Smelling Some Roses: Frog Jumping

About 8 years ago my husband and I drove past a sign on the road that said - "Valley City the Frog Jumping Capital" and were intrigued. Wondering what "Frog Jumping Capital" really meant. For 5 years we would pass this sign, make a comment and then forget about it by the time we got home.

One day, my husband decided to Google - Valley City and Frog Jumping - and low and behold, every summer on the second Sunday of August this quaint little town holds a Frog Jumping Festival that literally brings people from all over the country to participate. And some people take this frog jumping serious! They have Mayor Ribbit and everything!

Three years ago was our first experience. It was a very hot August Sunday and we got up bright and early in order to sign up and "rent us a frog" to jump. Then we went home did a few chores and drove all the way back and did our jump, and our rented frog didn't jump the longest distance in our group (or flight as they say) and our day was done. We left laughing and saying - "wow that sure was fun, lets do it again next year!"

Then last year we went again, much better prepared. We signed up online allowing us to do a quick registration and then off we went to run errands. Actually, I think we went to the Mall to hang out since it was in the 90s and the sun was unbearable. Again, we had to rent frogs - even though we had been saying we wanted to catch our own bull-frog. Never happened so renting a frog for $10 each was what we did. This time we jumped two frogs. Norah had her frog "Tiana" and Donovan had his frog "Buzz Lightyear". Once again, our rented frogs disappointed us and were far from being the longest jumpers! Although, as always, fun was had by all.

Yesterday was our third Anniversary of Frog Jumping. We were geared up all week for this event. We actually literally looked for frogs for 2 minutes one night several weeks ago. Unfortunately, Jon's adventurous spirit when it comes to frogs - stops at just renting them for $10. I swear one of these years I will catch a frog from a near by pond and us it as our own and it will win big! I can see the story now ... frog caught in simple pond. Scooped up by net and carried away from his beloved family by Mom. The frog sees the determination in the Mom's eyes and does her proud by winning the big trophy! Mom carries the frog back to the pond and releases him back to his family. The frog then boasts about his greatest "feat" - jumping in two flights 20+ feet, and winning the coveted Frog Jumping Trophy for Mom!

Well, that didn't happen, we had to rent our two frogs, Rapunzel and Buzz Lightyear and they both sucked at jumping! I must say though, I was so happy that they both were weak jumpers because the thought of standing in the pouring rain for several more hours was not appealing. The coveted trophy was not coveted by anyone in my family yesterday.

Yesterday the temperature was perfect, yet the skies just kept opening up and pouring out more and more rain. We sat in our car deciding should we just forgo this adventure today or suck it up and go for it. Finally, Jon said, I'm game if you are. I said sure ... he kissed me and we parked the car as close as we could get to the "jumping ring" and dashed to the holding tents as quickly as we could with one umbrella and 4 people. Guess who didn't get the umbrella? Donovan and me!

We still had fun. It's an event that we plan on attending for a very long time. It is something we can do as a family, be silly and have fun.

I'm leaving you with some of the pictures from our very soggy Frog Jumping Day yesterday!