Every spring, my husband Hans and I would go to an art retreat for a few days. Everyone brings art supplies/books they no longer use/want and/or artistic creations they’ve made, etc. which are then raffled off and won by successful bidders. Each year, the Frog Hat is hidden in one of the items and the successful bidder of the object becomes the new owner of the Frog Hat for the coming year – whether they want to or not! <g> Then, at the next art retreat, they must hide the hat so that someone else becomes its unsuspecting owner.
One year, my name was drawn for an item I had hoped to get and inside it – was the Frog Hat! Hans looked sooooo great in it, I encouraged him to share it with me for the year. And, he did. He wore it the rest of the art retreat weekend. It was a fun weekend! He wore it to our son and daughter in law’s wedding when he gave his speech to the couple (he was the groom’s Best Man <g>).
During his speech about the importance of ‘play’ and laughter in a marriage, Hans told the story of the Frog Hat and at the end, gave the bride and groom a Minnie Mouse bridal veil and Mickey Mouse groom’s hat we couldn’t resist purchasing for them while in Disneyland to remind them of the importance of building in moments of play and laughter into their marriage. It was such a fun wedding! Then he wore it at our local Farmer’s Market as part of his ‘sandwich-board’ costume he wore to tell people that his art group was sponsoring an Art Sale just down the street that day. More fun!
And then – then we had to think of something to hide the Frog Hat next year’s art retreat. And, we did! Hans built a little bird house and under the fake flooring, he placed the Frog Hat. Our final bit of fun with the Frog Hat came when no one – not a single person! – figured out which item was concealing the hat that year. We had fooled everyone. 🙂 Fun – not just one moment but lots of moments of fun … and all because of a Frog Hat.
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Hi June – wonderful story … and yes moments like these make so many happy memories for all concerned: so glad to see Hans … and to share this post with you … thanks for reminding us ‘what fun can be’ – cheers Hilary
Thanks, Hilary. Hans loved to play – and we did that, a lot! If you scroll through the Soulistry posts (click at the bottom of each page to get to an earlier page with posts), you’ll see another time I posted about him and play … when we were in a park and we watched children playing with giant bubbles and before long, he was playing with them too – and I captured it with my camera. Such wonderful memories. 🙂