Family Day

Wednesdays are reserved for our group outings. Phillipa or Lyndon usually lead them but Phillipa was out of town. Matt, Denise’s husband, was therefore put in charge. Originally we were supposed to go on a country walk. After some reevaluating Denise decided this option would probably not interest the majority of the group after coming off of fall break. Her idea was for us to go to a park and have a “Family Sunday in the park.” We were going to go to Hamstead Heath, which is supposed to be another of London’s best parks. Matt was going to teach us how to play cricket and we were going to picnic in the park…in my opinion, one great day.

Well we had a group meeting Tuesday night where Denise informed us it was a 70% chance of rain…sort of ruined our plans. She figured even if it only rained in the morning it was still going to be damp out. Not ideal conditions for a picnic in the park. For the third time we altered our plans. The new plan was to go to her house for an indoor picnic then play games indoors if the weather didn’t cooperate or in their back garden if it did.

Wednesday morning therefore began with a nice sleep in. Denise decided we would all appreciate that. We met up at her flat at 11:00 where we all hung out and talked while we waited for lunch. Denise had a huge spread of things for sandwiches including a lot of different bread to choose from. She also got every unusually brand of chips she could find so that was pretty fun! I definitely never would have bought half of the chips ended up being really good! Once we were finished with lunch we headed to the back garden for some fun and games.

Although the ground was sort of damp it had turned out to be a really gorgeous day. The sun even decided to make an appearance for the second half of our day. We started out the games with capture the flag. All in all we had a good time but some people got pretty into the game. I’m all for a little bit if competition but sometimes it’s more appropriate to be competitive than others. The whole point of the day was to relax and enjoy each other’s company. I made sure that happened for me by staying away from anything that discouraged that atmosphere :)

We played three games of capture the flag but had enough after that. Half of us then went down to Kilburn Park to play some football while the other half went to hang out inside or disperse on their own. The day had become absolutely beautiful so it was now a perfect time for some fun in the park. Playing football was lots of fun. I really am terrible at it but I still got into it and give it my all. I had a great time just being able to run around and soak in the sun with a great group of people. Soccer didn’t get overly competitive (which was good because otherwise they probably would have kicked me out!). We played probably an hour and a half so I got my exercise in for the day for once! A few of the locals even joined us which was nice. They were a lot better and younger than me so once they joined I held back a little bit! Playing football together made for a great way to wrap up our afternoon together.

After we got done playing we began our walk home so we could get ready for comedy club that evening. On the way home Jeana and I stopped to get our necessary supplies for the Halloween party we were throwing the Bailey boys the next day. We were really excited about our party and had fun thinking up games we could play. Once we got home we all ate dinner, got ready, and then headed to the comedy club for some improv!

I haven’t seen that much improve but what I have seen has been good but nothing spectacular. I was still really excited to go to the Comedy Club. The show did not disappoint. The show was made up of five guys. I really have no idea how they came up with the things they did. It was fun to because they used a lot of crowd interaction. It was an evening full of laughter…what can get better than that! Watching the show I realized how wiped out I was though so once we got home everyone fell fast asleep!