Family Olympics

For a summer Primary (church kids group) activity, our presidency wanted something everyone in the family could do, and something involving water. So for July we combined a water gun/balloon war with a "Family Olympics", composed of picnic games and Minute-to-Win-It games. It was pretty fun. 

Each person chose a country to represent, and colored that flag on a name tag. We wore the soccer jerseys Dave bought on his mission and played for Brazil. Here Dave stacks 6 dice on a Popsicle stick in his mouth.

Here Dave put Vaseline on his nose, and transferred as many cotton balls as he could from one plate to another in one minute. When I saw only one other child in Jessica's age category had attempted the cotton ball game, I coached her through it, and she took the "bronze" medal.

I also did the 3-legged race with Jessica, as well as with Ashley Bonney. We biffed it on our first try, but we took the bronze when we tried again. I also lost the water-balloon toss, but it was just fun.

There was also a really hard game with ping pongs balls that I couldn't complete, and Dave kept cheating to finish. You strap a tissue box to your back, add 10 ping pong balls, and time how long it takes to shake them out. It's a real calorie burner and spectator sport. We also had a team Cheetos-and-shaving-cream-on-the-head toss, gallons of water for keeping cool, and a tug of war, for which I was on the losing team three times.

The very competitive Leech family, with only 1 child, still won the most medals, and the grand prize: a chocolate Olympic cake made by our Primary president, the amazing Kristina Randolph. We brought home several silver and bronze medals (made from salt dough), and a fun memory. I loved the activity because it didn't require too much planning, clean-up, and there was lots of help, so it wasn't stressful. It geared us up to watch the 2012 London Summer Olympics.