Abby, Zoë and Enzo

The kick-off was supposed to be yesterday, but it began raining shortly after we were done swim lessons and so it was postponed.  Luckily today the thunderstroms held off until later in the afternoon.  We first went to the library to return books and pick up some new ones, including the next Jewel fairy book, which we'd put on hold and was waiting on the hold shelf for us.  After picking a few books, including the young reader's edition of "Anne of Green Gables", we went to the café area and had our lunch.  Once we were done eating it was time to head over to Four Tree Island for the kick-off!

The first thing to do was to sign up and get the bags holding their reading charts and other fun things.  The theme this year was an Australian Outback theme with the slogan being "G'day for reading!".  A man asked if the girls would like to get their pictures taken with a (carboard) crocodile head on.  Zoë was all for it and was giggling as she posed for her photo, but Abby opted not to do it.  Everytime we passed by, I asked again but she never did decide to try it out.  Next stop was face painting, where Abby chose to have a butterfly and Zoë chose a flower.  We saw Maren, Miah (beanie), Casandra, and Mathew, whom we know from church, there too.  We went over to the refreshments table and the girls got to frost their own cupcakes.  They got a little cup of frosting, chose a food coloring color and then mixed it up.  There were cupcakes in ice cream cones which they slathered the frosting on.  Zoë had eaten the entire top off of hers before we got a chance to move over to the candy decorating table, so we just decided to leave the candy off.  After the treats were devoured, we went in search for some crafts, the first we found were making 'clapping sticks'.  Each girl got two paint stirring sticks and decorated them to their liking.  Once they were done and I was trying to get the girls to stand in a good spot for a photo, a man from the newspaper, who had been giggling behind me, asked if he could take their picture.  I'm pretty sure it's the same guy that took our photo during the snow storm this past winter. 

At 1:00 we went to wait at the 'platypus races' area for the game to begin.  The way it worked was that two people made a team and raced against another team.  One person from each team was at the start line and the other two people were at another line a little way across the grass.  When the volunteer said 'go', the people at the start had to quickly put on a platypus bill and tail then run down to their teamate and tag them.  Once the teamate was tagged, they had to then get in the 'outfit' their partner had on and race back to the start.  Abby and Zoë were the first to try, racing against Cassandra and Maren... definitely not an evenly matched game.  So, the race volunteers decided to have them try again, this time crawling instead of running, to give the younger kids a little more advantage.  Since all the girls knew each other, they themselves also decided to switch up the teams a little.  Zoë and Cassandra teamed up and Abby and Maren were a team.  Abby and Cassandra were at the start, with Zoë and Maren waiting to be tagged.  Abby had everyone cracking up who was now gathered around watching, because the platypus bill had come down covering her eyes and so she was crawling all over the course, and off the course.  One of the volunteers was calling her and clapping to get her to follow his voice... it was such a funny sight.  Meanwhile Zoë had been tagged and got her gear on and took off sprinting, very focused, until she was reminded that she was supposed to be crawling.  Can you guess whose team won?  After this we checked out the G'Wilickers game tent and then went on a 'walk about' before heading home.