Sunday, August 17, 2008

Independence Day Olympics

While Michael Phelps was busy winning his 8th Gold medal, we were having a blast participating in the neighborhood 'Olympics'. Today is Indonesia's 63rd Independence Day and each year, the neighborhood has a full day of activities.

In the morning, they had all the kids games. We only managed to stay for one of them because Aaron insisted on going home after his 'event'.

Here he is lining up to register:


The objective of the game was to eat the dangled 'keropok' without using your hands. I had to help Aaron cheat a bit but its just for the fun of participating.



There was a two hour break from 12-2pm and then the afternoon had some games for the grown ups. Richard joined in this weird caterpillar race.



And here I am in the tug of war. We won!! There were prizes too :)



The finale was the climbing of a palm tree that was all greased up. The funny thing here was that it appears that nobody in our neighborhood was rough and tough enough to do this. I think some youth from a neighboring housing area were invited to come. I wish I got some better photos but these are the best of the lot. I had a video of the climb up, but its just too dark to see anything. So disappointed!





The prizes waiting for them on top included sandals, an umbrella, shirts, a belt, and some money.

Many people from the neighborhood were there for at least part of the day and we really had a lot of fun. Actually, its been a great weekend so far and there is still one more day to it. Richard works 5.5 days here so our weekends are normally just one and a half days so, this one is a real treat.

5 comments:

Bilbo said...

What a nice family day! The caterpillar race reminded me of the time when our daughter was in first grade in Germany and we went to the school festival...we did the "duck dance" and all had to wear big cardboard duck feet and strap-on yellow bills while we did the dance. I may never live it down.

Mike said...

I was looking at the tug of war picture and noticed bare feet on concrete. I hope nobodys feet got scraped up.

MamaGeek @ Works For Us said...

I LOVE that idea. Seriously, that Olympics is ADORABLE.

Kellan said...

That looked like a lot of fun and such a cute picture of you playing tug-of-war!

Sorry I haven't been around much - hope you are good! Good to see you. Kellan

egan said...

Such a cool thing to climb a greased up pole. I don't think there's a way I could do that. I'd like to try though. Aaron just keeps getting cuter. Look at you pulling the rope. Move over Michael Phelps.