Croquet, Anyone?

On a nice summer day in June, we went to our local park and got to play the classic game of croquet! Wow, it had been a long time since I had played that. Doesn't every family have a wooden croquet set that sits in your garage somewhere, mostly gathering dust? I know my family did! Croquet used to be popular. . . probably before people started staying inside and watching TV.
It was a really fun way to spend a beautiful afternoon! Kirsten was very excited to play with the extra croquet balls we weren't using. She kept trying to put her mouth on them though. I know, gross right? She was very intrigued!

I played the game with my friends Stacy and Oscar. I totally lost the game, but I had fun playing!

Some little-known facts about croquet:

-Croquet is believed to have its origins in 17th-century palle-maille, a game often played in London’s Pall Mall. It has been said that only tobacco smoke spread faster through the British Empire.

-Croquet was the first outdoor sport to embrace equality, allowing both sexes to play the game on an equal footing.

-Croquet reached the South Pole in 2005 when American scientists became the first to play a game there, in the snow, outside the South Pole Observatory. (Some scientist must have dug his family's old set out of his garage!)

-Croquet was a one-off Olympic sport in 1900 – although it was so poorly organised that one competitor went to his death without ever having known he was an Olympian. Sadly for croquet fans, there are not enough countries who play the game for it to be accepted for London 2012.

-Croquet balls were originally made from wood, but they are now largely comprised of cork or nylon in very hard plastic.