Crazy Ball

 As most parents will agree, it's imperative you get your children out of the house for a bit of fresh air and to release some energy, especially when entertaining guests.  Our children see guests as an open invitation to climb the walls, leap off of furniture, perform hand stands and cartwheels etc etc even though it's never allowed when we have no guests.

So, in our brightest, cheeriest delivery we tell our kids, "Hey!  Let's go for a walk to the park with everybody!  It'll be great!"  To which they always reply, "I don't want to go.  Can't I just stay here?  I hate the park, I hate walking, I will make your life miserable if you make me go..."

But then they always end up having a good time when we do go.  For some reason, they must always punish us first.  We expect it, and we all play the roles we're expected to in the continued drama.

 But we make them go anyway.  Travis and Andy had great attitudes.

 Papa challenged Payton to a push up contest.  He's still got it folks.

 Payton gave a good showing.

 And then something magical happened.  Crazy Ball.  It's loosely based on Poison, but we made up a bunch of rules as we went.

 You go in order, youngest to oldest.  The first person takes a shot at the basket from the free throw line, all other players have to be in the box by the hoop.  If the player makes it, he runs, grabs the ball, and hits the pole holding the basket, yelling "poison!"  Meanwhile, once all the other players sees the basket is good, they start running until the player shouts "poison!" when they all freeze.  The player then rolls the ball and tries to hit one of the frozen runners.  You get a letter in poison every time you're hit until you spell the word and you're out.

If the player misses, the next player up catches the rebound and shoots from where he catches it.  Round and round it goes till there's one player left.

 My dad, Vicki, and I watched from the sidelines for awhile and then couldn't resist joining in.

 We changed it to "pig" b/c there was so many of us.  It turns out Vicki is a screamer, much like myself.  And there was lots of screaming.  Trav was a big fat cheater and would hold me in place while I tried to run away.  Dad blocked me, so I couldn't run away.  I think I was the first one out.  The kids LOVED having all the adults playing this ridiculous game with them.

 New rules had to be added as the game went on.  You couldn't run past the blacktop, you had to freeze when the ball was being rolled to try and tag you.  If you moved, you got a letter.  It got heated a few times.  It turns out Davey has a sportsmanship problem.

Luckily, Davey won, so he was happy, which means we could all be happy.  Payton and Vicki are giving a salute to Travis's personal "freeze" position he would take each time people were trying to tag him with a letter. 

It was a perfect day out.  The kids had a great time, which we knew they would, and they came back with less cartwheels and handstands to perform inside the house.  Plans are already in the works for crazy ball 2012.