Later that day at our mid-day patient rounds, I brought up the event and asked if there was any interest in it. We needed 5 people to form a team. I recruited myself and so I just needed 4 other people.  Easy, right?  Wrong! Due to the lack of information and peoples prior commitments, I had difficulty rounding up volunteers. It took me weeks to convince 4 other people to participate, but my powers of persistence won out, and I finally did it!! Our team consisted of Erika, Ali, Amber, Chris and myself.

We had a team, now what was our team name going to be?  We asked for suggestions on facebook and then we put it to a vote on our website.  The winner was “Pawtriots”.  Some other good names were “The Cat’s Pajama’s” and “MVC Fur-A-Cure”.   The final piece of the puzzle was team uniforms.  In the final hour, I made our team shirts.  The shirts were inspired by our name and were made to look like jerseys.   Once they were ready, we were ready!  Game on!!!

Our first event was “Band Together” and it was a set of 2 activities.  The first being was “the human knot”.  Oh boy.  What a start to the competition.  (not a good start…)  We were to tangle ourselves and then untangle.  The fastest team wins.  Out of 5 teams, we were 5th.  (Told you it wasn’t good.)  We just couldn’t figure out how to untangle ourselves!  And they made us finish, even after everyone else was done.  The second activity was “2 truths and 1 lie”.  (This wasn’t a scored activity, just something to get to know each other better and to create relationships with other hospitals.)  The basis for this game is to share 2 truths and 1 lie about yourself. Then the others will try and guess which fact was the lie.

The second event was “Memory Maze”.  The memory maze was a 10x10 grid through which you had to guess the correct path.  An unbiased score keeper had the correct path, and  if we stepped on the wrong square then he would say “wrong”, if we were right, he would say “right”.  The fastest team to figure the path out and get all members through would win.  We had a good strategy and good communication and we made it through the maze in 4 min 7 sec.  When we finished, we glanced around and it looked like we were the first to finish.  We were pumped!!  After all the teams were done, we gathered around and received the points for that round.  We were surprised (and a little upset (at ourselves)) that after we had thought we had done our best, we had only gotten 4th place.

Going into the third round, we knew we had to step up our game.  The third event was a set of 2 activities, starting with “Cereal Puzzle”.  There were 5 puzzles that were created from the fronts of cereal boxes.  There were three rounds of that particular game.  The catch was that only one person can do the puzzle.  Everyone else could advise or instruct, but couldn’t touch.    When done, we screamed to let them know we finished.

Each teammate got a turn at making a puzzle.  We did a pretty good job during this activity.  We consistently got 2nd and 3rd place.  The second activity was “Apple Stacker”.  The objective was simple: stack 5 apples on top of each other, and get them to stay for 5 seconds.  There were 2 rounds of this activity.  Same as before, only one person could participate per round.  Chris went first and set the bar for everyone and placed second.  Then the second round came and it was my turn.  After what seemed like forever, I stacked the final apple, counted to five, and screamed!  We got first!!

Leaving the third round, we were happier than when we started.  We all did well during the “Minute to Win it” round and it showed on the score.  After they had tallied up everyone’s points, we had caught up to the middle of the pack with a score of 38.  At this point we weren’t sure if we could catch up with only one event to go.  We were going to give it our best shot and hope for the best.

After a rough start, we entered the final event, the “Tug-of-War,” right smack dab in the middle of the pack.   We knew that we had to do really well in this to move up, points wise.  But we also realized that we had 4 girls, all of which are short and on the petite side.  And 1 guy, Chris.  Yes, Chris is tall and has great manly strength, but we didn’t know if that would be enough to triumph.

For the Tug of War, each team was paired with another team.  So it was 2 against 2.  We were paired up with Shore Thang 2.  As one cohesive unit, we won the first 3 rounds.  Then it was time to split up and battle each other.  Half a second after they said “GO!”, Shore Thang 2 yanked us about 2 feet and almost over the line.  Our saving grace was Chris, who Hulked out and hauled us back into the competition.  Once we got our footing back, we were able to rally and pull them across the line.

About 10 minutes after the “Tug of War,” they started the “Closing Ceremony”.  The first award was for “Best Team Uniform.”  We did not win that one.  I was really disappointed because I had spent a lot of time making our jerseys.  However, we did win “Best Team Name”!!!  Thank you Lory Natale for giving us that awesome name!  Since we won the Tug-Of-War, we won “World’s Strongest Hospital”!  And (drum roll please…) we won “World’s Greatest Veterinary Hospital!”  We had come in first place overall!!!! YAY!!!  Now to rest and prepare for next year’s VetOlympics.  We have a title to defend!  (Hopefully next year’s competition, we don’t get as banged up as we did this time around!)

Let's go "Pawtriots"

Notice "Shore Thang 2" celebrating their finish. 

The "Pawtriots" still working on it!

And still working on it!

Think of it like "Mind Sweep"

Almost there Emily!!!

 Cereal Box Puzzles 

Don't anyone breath or touch the table.... 

Finally, an event we're great at! 

  Apple Stacking 

 Teamed up with "Shore Thang 2"

Competing against "Shore Thang 2"

And the verdict is......

 "Pawtriots" win the Tug-Of-War!!!

Holding it together for the photo! 

 Reality!