During one of our summer swims, Rachel clued me into this amazing event, scheduled for the end of August. With a slightly cloudy sky, Alice opted to stay home, while the rest of us went to enjoy a beautiful day.
We hadn't even made it from the parking lot to the registration line when Alice called, panicked and changed her mind that she wanted to come after all. So, Billy left the 5 of us to go grab Alice, and we registered, and I totally did not take into account that all of the registration goodies were now going to be carried around by yours truly, since the car was now absent. We were able to finagle Emily's hoodie into a kind of bag that I slung over my shoulder.
The next part of my story is a sad one, so I'm including no pictures, in hope in time that the sad memories will fade.
We headed up to the fishing pool that they had installed, so that the kids could all catch a trout that they had seeded. The line was fairly short, and my crew was up fast. Emily was the first to catch. They gave her a bucket, but her fish was such a fighter. It escaped her hold, the bucket, her hold, landing hard on the pavement every time. It was still trying to escape while on the hook during her picture. We were both feeling this awful and brutal empathy with this fish who should have, by all means, escaped and live another day, slowly dying. By the time it was finally decapitated, Emily was in tears, and I was barely keeping it together, let along helping my 3 other children with their catches. Luckily, as we headed down the hill, we were joined by Billy and Alice and all of our moods improved. Well, mine did, as it always does when Billy is near, and I think Emily felt better too.
Next up was compound and traditional bow shooting!
At the hot dog lunch, we ran into so many people that we knew!
The kids really liked the Lego robotics table setup. Nearby were some yard games, so that you could play while waiting for your turn to run the robot.
Once everyone had their chance with the robot, we headed over to the kayaks. Alice, Emily & William all rowed alone, the twins had fun in a double.
At one point, William got to close to the boundary, and ended up floating across. He had to be 'rescued' though he remained in his boat and had on his life vest and was in very little danger.
As the grand prize drawings came near, everyone started gravitating back to the starting area. Grace waited very patiently for her turn to ride the bike, while the rest of my crew checked out the golf tent, dunking booth, or hung out with Daddy.
I am pleased to report that Grace met her goal of learning to ride a bike without training wheels this summer. I am so proud of her!
It was a lovely, well done, event. We had great weather and enjoyed all the offerings that the optimist club put together. I hope to return next year, but we'll probably skip the fishing.
later days
edit: publishing this post closer to the date of the event, for the sake of continuity.
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