Sunday, April 20, 2014

Better Than Sochi: Easterlympics 2014

It's a little known fact that Eggland's Best products are the strongest of their kind. Remlers know that because we often throw them across the yard, only to have them bounce and roll to a stop. Another little known fact is that to crack open an Eggland's Best product, it's best to hurl (ahem, Megan Tucker) it into a plunger, at least ten feet away.


These athletic achievements and many others were the highlights of yesterday's annual Easterlympics, which took place this year (and every year) on 10th Court at Tybee Island.  Three teams vied for the first place position so that they could take home that precious prize--a pack of gum. But when it comes to the Easterlympics, we're all winners (at least at some things).

The event began with the dress the bunny competition, at which three teams had five minutes to dress a five gallon water jug like a rabbit. The judges had a difficult time scoring the masterpieces. Team Randy (Randy, Nancy, Alisha, Kelley, and Travis) was the only group to have a smiling bunny:

However, Team Stephen (Stephen, Brett, Cole, Jelly, and Megan) earned the highest score because their bunny could smoke cigarettes and drink beer. Clearly the contest was biased as the judges had been supplied by event sponsors R. J. Reynolds and Anheuser-Busch.



But it was not yet time to crack open a cold one because the next event--the jelly bean toss--followed immediately. Teams had to toss jellybeans across the yard into various sized cups to earn points. Kind of like corn hole, only with jelly beans and smaller targets. And lots of yelling. Here's a third little known fact:  Jellybeans bounce.

That event was a wash because we ate all the jelly beans.

Well, not all of them. We still had a few left for the third event--dropping the jelly beans in bottles. Blindfolded. I didn't understand why the blindfolds were necessary. By that time we were all on such a sugar high we couldn't keep the jellybeans in the spoons. But nobody asked me. And nobody paid any attention to who won that event. I have a feeling there was some cheating going on.

Stephen's the only family member with vision so bad he had his corneas replaced, but still Laurie thought it was necessary to blindfold him.


Out of jellybeans, we moved on to rubber bouncy balls. The object of the event was to throw and catch them in plastic ice scoops. By that time, I'd dropped out of the competition and focused on action photography. I don't know who won that event either, but I can say that Davis's and Lawson's lacrosse experience helped them. And Kelley channeled her teenaged softball days as she deftly caught each ball in her scoop.




As it turned out, the ball toss was just a preliminary for the most exciting event:  the egg toss. In past years we tossed and caught with our bare hands, like normal people. But this year we decided to up the ante. We had to catch our eggs in toilet plungers. I don't know where Laurie found these plungers. They must be for the toilets in Barbie's town home. But the rubber part was just big enough for an egg, so we broke out the Eggland's Best and commenced to throwing.

As Lawson demonstrates, teams earned extra points for wearing silly hats.



The above video captures the excitement in digital high def. The winners of that event were Davis, Lawson, Justin, and Ben. We're so proud.


Oh, I forgot. Somewhere in there was an egg hunt.

By the time the awards ceremony came around, everyone was too confused to figure out who won the pack of gum. I just grabbed one and ran with it. Everyone else dove for the fried chicken or the beer cooler. Unlike the official Olympic games, the Easterlympics don't stand on ceremony. We raise no flags, we stand on no podia. No one sings the national anthem. But we sure laugh a lot. And nobody goes home hungry.

Stephen and his siblings

Nancy and her boys

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