Water Fight Wrap-up

The ward water fight has come to an end for the members of this family. Nate was the last to get hit and finished in 9th place. We had lots of fun playing. The three of us took out 14 targets (out of 80 participants). I kind of hope they do it again in five years when all of our girls are old enough to play. We could totally dominate. :) We learned that we lack the ability to practice moderation where competition is involved . . . it is all or nothing at this house. We became a bit hermitlike just to avoid getting hit (our yard certainly paid the price of our not venturing outdoors much). The best part of the game was that Nate and Ben made lots of fun memories together on their little stakeouts and had some quality father/son bonding time planning their attacks. I thought I would type up the details so we can look back and laugh in ten years.

Disclaimer: This is a LONG post and won’t really be interesting to anyone outside of this house. Consider yourself warned.

June 23rd: Assigned first targets.

June 23rd: Ben gets Jared M. Nate and Ben hid out in the bushes next to Jared's house waiting for him to leave for work. Ben was a little slow to make his move when Jared was getting in his car, and Nate thought they had missed their chance. Fortunately, Jared saw that someone was hiding in the bushes. He turned his car around and came back to confront the peeping tom/pedophile/thief that was lurking around his house. (He almost called the cops.) He got out of his car and bravely went to confront the suspected criminal and Ben got up and squirted him. I'm just glad that Jared wasn't packing heat.

June 25th: Nate gets Nicole P. Nate got a tip from our neighbors that Nicole was playing at their house. He actually left work a little early so he wouldn't miss his chance to get her out. He felt kind of bad about taking down a ten-year-old girl, so after he squirted her he handed her a bag of Skittles.

June 26th: Ben gets Mike B. Nate took Ben with him to help with our ward's assignment at the peach orchard. Mike was a sitting duck and it was an easy hit. Nate showed just how dedicated he was to the game when he showed up to work in the orchard wearing a shirt and tie. It won him a special mention in our next ward newsletter and started a new fashion trend of men wearing ties as immunity necklaces.




June 28th: Ben gets Paul C. Brother C was working in his garage and Ben just walked up the driveway and got him. Easy cheesy.

June 29th: Nate gets Crystal S. I was going to the opening night of New Moon with some friends and Crystal was supposed to pick me up. Our plan was for me to go out the front door while Nate went out the door in the garage. My job was to open the passenger door and stall for three seconds so he could squirt her through the open door. This plan fell apart when her husband got home late, so someone else drove and she met us at the theater. Plan B: I texted Nate when Crystal arrived and he drove down to the theater. I made sure to keep her out in the lobby long enough for him to get there and get her out. I'm a good wife . . . but a lousy friend. :)

July 1st: Nate gets Logan M. Nate had to take some stuff to Logan's house for scouts (he is one of our Bears). Logan was sitting right there on the front porch. After checking with Tosha to make sure that Logan had hit at least one target (Nate didn't want to spoil the fun of another Primary kid), he turned and squirted him.

July 6th: Malinda gets Amity M. I had borrowed some marshmallow roasters from Amity for scouts the day before. When I went to her house to return them, she wasn't home, so she said she would come and pick them up (and drop off some paperwork for scouts that I pretended it was urgent to have turned in). She walked right into my trap. I had a loaded water gun in the front closet with the marshmallow roasters. When she came to pick them up, I got her out right there on my front porch.

July 7th: Ben gets Travis M. Travis proved to be a formidable opponent and didn't go down easily. Ben made his first attempt when Travis was dropping Logan off at scouts. Ben's lack of stealth (pumping up the water gun while walking toward the car) blew his cover and Travis easily got away. The next night Nate saw Travis out mowing his lawn, so he and Ben went and hid out on the side of his house. Ben made his move just a few seconds too early and Travis saw him and took off running (losing a shoe in the process). Ben chased him all the way around the block, but came home disappointed again. We did a little research and found out that Travis was going to be taking the 11-year-old scouts on a hike the next day. Nate and Ben hung out inside the church and watched the parking lot. They could tell that the scouts were going to head out in Bishop F's car. There was never a good time to get Travis since he kept looking all around for Ben to sneak up on him. They thought they had missed their chance after he got in the car, but Nate noticed that the driver's side window was down. As Bishop F was walking around to get in the car, Ben ran out of the church and squirted Travis through the window. It was good that Ben had to work for it after having so many easy targets, and he was very proud of himself for finally getting Travis out. It's going to be one of our go-to examples whenever Ben needs a "winners never quit" lecture.

July 7th: Nate gets Maddie S. Nate had to pick up some stuff from Greg S (our Cubmaster). Maddie was hanging out inside by their front door, but she just wouldn't go outside. Finally, Nate gave up and went to the car to leave, and just as he was driving away, Maddie came out of the house. He pulled over and jumped out and said to Greg "I almost forgot to tell you...", which gave him enough time to get close enough to her to squirt her with the water gun he had in his back pocket. She was pretty sad about it and he felt like such a meany (he bought her a treat too).

July 13th: Malinda gets Justin O. I totally lucked out on this one. I was with my sister and our kids at the Treehouse Museum and Elise came up and told me that Kylie O was there. I looked around and found the whole O family. Sweet. I was going to run out to the van and get a squirt gun, but Holly told me I couldn't bring "a weapon" into the museum. So I improvised and found a little plastic teacup, filled it with water, and walked over and threw it on him. I didn't love the guilt associated with taking down a ten-year-old. (I apologized three times and took him his favorite candy bar that night at pack meeting.) He still hadn't found out who his target was supposed to be. I was very happy to find out that he had Nate's name. Phew. I couldn't take the adrenaline or the guilt of the game, so I was happy to be able to sit out and just provide Nate spousal immunity. I did think it was funny that Nate had been walking around paranoid for three weeks when no one was really even after him.

July 24th: Nate gets Becky C. Becky is YW President in our ward and my visiting teacher, so Nate thought she would be a fairly easy target. Wrong. The first time he did a little stakeout at the church, she showed up in a skirt. No good. The next week, he conspired with one of the young women in our ward. They went on an activity in Salt Lake and she was texting Nate to let them know when they would be back at the church so Nate could be there and get Becky out. That plan failed when I took Nate's phone to the store with me and didn't see the final "we're 15 minutes away" text come in. He missed her. Fate finally cut him a break when she came to pick up the flags on Pioneer Day and Nate was outside waxing the boat. He had just enough time to grab a squirt gun out of the car and get her out while she was still in our driveway.

August 26th: Ben gets Jason E. There was a big gap between Target#4 and Target #5 for Ben. We had a little alliance going with our neighbors. Claudy had Ben's name since the second day of the water fight. He would have been a super easy target for her, but she felt bad about getting him out that early in the game. So, without him knowing it, she gave him a little grace period to give him a chance to get some other people out. Ben ended up with Jason's name before the grace period was up so we made a reciprocal deal where Claudy wouldn't get Ben and Ben wouldn't get Jason. We decided that once there were only 20 people left in the game that all bets were off. Ben got Jason out at the pool on the night of the school swim party (after the alliance had been broken). Ben lucked out that Claudy was such a nice neighbor, or his run would have been lots shorter.

September 1st: Malinda is eliminated by Tracey H. Nate came home early from work on my birthday to take me to lunch. We stopped at Walmart on the way to pick up a few things. We saw Tammy H as we went in and said hi. She called Tracey at work and he drove to Walmart to get me out. He got me right as we were getting in line to check out. Nate was all set to sprint to the van when Tracey asked who his next target was, but luckily he never asked.

September 2nd: Ben gets Tracey H. This was another hard fought victory. Tracey was out in his driveway when Nate and Ben were driving home from soccer practice, so Nate pulled around the corner and waited for the perfect moment for Ben to charge. It would have worked except that Tracey's son Kyle ran a little interference for him and blocked Ben's pursuit. They had a little chase, and Tracey got away. Things were complicated since Tracey had Nate's name and was trying to get him while Ben was trying to get Tracey. They went back for a second attempt later that night. They cut through the Ms' house/backyard, jumped a fence, and snuck up on Tracey while he was working in his yard. I was glad that Ben was able to avenge me before he got hit.

September 2nd: Ben is eliminated by Karen R. After Ben got Tracey, he and Nate were standing there talking when Karen R appeared out of nowhere and got Ben wet. It turns out that Tracey's kids went in the house and called to tip her off that Ben was in their yard. As soon as Ben got hit, Nate took off running (since he was now Karen's target). Ben started walking home. Karen offered him a ride, but he was too upset to accept. He was pretty devastated when he got home, but 20 minutes later he was in his room playing with Legos and had totally gotten over it.

September 11th: Tie/skirt loophole is closed. Nate actually campaigned for this change (even though he took advantage of the loophole as much as anyone). It was definitely needful to speed things along.

September 17th: Nate gets Allan B. Allan was a tough target. He not only was a tie wearer, but he was out of town for weeks at a time during the summer. Nate passed his house several times every day to check for any activity. He even went as far as to do a late night stakeout on the night that Allan was getting home from a trip. Nate hung out in his yard until midnight waiting for him to get home (he found out later that Allan had gotten home at 12:30 . . . grr). Our friends that live next door to the Bs said they would call whenever they saw him outside. Nate got a call on Friday afternoon and headed down on his bike. Allan had already gone inside when Nate got there, but his wife saw Nate heading up the street on his bike. The Bs conspired with Karen R to lure Nate back out. Allan went out to mow his lawn, knowing that the Ss would call and assuming that Nate would head back down on his bike. They had Karen R waiting next to our house so she could squirt Nate when he came out of the garage on his bike. Their plan would have worked except that Nate went out the back door and cut through our neighbors' yards. So, Nate got to Allan before Karen could get Nate.

September 17th: Nate is eliminated by Karen R. Karen was a fierce competitor. Her first real attempt to get Nate was on Thursday night. She found out from a family in our ward when Nate would be at soccer practice. Her plan was to do a drive-by shooting when he was getting the soccer equipment out of his trunk. She recruited the help of Raelyn B to be her driver and even traded cars with one of the young women in our ward so it wouldn't tip Nate off if he saw her car in the parking lot. Fortunately for Nate, they were in the wrong part of the park when he was getting stuff out of the car. He was setting up the cones for practice when Karen charged down the hill toward him. Luckily her squirt gun sucked and Nate easily outran her. I showed up at the park before practice was over and saw Karen and Raelyn waiting by Nate's car in the parking lot. We thought she would give up after I got there, but she didn't. She snuck into the backseat of our van thinking that Nate would assume they were by his car and head to the van instead. I about peed when I got to the van after practice and saw her sitting inside with her squirt bottle. She was certainly dedicated. We figured she would get Nate out on Saturday at Ben's soccer game, so we set up a plan to get her out first. We called Braylie M (who had Karen as a target) and set up a little sting operation. The plan was for Braylie to hide in our backyard with a squirt gun and for Nate to act as live bait. We set it all up and had Callie P call Karen to tell her that Nate was in the backyard (Karen had already asked Callie to keep an eye out for him and let her know when she saw him outside, so we knew she wouldn't suspect anything). It would have worked brilliantly, but Karen was at Costco when Callie called. Bummer. Karen ended up getting Nate on Friday night. After Nate got Allan, he came home up the street (instead of cutting through backyards again). She was waiting by our garage and got him out. It was kind of funny how relieved we felt after he got out. We both felt like we had "gotten our lives back." No more fear of leaving the house. No more scheming. It was liberating.

September 22nd: The good will cookie tour. Things had gotten a little intense when it got down to the wire, and we wanted to make sure we were still in good standing with our neighbors. So, we cooked up a few batches of cookies to take to our latest targets/assassins as a gesture of good will. (If you didn't get cookies and you think you should have been on our delivery list, just let me know and we'll bring some over.) :)