family olympics www.cardiocoffeeandkale.com

For over 10 years now my dad had organized and hosted our family Olympics. Every Thanksgiving we all head home and no matter the weather, we participate in 8-10 glorious events designed to test our mental and physical strength....and in full disclosure, just to have FUN! This Olympic tradition has challenged our endurance, tested our strength, tried our mental abilities and, most importantly, given us never ending laughs and memories that we will cherish always.

This simple idea that started over a decade ago has brought us all closer and become an event we all look forward to through out the year. My girls think it's perfectly normal to zip line over a ravine in an attempt to capture the fasted time in the cross country relay race on Thanksgiving morning and I LOVE IT!

With the Winter Olympics about to begin, I encourage you to get creative and come up with your own family Olympics. Some of them can be challenging and some of them should be silly and fun! Become an Olymic gold medalist and host your first Family Olympics!

Some of our past and current Olympic events:

obstacle course: We go under tarps, run around trees, walk a balance beam of logs, pull your teammate on a sheet...there are lots of ways to make this event fun for all ages!
relay races: Pass the baton to your teammate and cheer them on as they run, skip, hop, dribble, roll, bear crawl the course that you've set up.
fire building contest: I realize this isn't for everyone, but in our event you must build a fire that causes a can of water hanging above the fire to boil over. The first team to accomplish this task is the gold medalist! My dad revels in the fact that all of his grand kids have now mastered this survivalist skill! Love it!
treasure hunting/map reading/puzzle solving: This is one of the annual favorites. Teams drive around a Gator while following a map and looking for clues that will ultimately lead to a puzzle that must be solved at the finish line. It is a timed event that takes us all over the farm. You can create a similar scavenger hunt in your house or neighborhood that involves clues, map reading and word puzzles. BIG FUN!
badmitton: Any sport can be added to your Olympics. A basketball PIG event, but you can use the word OLYMPICS. A volleyball tournament can also be fun! Head to the bowling ally for one of your Olympic events! How about a checker tournament for those cold, winter days?
egg toss: The team that gets the furthest apart without breaking their egg wins the gold! How much do you trust your teammate???
corn hole: Who doesn't love a great game of corn hole?
BB gun target shooting contest (my folks live on a farm:): We make a shooting area using balloons and hanging milk jugs. Each of the targets is worth a different amount of points. You can see some of our past medalists below. Why not do this same concept by throwing a ball and trying to hit targets? For those of us who live in town, this may be a safer alternative-tee tee!
cheese puff toss: Put some shaving cream on one teammates head while the other teammate stands a given distance away and throws a numbered amount of cheese puffs. The goal, you may ask...get as many cheese puffs as you can to stick to the shaving cream on your teammates head! Whaaaat?! Does it get any better than that????
limbo: How low can you go? Dad built a limbo stand and the kids had a ball seeing who could get under that limbo stick! With the music playing and the crowd cheering this was a fan favorite!