ThePuddingStore 5th Anniversary Company Picnic! Due to the wild success of last year’s company picnic idea, we decided to do ti all again this year for the place’s 5th Anniversary celebrations. Why not? There was fun/pudding to be had, and it was a lovely summer day. We would have wasted it by going to the beach, or doing something productive otherwise, so why not? Yeah... it was really friggin’ hot. Oh well, fun times were indeed had, many pictures were taken, much pudding was eaten, and many, many eggs were wasted all in the name of good fun. Here’s some of the crap that happened in handy article format! Read along with me, won’t you?

The picnic took place at the exact same place it did last year, on Sunday, August 28th (apparently the same day too... I’m not sure how that worked out, but I assure you it was entirely a fluke... I cannot manipulate time. Yet) and as you can see, it was a lovely day of green, green grass, blue, blue sky, and silver, rusty backstop.

Remembering that Erin and I had to wait like 45 minutes last year before anyone else showed up, we decided to take our times getting there, only to find that people (Dan, Ben, Bonnie and Sarabeth) actually came on time this year! Maturity folks! It’s what’s for dinner!

There wasn’t really a whole lot we could do with the 6 people that showed up early, so we kinda just did nothing for a while. The girls did what they do best (stand around and chat) and the boys did what they do best (kick/receive soccer balls).

Once enough people arrived, we had a rousing game of soccer-baseball, and much joy was shared by all. In the middle of it, Christian and Brent showed up. Christian claimed he was now referred to as “Skills” though through the game, no one could understand why...

After the game, there were enough people there to get to the REAL games! The picnicy ones! But these games would not just be for fun, oh no! There were great prizes to be won! Prizes that consisted entirely of... Pudding! Yes, 44 cups of glorious pudding were purchased for this great event. But, in order to get some pudding, you had to win some events, so let’s get to them!

Up first was the ever-popular 3-legged-race. This year’s teams consisted of: Bonnie & Sarabeth, Kristen & Colette, Christine & Ashley, Dan & Ben, and Christian & Brent. Many different strategies were made, and much effort was put forth, but there could be only 1 winner. Well, ya know... 2. There’s 2 per team...

And the winners were Bonnie and Sarabeth! Christian and Brent even tried to tackle everyone, but these 2 pulled through for their spoony prize.

After this, despite the fact that it was initially started as a time filler, a game of 500-Up was started, and quickly became a real game, with all the pudding privileges that came with it. While Clayton’s plan of “standing in one spot to the point of making foot-grooves” and Erin’s plan of “beating the crap out of people that came near her” were good, only one champion was bold enough to get the 500 necessary points to win.

As you can see, I rock. Thank you. Banana pudding is awesome. Highly awesome. It, like me, also rocks.

Since it was grossly hot by this point, we decided to take a break, and being a highly lovely fella, ben went and got the whole gang of us some water. What a fella.

And then lunch was had. It was nice to go and sit in the shade (something that was ignored last year, cuz it meant some minor walking to get to it) and enjoy our packed lunches. There was much discussion of bugs, and whatnot (at least down at my end, but I sat by Clayton, so that might explain that).

After lunch it was time for yet another stereotypical company-picnic game! This time it was the egg-on-spoon relay! Everyone got all divided into teams of 3. I don’t remember who was on each team, btu they were all winners in my mind!

However, the actual winners were Erin, Christine, and Sarabeth. Sarabeth couldn’t get through her whole prize, as she had already devoured her previous winnings and lunch. Oh those silly people and their devouring!

However, the MVP of the event goes to Brent, who came out of it covered in eggs. Eggs are fun to throw at people. Which leads us to the next event! Something we invented last year! The egg duels! Only this year, there were 2 separate fights! Insanity I say!

Up first was Brent Martin VS. Erin Gillis! Clash of the titans? No, not really. One’s a big fat guy, and the other is sadly weak. I’ll let you figure out who’s who. But, the duel was had, and eggs were eventually broken!

The second duel was Clayton D’Orsay VS. Christian Young. Just look at those follow-throughs. You can totally tell that both of them are really terrible at sports. Clayton didn’t know that he was supposed to hit Christian’s egg and not Christian, and thus tried to hit him. However, as he’s a terrible shot, there was no harm done.

Our final event of the day was the classic Red Rover that goes on forever and ever. While this one wasn’t as long as last year’s, it was still pretty damn long. This year, Team Fat was added to with Lindsay, Sarabeth, Christine and Dan, and I guess Andrew being replaced by Brent. The other team was... I dunno... not fat? By comparison? Yes?

Christine lost again.

After it was all over, there was nothing left to do but hold our pudding cups up high and proud, in salute to that wonderful little corner of the web that brought us all out into the extreme heat and gave us not only the gift of a heat-stroke, but also of laughter.

Happy Pudding, everyone!