How We Became the Laughingstock of the Beach

Disclaimer: I was sadly not present for this event due to not feeling well. However, I heard about it in enough detail from my family members that I feel I am educated enough to tell this story, even if it is second-hand. I attempted to check my facts as much as possible, so I blame lack of family cooperation for any incorrect facts.

This past week, my family and I were in Litchfield Beach, SC for a family reunion with my dad's side. This our 21st year in a row going, and it is always a blast. It is truly special that my cousins, sister and I were able to grow up with this tradition of getting together every summer, and getting to see family who we might not be able to see otherwise.

Anyway, after 21 years of meeting at the same place, we have definitely developed some traditions over the years. Some have lasted all 21 years (as far as I know... I was only 9 months old our first year!), some are newer traditions and some have changed as we (my cousins, my sister and I) have gotten older.

One of these traditions is "family day". It is every Wednesday of our beach week, and on this day the dad's and our "Papaw" don't go golfing like they do every other day, and they stay home and spend quality time with all of the family. When we (the kids) were younger, this was the day when the dad's took us out to the water park. We spent the whole day there, just us and our dad's, and it was a blast. However, a few years ago we decided we had all kind of outgrown the water park. As fun as it was, we were not little kids anymore, so we decided to scrap that tradition.

However, in it's place we developed "Beach games" that were to be planned by the dad's and played by the kids on family day. So, the first year was fairly successful; we played our games and we all enjoyed ourselves, and it was a fun family bonding experience. Fast forward to last year, and beach games failed to take place. We blame the dad's, but they claim it's not their fault, so who knows who is to blame. Anyway, this year we decided to bring them back and make them better than ever.

So Friday, our last day at the beach, all the grand kids file out to the beach for beach games to begin. And this is how it started to go downhill. The planners of these games (my mom and my aunt Kara) decided that this should be like "Beach Olympics". We needed an opening ceremony and a closing ceremony. I laughed this off, thinking they were joking. They weren't. As everyone got outside to play or witness the games, the adults began to sing. Not only were they singing loud enough to get other people's attention on the beach, but they were singing The Star Spangled Banner. People around us on the beach started standing up, putting their hands on their heart as if they had to follow what we were doing, and some people just laughed at us. When some of my cousins started to laugh, because clearly this had to be a joke, our grandfather informed them that this song was "the most important song you'll ever hear." So in other words, shut up. 

 (Here are the teams, lined up preparing for battle!)

So, the beach games proceeded and of course there was sibling rivalry, cousin rivalry, and everything else you could expect. We were really a sight to be seen, out on the beach playing field day like games. People who were walking by literally stopped and watched either out of shock like WTF are they doing, or to laugh at us, either way they were staring. It is important to note that 6 out of the 8 cousins are girls, and we all know bikinis or any kind of bathing suit is not the most modest outfit. It is also not really conducive to running around the beach and pouring water into buckets, which is exactly what the game requires.See?

Then, there was the egg toss. Get a group of kids together, and toss eggs, and you are bound to get a mess. Even on the beach. The eggs ended up all over the beach and of course, in peoples hair because someone thought that was a good idea since it's apparently good for your hair.

(Passing the sponge game)

 (Egg tosses are very intense!)

And obviously beach games would not be complete without some silly string to spray all over everyone. So now not only is everyone soaking wet, covered in egg, but also covered in silly string. And suddenly everyone looked like this:

 Well, mostly just the adults looked like that, at least they were good sports! ;)

Then, for the closing ceremony it was decided the kids would shoot off rockets they had made earlier in the week as a craft. This is when disaster really struck. The rockets are not exactly high tech, and were made by kids ranging from 8-14. That being said, these rockets apparently had a mind of their own because when they were lunched, they landed everywhere. Including near other people on the beach, almost hitting people in the head. Some people were angry we were throwing rockets at them, some just laughed at us, obviously thinking we were crazy people.(Sadly, no pictures of this.)

21 years at the beach we have experienced many things, but this was definitely the first time that I can say for sure that we were the laughing stock of the beach. You know when people are pointing and laughing, it's pretty safe to assume they are not laughing with you.Oh well, what's a little embarrassment for family fun right!?

(Note to any and all family members who may be reading this, this post is intended to be a satirical recount of what happened. It is in no way supposed to be offensive to anyone involved in planning or participating in these games. Also, please don't kill me for posting pictures of you in your bathing suit. It had to be done.) 

The Dangers of Beer Pong

So most of you are familiar with the sport game of beer pong, no? If not, let me break it down for you: basically you line up all the cups in a diamond, and throw ping pong balls at the cups, which are filled with beer. The cups can also be filled with other types of beverages such as water or sodas of course. Such was the case when I was playing obviously! Anyway, I feel the need to warn all of you that this can be a very dangerous game. So Last Monday night I was participating in a friendly game of beer pong, and pretty much kicking ass. Well it was all down hill from there, let me tell you! Occasionally when the other team misses their shots, one or both of the ping pong balls used may roll off the table onto the ground, requiring you or your partner to retrieve it. WARNING: if you must be the one to retrieve the ball(s), proceed to the floor WITH CAUTION, especially if there may have been several a couple drinks consumed prior to this particular game. It is very possible that you could fall on your face lose your balance ever-so-slightly and end up looking like you got in a fight with a slight injury to show for it. The above may or may not have been what happened to me... My partner (who happened to be my ex, but that's another story) was a little busy hitting on talking to other girls (which may or may not have made me cry slightly upset), so it was up to me to retrieve the lost balls. Sounds simple enough, right? Well I thought so, too. Now, the details are a little fuzzy, but I made it to the ground successfully, and I was underneath the table, then something went wrong, and I somehow fell over and landed on my face. Go ahead, laugh... So luckily no one happened to see my fall stumble, so I recovered, successfully retrieved the balls and went back to playing the game. Now I'm not sure at what point in the game this happened (before or after the previous injury), but somehow in another attempt to retrieve the balls, I started to lose my balance again and caught myself with my hand, but somehow managed to seriously hurt my finger... so much so that it was swollen the next morning and was like 3x the size of my other fingers (ok maybe not that big but it was really swollen!) And my eye? Oh yes I had a nice little scar to remember my mis-hap by, and had people asking me for the next few days if I got in a fight! Just to prove I'm not making this up (If I were making this up, it would be a way better story!) I managed to take a couple pictures of my nice battle wound!It's kinda hard to tell, but it's basically like rug burn on my eye! So the lesson? Be very careful when playing beer pong and exercise caution at all times when getting on the floor for any reason! You can bet the next time I played beer pong, I made my partner pick up all the balls. hehe!

The Result of my 4th of July weekend

So some of us have pictures of fireworks, or adorable little kids patriotic outfits, or just of the family having fun together. However, I did not bring my camera with me unfortunately this weekend so I have none of those. However, there is one thing that stands out that is a souvenier, if you will, of my 4th of July weekend. Let me preface by telling you how this came about. Friday my friends and I decided to spend the day at a nearby lake, swimming and having a picnic on the shore. It was a really fun experience until I stepped off to the side of the lake right off shore, and fell in a hole. I am not kidding, it beats me how on earth there came to be a hole in the lake, but this was no normal hole. There was something hard in this hole that happened to hit me in the side of my leg, leaving me helpless and in a lot of pain. Anyway, I will let you see for yourselves my "Souvenier" from my 4th of July celebration! Yes, that is what my leg now looks like... the scary thing is the picture actually doesn't do it justice. Anyway, I'm going with the story that there was a shark in the lake and somehow I managed to escape with only a bruise!