Memorial Day and the Bicker Ball Game

I had off from my day job on Monday for Memorial Day. I slept in till about 8:30 then Abby decided it was time for me to make breakfast. At 9:30 Abby and Mommy were running down the street to catch the Memorial Day parade. I went to the back yard to get out my new mower and start getting the yard ready for the picnic planned for later in the day. By about noon the yard was mowed. I had a lunch break and then finished trimming after getting Abby down for her nap. Before 2:00 PM I was shopping for the last minute details... charcoal, water, plastic ware, etc.

At 3:00 PM the two grills were lit and the first of our thirty guests arrived. For dinner we had grilled lemon-garlic chicken (yummy!) for the adults and hot-dogs for the kiddos. Everyone brought their favorite side dishes to share. The food and the fun was EXCELLENT!!!

Around 7:00 PMish we rounded up every one for a nice game of Wiffle-Ball. We had a good amount of players and thought it would be fun to break up boys against girls. Here are some pictures of the action.

The field of action

Girls on deck!

I know the hitting is good... but keep your pants on!

This one might be out of here!

So we thought it would be great to split it up girls and boys and for the most part is was a lot of fun. The big problem is that we have some fairly extremely competitive individuals among our friends and family! The rules were kinda made up as we went along. Needless to say there were a few disagreements about how things should be handled.

One of our dear friends, affectionately know as Gramma Sue, was our score keeper and umpire. She wasn't calling strikes because in Wiffle ball there really is no need for strikes. She was just the final say in the major decisions. At one point, one of the players on the Girls team said we need to quit the bickering and just play. That is when Gramma Sue named the game "Bicker Ball." Man! Did we all get a good laugh out of that. From now on we will no longer play Wiffle ball. It will forever be Bicker Ball.

My lovely wife, Shagga, who happens to be one of the more competitive in the group, piped up and said that JD was number one at Bicker Ball. Immediately after she said that, on impulse, and in the heat of the moment, I piped up and said, "And Shagga is..." (then I caught myself in mid sentence and thought... "this is NOT going to be good! I regained my composure and gracefully completed my statement.) "... AWESOME!" Phew! That was close! ;-)

And you know everyone in the game was holding their breath with me for that second or two. They were all wondering what was going to come out of my mouth. I have a little bit of a reputation of letting my tongue go faster than my brain. They all got a big laugh out of my come-back. Even Shagga laughed and thought I did a right-fine job of diggin' myself out of a pit.

So in all the Memorial Day get-together was a great success and we all ended up having a really good time playing Bicker Ball. Of course our local security guard did show up. As you can see below, he did not have to cuff anyone and spent most of his time feeding his grand-baby.

After the Bicker Ball game we started cleaning up and all of our guests started going home for the evening. Gramma Sue, as usual, did way more than her fair share of the cleaning up. Thanks Gramma Sue! After everyone one was gone Shagga and I got all the final cleaning up done by about 9:30 PM. We had been running for 12 hours straight at that point and it was not long after that we were in the bed.

If you were at the picnic or the Bicker Ball game, leave a comment let me know what your favorite part was about the day.