Thursday, June 10, 2010

Frog Races. You heard me.

I told you last time about the frog races that occurred almost immediately after the turtle races at our community day. If you didn't think things could get any better, you were wrong! Frog races are actually much more entertaining in my opinion. Lots more action! "We" did try to get Anna a frog, but it eluded Ty. She wouldn't have wanted to hold it anyway, so it's probably just as well.
Before the race everyone lined up at the starting line and positioned his/her frog as far over the line as they could reach. I'm not really sure this is in the rule book, but that seemed to be the way it worked. We had 4 or 5 false starts. With so many wiggly frogs and excited kids, it's bound to happen. When they finally got everyone off together, there were a variety of techniques. Some used the stomp/jump method where you stomp just behind the frog to scare it into moving. This kid was way ahead with this technique until his frog went rogue and started jumping off to the side instead of toward the finish line.

Others found the gentle push to be more effective. I did spot a couple of them "helping" their frogs by picking them up and sort of "tossing" them a little if they weren't moving quickly enough. Let me just say, I'm glad there weren't any PETA reps there!
In the end, 3 valiant winners were declared, and most of the kids made their Dads come get the frogs to take them back to their respective buckets. Fun times had by all! *Interesting note: Until only a few years ago, anyone with a toad was disqualified from the race. Only "frogs" were allowed to race to maintain an even playing field. (I'm fairly certain I couldn't tell the difference.)
If you've seen my album on Facebook, you know there was one more special event for the Community Day patrons this year. I'll tell you about it next...

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