Day Twenty-One

Day twenty-one – Fourth of July!  The reason we came to Concord so quickly on our trip!  Family time!  The day started early (yawn!) with a paintball war.  There were eighteen people all together, not counting observers or dogs.  Since I was not participating (and neither were Sam or Buster) I was hanging out for a while watching everyone gear up and get their game faces on. 

I didn’t really listen to the long safety speech given by one of the referees, but I do remember the phrase “red is dead.”  Sounded pretty important to me!  I also remember him stating that getting shot with the paintballs didn’t really hurt, but I wasn’t buying it!  J

Sam got involved with a “treasure hunt” by picking up all the intact paintballs that were left on the ground in the staging area.  He spent a couple of hours on that project and collected a HUGE bag of paintballs!  I opted to leave and take Buster back to the rig since it was getting pretty hot outside.  Jim’s sister was staying for quite a while to snap some pics, so Sam stayed with her to continue on his quest.  Everybody finally used up all their ammo around 1:00 pm, after having a blast!

Afterwards, everyone gathered at Grammy’s house for LOTS of food and company.  We played some “Minute to Win It” type games, which were quite imaginative and pretty challenging.  I was shocked to actually complete some of the tasks – they seem impossible at first glance.  The little ones ran and played endlessly.  Later, there was a food competition where everyone was to prepare a food that looked like one thing, but tasted like something else.  There were some pretty cool presentations!  I convinced Jim to prepare his “breakfast pizza” which is something he makes quite regularly – like an omelet but looks more like pizza with pepperoni, etc.  He placed it in a pizza box for presentation.  One of the funniest moments of the contest was when Shawn took a piece of “pizza” for a taste test, only to discover it was actually eggs – one of the only foods he detests!  We all had a BIG laugh over that one since he was totally fooled!  J  Elizabeth won the contest with her great presentation of spaghetti and meatballs that was really a humongous rice krispie treat topped with frosting – even the plate was part of the “dinner.”  Jim tied for second place – woo hoo!!

As if we hadn’t done enough on this wonderful day, we finished it up with the town fireworks display that night at 9:30 pm.  The kids were still full of energy, and the fireworks were ooooh and ahhh-some.  Great day!!