DaCook DaCathlon

In the past couple of years my family (the Cook clan) has started a tradition of doing an "everybody" activity when we all get together. Last year it was a scavenger hunt/road rally taking us to favorite childhood haunts in the neighborhood; this year it was a multi-event decathlon-style team competition including events such as croquet, darts, jumprope, horseshoes, basketball, bead-stringing,....

...chopsticks... (I was signed up for it for my team, but Jeremy--shown here counting his beans--volunteered to take my place after hearing me whine about how bad I am at it. He hadn't used chopsticks before but turned out to be really good at it! But nobody was as good as Paul, who shoveled those beans into the bowl like he'd been born in China.)

...boggle...(Janet and John have a go at it here.)

..and giant jenga. (This is Susannah and Jeremy trying to pull out pieces without toppling the whole stack.)

It was a blast. I love it that the older folks and younger folks got to work and play together; the age span was 4 to 76. We all won prizes and trophies of some sort or other, but the biggest prize was being together.

At the heart of all the fun and joy and faith and love in our family is the world's all-time champion woman of the year--my mom, Carol Cook. It's all her fault!