Independence Day Party

We had our annual Independence Day party this past Friday. We had a fairly small group, but hey, small groups are fun too. :-) Folks relaxed and chatted, Tara took the little ones on boat rides, I (with "help" from Emily and Joanna!) escorted some kids (mainly the Gould clan) down the path (where we discovered a mulberry tree...yum!). Croquet, badminton and the ever-popular egg toss filled out the afternoon.
The main attraction this year was a game called Sjoelen (pronounced "Shoo-len"), which is Dutch shuffleboard. My Opa had our cousins bring this game over from Holland when they moved here. Nearly everyone tried their hand at it, and since that is mainly what we have pictures of, I thought I would post each person's photo with their score (prepare to either be embarrassed or exalted, if you were there!). Sorry, some of the folks toward the end didn't get photographed, we didn't mean it!! :-)

Note that all (most) the men are totally focused and serious, and all (most) the women are smiling and having fun! LOL!
Husbands and wives are paired together to compare scores... he he he... some men were mortified that night!

Just so you know, 80 is a good score, above 100 is very good, highest you can get is 144 (I think...)

The Guys...

Jonathan - 1st try, 68, 2nd try, 120.

Joseph - 91

Josiah - 124 (way to go!)

Seth - 1st try, 89, 2nd try 111

Ethan - 58

The Girls...

Unpictured:
Emma - 94
Tara - 73

Joanna - 1st try, 94, 2nd try, she scored the highest score of the day with 126!

Sokea - 88

Emily - 93

Robyn - 51

Gracie - 55

Me - 105

Ok, the big showdown... Husbands & Wives...

Mr. Erber - 1st try, 66, 2nd try 91, 3rd try, 110 (progressively better! :-)

Mrs. Erber - 115 (beat him in one fell swoop!) LOL!

Mr. Webb - 101
Mrs. Webb - 1st try, 85, 2nd try, 105

Mr. Gould - 87
Mrs. Gould - 97

Mr. Chidlow - 1st try, 79, 2nd try 118
Mrs. Chidlow - 109

Mom & Dad (no pics)
Dad - 85
Mom - 105

Amusing conversation after Mr. Chidlow's first round (Mrs, Emily & Sokea already went):
Mrs. C: Sokea beat you!
Mr. C: Aww!
Mrs. C: Emily beat you.
Mr. C: EMILY BEAT ME!?!?!?
(Emily is the non-competitive, non-game-savvy daughter)
Mrs. C: I beat you.
Mr. C (utterly defeated): YOU beat me...
I think that hurt to have all his women beat him... sorry, Mr. Chidlow!! :-)

The egg toss, as usual, was a lot of fun. And amazingly, we had the same winner from last year! Though not exactly the same, since instead of Josiah, it was Seth.

I think this photo is kind of funny because Mr. Chidlow is in the exact position of the previous picture (maybe it's his egg throwing technique? If so it didn't work...) and because I am making a ridiculous face. :-)

Poor Mrs. Erber had it the worst out of all of us and got egg all over her shirt and arm. We joked that she got high-end skin treatment.

Ethan and Joseph won the second toss (Jonathan & Seth won the first) and then Dad had the two winners play each other for a "championship" you might call it. He also made them do it with the opposite hand to the one they were used to throwing with.

Picking the perfect egg...

The winners and their egg :-)

I would have you know that we bought 7 1/2 dozen eggs and all of them were gone by the end of the day. Rumor has it that the young men had an egg fight, and the remainder left from that Naomi Gould threw against trees.

A few other random photos from the day:

Adelaide picking the raisins and M&Ms out of the trail mix.

Mrs. Webb not wanting her picture taken, but Mom took it anyway.

Fellowship

Thanks everyone for coming... it was fun!