Family Summer Olympics 2021 – Backyard Games

Family Summer Olympics are an annual family tradition and an excuse to spend some fun quality time with loved ones. Adults and kids competitive spirit is put to it’s test with a variety of backyard games and competitions, including water balloon relays, jumbo beer pong, slosh ball, wheelbarrow races and so much more!

A couple of weeks ago our family gathered for the third annual Family Summer Olympics. My immediate family along with my aunt, uncle and their children, who used to live on the same farmstead as us when we were younger, gather together to kick each others butts in a variety of goofy, crazy and wet backyard games! Everyone comes decked out in their team colors ready to compete.

For the last two years Red Team has been victorious…and won’t stop bragging about it all year long. This year my Blue Team was determined to steal the title. We gained a new player on Blue Team due to a recent engagement of my cousin, which helped us take the win for the first time!

Water Balloon Pop

First up on the docket was what I like to call Water Balloon Pop. For this game, I tie about 40 water balloons onto the clothes line and nearby tree in two different colors. The object of the game is for members of each team to take turns being blindfolded wearing a hat with a fork attached. They are verbally guided by one of their teammates to their team’s color balloon and they need to pop the balloon without touching it. This continues on relay style until the first team has popped all their balloons. Needless to say when I popped my balloon, I got soaking wet!

Winner – BLUE TEAM

Water Balloon Relay

Next up was a water balloon relay. I bought some of these water balloons so I could fill hundreds of balloons in a matter of minutes. WORTH EVERY PENNEY! In years past, my sister and I would sit outside for HOURS filling water balloons. While they might be a bit more expensive, I would much rather pay the extra amount to save so much time.

For the relay I added a couple fun obstacles this year. At one point, the team had to toss their balloons onto a towel two people were holding and then those people had to toss the balloon to the next person swinging the towel. At the end, two people were sitting on chairs holding small baskets over their heads and the winning team got the most balloons in the baskets. After all the balloons were counted up and a winner was determined, we went to town with a good old fashioned water balloon fight!

Winner – RED TEAM

Slimy Spelling

This Slimy Spelling was inspired by Big Brother’s Otev game. The day before the competition I set up three disgusting buckets of nastiness. The first bucket I added mud and weeds from the garden. The second bucket was full of oatmeal, expired soup and vegetable oil. The third bucket was plump full of fallen apples from my tree that I chopped up and added sugar to. I let all three buckets stew over night in the 90 degree heat and they were completely disgusting. Flies were swarming the apples and the oatmeal smelled like vomit.

The morning of the competition, I added a bunch of plastic poker chips that each had a letter and number value on them to the buckets. The object of the game was for the teams to line up and relay back and forth to the buckets picking out one letter at a time. I was worried some people would refuse to participate, so I implemented a point penalty at the beginning of the game for each player who didn’t dig in the buckets.

Luckily no one was willing to forfeit the points, so everyone participated. The game lasted for 10 minutes and the team who could spell the word worth the most points won. Blue team had a word worth twice as much as red teams…but apparently we can’t spell and Google made us loose it. BOOO! I’m pretty sure no one on blue team will ever forget that Calligraphy is spelt with two L’s though. :/

Winner – RED TEAM

Pantyhose Bowling

This was a quick and easy game where you place a softball in a pair of pantyhose and team members wrap it around their forehead. Players have to make their way down the line knocking over water bottles with the softball.

Winner – BLUE TEAM

Tipsy Waiter

This game was a last minute addition that we found circulating on Facebook. One by one, players would have to spin around on a bat 8 times and then pick up a tray of water glasses. They would have to make their way to the other side of the lawn and fill a bucket with the water. The first team to fill their bucket won.

This game made for some of the most laughs at our Family Summer Olympics and was absolutely hysterical. From my uncle falling down flat after spinning to my dad wobbling around like a complete drunk, it made for great Snapchat videos! 😉

Winner – BLUE TEAM

Wheelbarrow Races

Each year I am sure to incorporate the wheelbarrows into a game at Family Summer Olympics and they usually involve a blindfold. In the past I have had the driver be blindfolded, but that was just plain dangerous and we were lucky no one got hurt! This year I set up a course with some of these large cones with softballs on top.

It was relay style and each team started with one blindfolded person sitting in the wheelbarrow and one driver. They had to weave through the cones grabbing the softballs off and the next two players made their way back having to put the balls back on. This process was repeated two times each, so eight players from each team participated.

If the players knocked the balls off the cones when they were picking them up, the driver would have to run back and collect all the dropped balls before the next pair could go. Teams quickly realized it was more efficient to just knock them off and run back and pick them up, rather than taking the time to carefully pick them off.

Winner – BLUE TEAM

Jumbo Beer Pong

Unless you have been living under a rock, you probably know what beer pong is. If you don’t, go ahead and google it. We supersized this game using large black buckets and some dodge balls. This is one of the family’s favorite games that we repeated from last year’s Family Summer Olympics.

Winner – RED TEAM

Slosh Ball

Last, but certainly not least was Slosh Ball. This is the game we end our Family Summer Olympics with each year and it is a blast! It is a good old fashioned game of wiffle ball, but at second base you have to either chug half a beer or spin around on a bat 10 times. Because this can take some time, as many players are allowed to congregate at second base as you want. There is no force at third. From third base to home, you have to slide in on the slip and slide.

The score was close enough going into Slosh ball that this game would determine the victors. I’m not quite sure why, but the game was low scoring this year and even went into extra innings. In the end blue team pulled out the victory and was finally named the champions of Family Summer Olympics. WOOHOO!

Winner – BLUE TEAM

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