The First Annual Marshmallow Olympics

Today marked the first time that we have celebrated our Marshmallow Olympics.

So what did we do? And better yet, why?

Well the why is just for family fun time together out in the backyard. The what did we do takes a little more explaining.

First we tricked the kids into cleaning the house so that they could go outside and have a fun surprise with marshmallows and fire. - it worked!

Once outside we began with a marshmallow blow gun who can shoot a marshmallow the farthest contest.

This was quite fun and filled with educational facts, such as: you can't load your blow gun with a marshmallow while your gun is facing down....the marshmallow falls right through! Ta Da! Now we have reviewed the concept of gravity!

The next thing we learned was that the size of your blow gun does matter....the shorter the gun, the farther the marshmallow shoots! The longer your gun, the closer to your foot the marshmallow lands. Ta Da! Now we have learned something about distance traveled and pressure and maybe something else!

You can see the longer blow guns in the picture above....and the shorter blow guns in the picture below....I just grabbed my handy dandy skill saw and .... Ta Da.... the long blow guns are now short. Now we've learned something about change....it happens!

After several rounds of shooting marshmallows into the lawn and watching the dog clean the playing field, we moved on to the next event. So who won? Chapman and Stewart tied the first round, Gracie won the second round, Dawson won the third round, and Stewart won the fourth round.

By the way, we also learned about air pressure...apparently Stewart has a lot as he won two of the rounds!

Marshmallow Tag

The next event was marshmallow tag. The entire family divided into two teams. This is basically hide-n-go-seek. No bases. Must remain in the backyard. You are out when you get tagged with a marshmallow!

Talk about some excercise...even though it was just a marshmallow I ran my best to not get pegged by it. I think I had some bad memories of middle school dodge ball in my mind. But hey, it got me running all over the backyard with my kids chasing me with a handful of marshmallows! I never got to throw a marshmallow at my wife. Now I know why she wanted to be on my team!

This was a great activity. We played several rounds. The dog loved cleaning up after us, and the kids ate whatever marshmallows they didn't throw!

Marshmallow Agility Walk

While I got the fire going for the final event, Belisa challenged the kids to a test of agility.

Each child placed a spoon in their mouth and then put a marshmallow on the end of it. They then had to walk the entire length of one of the backyard trails with their hands behind their backs.

It was so funny to see them drop their marshmallows and try to get it back on the spoon before the dog 'cleaned them up'!!

The Final Event.....

You guessed it, Making Smore's!!

Now that the fire was going we set up a few chairs a couple of hundred feet away to keep cool and began to figure out who was brave enough to go near the fire in our 100 degree heat that we had today!

Of course the winner of this event is .....me, Dad! Only a father would brave such extreme circumstances to provide a great tasting treat for his brood.

We really had a great time. After each child received a taste of the melted marshmallow and chocolate on the graham cracker they all volunteered to go heat up some more marshmallows.

This was the perfect ending to a fun-filled afternoon of family time.

So, what's next? Who knows? I just make this stuff up as I go along! Remember the tree fort? Made that up, too!

Many marshmallows were injured in the making of this story.