going to chalk it up to being taller than everyone else. I think the wind kept blowing my popcorn off course. (Although to be honest, June is basically as tall as I am and she seemed to do okay.)


Pearl rocked this event.


Event four was the classic Popcorn Toss Up. Only the older kids opted to try this one. It was really fun to watch.


June barely edged me out for the win. (Please to notice the height difference. Or the not difference in this case.)


Our fifth event was the distance throw. I don't think there is a lot of skill in this one. Just throw the popcorn and hopes it goes somewhere. (Popcorn is not easy to launch.) We counted how many wood slats to measure distance.


I scored 29 slats and earned my second gold.


Our last event was the Popcorn Bowl catch. This event had teams throwing popcorn back and forth to see how many pieces they could catch overall.


It was a close event with a tie for first and second close behind. (I believe if two teams tie for first, the next team comes in third officially, but we liked the sound of second more.)


I'm not sure if you noticed, but we used candy for the medals. Reese's Peanut Butter cups for gold, Hershey Kisses for Silver, and Rolos for bronze. June was really proud of her awards. She medaled in almost every event.


Ivory didn't seem to mind her three bronze medals. She actually got first in the bowl catch, but opted to switch it out for Rolo goodness.


It was a really fun day. I'll have to remember Popcorn Olympics in the future.

That same evening, there was a neighborhood parade for the kids. They sent out a message saying kids could dress up or decorate their bikes and scooters. I told June this was a perfect chance to try out her face paint set that she got for Christmas eons ago. (She has never touched it.) I got to play with it first and June was my victim. I was experimenting and trying different brushes. I like the design.


June turned around and experimented on Daisy. Very cute.


Pearl may be smiling here, but she wasn't as thrilled with her design. She thought she looked like a caterpillar.


Eva happened to be over, so June got her before she left. I love this picture that June took. I think Eva's eyes and freckles look amazing. (Not to mention the fun design.)


I used some of my old paints and some of June's new colors to paint on Robyn. I really liked how it turned out.


June was very kind to let Robyn use the paints. She did my face (cool sunset over waves) and June did Tyler. We were really having a lot of fun.


Lastly, June painted Ivory, but I forgot to get a picture until we were at the parade. June had such a fun time painting her sisters that she plans to paint them more often during the year.


The parade was fun to watch. I had June take pictures but most of the people were missing a head. (You have to practice some time.) I got this picture as Pearl was cruising back in.


And we got a parade selfie.


It was a nice evening that ended up with me starting a candy war with neighbor Terrie. The kids followed suit of course and eventually everyone was chucking candy across the street at each other. Sometimes, I am a poor example...but it sure was fun.

Week eight was not a usual week. We received word on Wednesday morning that Grandpa Barry had passed away. We spent the rest of the week up in Idaho for the funeral. We left in quite a hurry, and I was pleasantly surprised when we came back to find Curtis had cleaned up the house. It was really nice.

Especially since week nine was the epic week of switching rooms. But that is another post that will come in time.

1 comment:

meganmushrat said...

Popcorn Olympics? What next?! Maybe you should have a balloon Olympics. I can think of several games you might come up with for that. Glad you are making the summer such fun for the girls.