Camping, Minigolf and The Annual Darais Olympic Games

Saturday morning was the highlight of the camping trip for me. I didn’t sleep super well because I forgot to bring a pillow, slept in awkward positions and kept waking up, however, I always went back to sleep and felt relatively good. Weather was perfect during the night and in the morning and we started the day by all going on a hike. On the hike, I was still being a dad, and asking kids to stay close to me etc, but it was much less stressful and distracted than the day before so I got to sync in some good conversation with my new friend Todd. We mostly talked about work. I forgot to mention yesterday that Lily didn’t join us because she attended a birthday party for her friend MichaelAnne.

I love this picture! Ammon has such a wonderful friendship with Casey, and Big Spring’s trail is so beautiful!

After camping, we all had a delicious breakfast at IHop. Todd was a little tight on time, but we still had a lot of fun. We passed the time waiting for our food playing telephone, which is especially interesting with 3 and 5 year-olds in the mix.

After IHOP, we all went home and got clean and then we met Morgan, Jessie and their kids to play miniature golf. We had an amazing time, and it was so fun to catch up with them!

People had snowcones afterwards. I thought they looked beautiful!

After miniature golf, we went home and prepared for the family Olympic games, a tradition that Lydia started last year. Lydia made some decorations with chalk to welcome people.

We started a little after 5:00. This year our guest were Dad, Suzanne, Georgia and David (and his two dogs). Here is a rundown of what happened:

Things started off with some informal swordfighting.

Then we all ate veggie burgers, and chicken or tofurkey dogs along with watermelon, handpies, and corn. Then we played Crocket. I was way in front with Crocket, but then I choked and I think my dad won.

Then we did hurdles:

Clarissa Hurdling
Ammon hurdling with swords
Mary hurdling
Lydian hurdling
Suzanne hurdling
Tom hurdling

After the hurdles, we did sack races:

Mary
Lydia
Ammon
Clarissa
Tom

Then we did the egg in spoon race. Suzanne barely beat me last year, and it was so close, that I’m still not 100% sure that I didn’t beat her. So this year was my year to prove who is the real undisputed champion. And so I proved, or I should say that Suzanne proved that yes, definitely Suzanne is the champion. She is so good at the egg and spoon race! This year it wasn’t even close. I’m quite good myself as I took first place when she wasn’t in the race.

But when I squared off directly against her, I lost badly twice in a row. She moved so much faster than me so I had to run to catch up and each time I did that, I lost my egg. My hat goes off to you Suzanne, you are the undisputed egg and spoon champion! In one of the videos below, Clarissa got in Suzanne’s way, so we had to pause, reset, and keep going so you only see the second half of the video.

After the egg and spoon racing, we did trampoline routines.

And the final event was seeing how long people who could hold their breath under water, which Lydia won.

All in all people had a very good time, and I love this picture of Georgia!

Here is David with his adorable dogs!

Thank you to Lydia, the inspiration behind the event, as well as to Lily for all her prep and to all of our guests for helping to make it special!

Afterwards, Lily and I went to dinner at Block with Daniel Olson and his wife Amanda. Daniel is always doing things for me, so it was great to reciprocate and treat dinner for him and his wife for his birthday. We had a great time, and we love them!