It's so hard to explain Beer Olympics to someone who has never experienced it firsthand. It's a day of drinking games, yes. But also so much more in a weirdly sentimental, make some new friends, competitive, but good hearted, feel good day. I don't know how to describe it but to say - that months and years later when I see people from various sects of our life chatting and laughing together and ask them about how they know each other, often times it begins with "at Beer Olympics," and that somehow describes everything about everything.
We had a beautiful, blue sky day in late June to celebrate our 9th annual event. Greyson's all-star machine pitch baseball team had a tournament that day - so for the first time in nine years, I was flying solo as host for the first half of the day! Thankfully though, I had no stress about it because our Beer Olympic veterans are so amazing and kind and helpful and know the ropes of how the day works.
As in Beer Olympic fashion, we start the day with a game of Sloshball while we organize the teams, then it's face painting & color hair spraying by team names (we chose to do all Hashtag team names this year, HAH) before we dive right into the main event line up - beginning with Beer Pong and Hungry, Hungry, Hippong.
Teams earn points by their performance on the various games and many of the games are tournament style so no matter what place you come in, you earn some team points. We also have individual non-mandatory challenges along the way if you feel inclined to earn some points for your team score like Keg Stands, Blow Ball, and Chug Offs. Following Beer Pong we have Dingbat Relay, and Ice Cube Tray Canoe Races.
God bless our friends who sign up to help ref or volunteer during the day too. I could not do this day without our friends who wear those whistles alongside me and put up with the incredible hilarity that comes with trying to organize progressively more intoxicated competitors. Half the success comes from observers (and helpful players trying to win the Olympian and Teacher's Pet awards!) who re-fill beer pitchers, replace kicked kegs, move tables to set up for the next games, and empty garbage cans. Seriously, I love you all so much.
To close out the first half of the day before the intermission; we play Slippy Cup (flip cup with a slip and slide) and Anchorman.
I can't preach enough how important the intermission is for players to refuel (on tons of carbs) and non-alcoholic liquids. Another key to our beer olympics success is that everyone who comes brings something to share - so our garage slowly fills up as friends arrive with roasters, crockpots, desserts, and coolers filled with water and sports drinks. During intermission, the perimeter of our yard becomes the men's bathroom, bodies lay all over the place with plates of food balanced on their bellies, and we do a quick tally of the scores so teams can figure out how hard they need to rest before the games resume. We plan for the intermission to last about 45mins, but inevitably it lasts at least an hour to a little more.
Then we ease back into the games with a flip cup tournament and a Quad bongs tournament. The baseball team arrived back a little after intermission and Brandon said to me, "Geez, everyone seems like they are way more drunk than past years" and I laughed and was all like, "babe, that's only because you're sober this year." It's both hilarious and annoying to be on the Ref/sober side of the day, but it's my favorite so I take the whining with a smile and write down all the funny things people say and do to add into our awards ceremony at the end of the night.
My favorite event of the day is Survivor Flip Cup because people get seriously intense about it as it's the competition to rack up huge points for your team if you can keep a representative at a table for a long time (it's like musical chairs with the last one gets kicked off the table idea but with flip cup). And then it's one last chug offs before the Obstacle course finale.
Then it's another intermission while the refs tally team scores and decide on award winners before our big finishing ceremony - always a highlight of the day. We make a bunch of sashes with ridiculous awards and my sister compiles a playlist of songs to go with each award (hilarious!) and we do the whole thing like it's super official and celebratory.
With the amazing generosity of our players and observers, we raised over $300 to support a local family and a local do-gooder who made a huge sacrifice to help them. It was a double dose of kindness that we were able to give this summer (YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!!)
Our champs AGAIN this year was Team Pumpkins (#PSL)- two years reigning champs going into our final year of Beer Olympics!
But first - one more time!
ps. Thanks for all who have read and followed along and re-pinned our posts. Next August 2018, I will have a final Beer Olympics Planning Toolkit available to leave as a legacy. Stay tuned!
No Comments Yet, Leave Yours!