Turkey Bowling

When you hear Turkey Bowl... you think football. Most people do anyway, but this is different. This is literally bowling with turkey's... frozen turkey's.

Today was my first real activity (not combine with FHE) that Ian and I put on for the ward since we have been called as Activities co-chairs. I thought it was a perfect activity because it was simple to put on and didn't cost too much (since we still don't have a full committee) but it was still fun and it was a beautiful day to spend outside. The weather has been AMAZING for November.

I wish I could say that I thought of this all on my own. I have actually done this for a ward activity before... years ago. I was surprised how many people had never heard of this or done it before though... which made it more fun. When I did it before, we actually used real bowling pins and then just bowled with turkey's. I didn't know where we would get bowling pins, so I thought... let's use soda bottles. They work perfect for bowling pins. Ian and I bought all of the stuff on Wednesday and all 40 of the soda bottles sat in the back seat of my car until today. Then Allison and I did most of the set up and Ian brought the pizza for people to eat while we played. I also brought sidewalk chalk so people could get a real game going and keep score.

With this type of activity, you just never know what is going to happen... and we did have some interesting things happen at the activity. Before anyone else got there... this car drove up to the park which we thought was part of our ward since they were cheering for us as they drove by. Turns out... we didn't know them. However, one of the two guys came over to see what we were doing. We actually got a lot of attention at the park with people wondering what we were doing and wanting to watch or join. Anyway, this guy came up to me and asked if we were bowling. I told him yes, with turkey's. He then yells to his brother with a VERY excited tone "THEY ARE BOWLING WITH TURKEY'S!!!" Thinking it was the coolest thing ever. I tell him he should be the first to bowl since I had never seen anyone  get so excited about Turkey Bowling before. He tells me "No... I couldn't" but I could tell he really wanted to, so I tell him I insist. So he bowls. He bowls twice and gets a spare. We all cheer for him. His brother is recording him on his phone. Then he gives me the Turkey and tells me it's my turn. I get a gutter on my first try. He tells me he likes my technique but maybe move to my left a little more and try again. I get a strike on my second bowl. We all cheer. He gets all excited and he gives me a high five. People are starting to show up at this point... so I figure it's a good thing. Get people excited to play. I just love that a total stranger started off our activity and was super excited about it. Next thing that happens is one of the guys was bowling and there was a kid watching from right behind the pins. Bad idea. Kid gets pegged in the leg with a frozen Turkey. You would think he would have learned his lesson and stayed away after crying for 10 minutes... but the kid couldn't stay away. He watched us play until his mom took him home. Some of the guys were getting so competitive and aggressive with those turkey's... that we actually busted some of the soda's open. That was to be expected though right?

And for people who stayed until the very end, we got a little show with the soda bottles. We played Bellagio music and got a little soda fountain show. Ian tried to drink it while it was exploding. It was a great finale to the activity.

I think I can safely say, that everyone that came and played had a bast and I had several people tell me thank you for putting it on and how much fun they had and what a good idea it was. I feel like it pays to switch things up. Do things that people haven't done a million times. At least that is the way that I think. I said I would be happy if 20 people showed up. I know you are not going to get a biggest turn out on a Saturday afternoon... just because it's the weekend and people have stuff going on, but it was a beautiful day to be outside and we had just a little over 20 people come. So it was perfect. I'm happy with it and Ian and I called this activity a success. Hopefully our Christmas party that we have in the works will be an even bigger success. That is another reason why I wanted our November activity to be early, not just for the good weather, but more time to put towards our Christmas party. Can't wait!

So far this is pretty much our activities committee. Hopefully we will get more people that will actually help, but for now... we have quality over quantity. I can't say enough good things about Allison (who I asked to be put on the committee) and Ian. We are a good team.