Well, it's that time of year again. Every year, the third Saturday in July is Lake Gilman Day. If you have been with us since the beginning, you will remember our It's S'more Fun at Lake Gilman Float from last year. If you haven't been with us quite that long or just don't remember what I am talking about, let me give you guyz some background information.

Lake Gilman was founded by Miles Gilman. He cut down countless trees with an axe (5 axes) and helped develop what we (and many families) now call home. Lake Gilman is a private lake association and it is a beautiful place to live. One year, the families at the lake decided to throw Miles Gilman a big birthday party with games, contests, and a float parade. We have been celebrating "Lake Gilman Day" ever since.

The festivities start at 8:00 am with the raising of the flag ceremony and don't stop until 11:00 pm when they lower the flag. After the penny scramble and the candy toss on the beach is the field events, 25 yard dash, 50 yard dash, softball throw, etc. Then, the water events, swimming, kick boarding, tube races, canoe races, blind fold canoe races, kayak races, etc. The peanut scramble starts the ground events, potato sack races, egg toss, 3 legged race, the baby crawl, the works. Then, from 2:00 - 6:00 is a "break." This is when everyone goes home and either begins their Lake Gilman Day float or adds the finishing touches. For adults, the float contest is what it's all about. Let me give you some details on this because we are really hoping you can help us this year.

The float parade consists of as many families that join the contest. I would say 10 -15 floats on average. You are supposed to decorate your boat and yourselves for whatever theme you have chosen. Then, everyone lines up and rows around the entire lake once so everyone not in the float contest gets a chance to see the float parade. Then, you circle back to the main beach go around once and go around the smaller circle again. This is where the judging occurs. They judge on 3 categories: Original, Fancy, and Comical. And, they also pick best overall. Best overall wins the sought after trophy. This is the biggest prize of the day!! The rules say if you win the trophy 3 years in a row, you get to keep it forever. This has only happened once in the 83 years that we have been celebrating Lake Gilman Day. We have won it 2 years now and are going for the 3rd. This is where you guys come in.

We need ideas!!

The very first float that won was a canoe that was decorated as a slice of watermelon. We used our row boat the first year and decorated it like a huge baby carriage (fan fold) and dressed like babies. Our sign said Lake Gilman's new arrivals and when we went by the judges we yelled Thank you for having us. We didn't win that year but competition was very stiff! The first year we won, we used a paddle boat and two row boats. We tied them together. We cut out two oversized foam cameras for the guys in the paddle boat to wear while they towed us. We also cut out a sign that said Lake Gilman Photo Album. The two row boats were fitted with 4 large contraptions. Two on each boat. We then cut fff into the shape of Polaroid photos. On the Phlatprinter, we cut snow flakes, leaves, a fake fish, and some pumpkins to decorate the clear plastic we placed on the 4 contraptions. We then hand wrote dates and events just like you would have done on a Polaroid picture in your photo album. Two of our nephews brought their Halloween costumer and represented Fall. Our neighbor and other nephew held the fake fish, wore a funny hat and represented spring. Trish's sister and our niece represented winter and wore their winter coats and had ice skates over their shoulder. Mark and I represented summer. We wore our bathing suits and held a fake foam trophy and hand wrote on the front of our Polaroid Lake Gilman Day 2007. We took the trophy home that year for the first time. It was very exciting!!

The second year, Mark's family drover here all the way from Florida to help us hold onto the trophy for another year. It was awesome!!! We decorated our float in S'mores attire. The kids wore white trash bags stuffed with our pillows and were marshmallows. We cut out a fake fire on the Phlatprinter. We used peanut butter jars, painted them white, and glued them to the end of large exaggerated sticks and held them over the fake fire. We used full sheets of fff, cut out a Hersheys stencil on the Phlatprinter and spray painted Hershey's on the painted brown ff. We used aluminum foil for the ends. It turned out good and we were able to take the trophy home again for the second year!!

That night, people were walking up to us and telling us it won't happen again. There was quite a bit of trash talking going on. So, the competition is on!!

We'll post some pictures of our past floats. We actually don't have a picture of our Lake Gilman Photo Album float but we think we will be able to dig up the Sketchup file.

We would love any ideas you may have. The judges are "impartial." 83 years of Lake Gilman day means a lot of float ideas have already been done. You NEVER want to duplicate a float that has already been done. So, pirate ships, titanic, the "green" float, star wars, etc. has already been done. We lucked out with the S'mores last year to be honest.

Please, give us your best shot. Lake Gilman Day is Saturday, July 18!!

Thank you,

Mark and Trish Carew

p.s. ok, we can't find any S'mores photos orthe photo album Sketchup file at least right now. Attached files .JPG] .JPG] .JPG] .JPG] .JPG] .JPG] p://www.phlatforum.com/PhlatforumVB/converted_files/7952=2300-Lake Gilman Day Gus.JPG">

 

What about a "Support Our Troops" float? Maybe make a tank out of your boat, have mark fly a jet around? Just an idea...

 

Good idea 7UP, and I get to fly! This one will be on the list! thank you and please keep them coming guys.
Mark and Trish

 

d.adeline, LOL that's a cool idea!
Now I have to practice the moon walk
Mark

 

Make an Aircraft Carrier and you can have various Phlat-Planes on the deck (may want to tape down). Fly different planes ( pulling them from the lower deck / inside) ....Your COM tower and be a lookout and see where your going or flying.....

GO NAVY!

 

Yeah I was thinking something aviation related.
I'm not sure if you want to fly around though (safety reasons), but it would be cool.

 

Thank you everyone for your great ideas! We ended up going with the "Life is Sweet at Lake Gilman" theme. The plan was to make a giant banana split out of our boat and have the nephews be the ice cream scoops. It went well except once the kids sat down in the boat, they were a little too low in comparison with the banana and kind of hard to see. The cherry came out great though. Out of the three categories, original, fancy, and comedy, we won 1st prize comedy. We personally don't think our float was funny but I guess they have to find a place for everyone.

The winning float was Gilman Gras and it was done like Mardi Gras. According to d.adeline who is a long time residence of Lake Gilman, that theme has been done before. That's a big no no if you hope to win the trophy since it's not original. Oh well, I guess theres politics even at our small time private lake.

In the end, we are glad we didn't win. There really wouldn't be anything to work for next year at that point.

We promised the niece and nephews that they get to pick the float theme next year and they also will play a bigger part in painting and planning. They are very excited. They said that since we always seem to wrap them in some type of plastic with pillows wrapped around them on an always hot summer day, we are going with a winter theme and they said we all have to wear two winter coats, lol.

Here are a couple pics of the day

Thank you again,

Mark and Trish Attached files

 

That looked like alot of fun !!! Next year you'll clean up....

 

It was but next year the kids are in charge!!! Not sure how that happened but it was mentioned somewhere and now they are holding us too it!
Mark

 

We won it!!!
Hey guyz, Well the hard work paid off, we were up until 3:00AM last night then got up at 7:00AM and had a fun filled day at the lake. We entered our "COOLER" float in the the boat float contest and took home the trophy. We used the Phlatprinter extensively on this years float!

Attached files

 

Awesome! Glad to see you guys got 1st. I know you've been close the past years.

 

You two always come up with the coolest ideas! This Year's is just awesome! Congratulations!!!

 

Looks like a great time to be had by all... Congrats on the blue ribbon .

 

Very nice .........rather very KOOL!!!

 

Thanks guyz! We all had a blast! if you come up with any ideas for next year we are always looking so feel free to post away We MUST defend the trophy
Thanks again everyone
Mark and Trish

 

Thanks Bob