Birot Family Picnic

Every year, on the first weekend of July, the Birot family gather for a feast and a challenge. It's at the house of Papy Birot, in the huge garage. I arrived early with a few others to set up for the day. The family is large, and about 50 were expected.

As the families started to arrive, the appertif begun.

Great, great Papy and his great, great grandson.

The family gathered on the neighbours steps for a happy snap.

Then Elo reversed the roles and took an aerial shot.

Then the feast was layed out.

Something a little tastier for Mao, Elo's Godson.

Bon appetit.

After each course, the kids (younger generations) played a game with an old barn wall with a window hole and a football. All the players have a turn at getting the football through the hole, and the last two to have success are eliminated. And the next round starts. Unfortunately, with the growing family, we had so many players and not enough time to finish, maybe next year.

We stopped playing football to begin the real challenge. During the afternoon, the family is divided into teams of about five. The team that won the previous year are the organizers for the following year. The game is like a trivia challenge with a twist. There was a board with all the teams on it, 63 squares and a die. The first team rolled the die and the game began. The twist is that during lunch, the organizers of the game hid all the questions all over the property/farm. So once you roll the die to see what question you have, then you have to go and find it. Then figure out the answer, run back to the board and give your answer. To speed things up, there are no turns, the first person back to the board can answer their question and roll again. This creates a somewhat frantic atmosphere around the farm, with teams running around, splitting up, fining their number, and then yelling out for the rest of their team. Another trap, if you answer incorrectly, you roll the die and go backwards, rather than forwards. The game lasted a few hours I think, and eventually the best team won, Elo's. Here’s a photo of the champions.