Ridiculous Days July 22-25
By Co-Owner: Bonnie Meier

The town of Orange City celebrated Ridiculous Days from July 22 – July 25. These used to be great days with wonderful bargains years ago. Then it lost some of its energy. This year the Orange City Chamber of Commerce tried to revive those days. I think they were pretty successful. I understand that last year six businesses participated in Ridiculous Days and this year 22 did. Many had tables and displays outside, which gave a festive atmosphere to the community. We purchased a big red umbrella and had a table outside with some good merchandise at 75% off. Our local newspaperman came around to take pictures of all the merchants who had outside displays and just as he snapped a picture of us, our umbrella blew over. He has a picture of the umbrella (with a 35 pound stand) being lifted into the air. Needless to say we moved our items inside after that. We had items representing every area of our store, i.e. beads, sewing, quilting, knitting, Dutch items, disc golf, antiques, items made by Juliana, books and misc. which included American Girl crafts and clothes.

Street-scape Project
By Co-Owner: Bonnie Meier

The city started working on repaving our street the day after Memorial Day. The street has been open to traffic for a couple of weeks now, however, they also have three large sections in front of the stores on the north side of the street that will have pavers in them. By the time you receive this letter those should be completed, too. They really look nice. As I write, the carpenters are in process of redoing our front entrance. We have an all-new cement sidewalk, which is a great improvement. Our entrance is now ADA approved with just a slight incline into the store. We had to lower the door several inches and that has been done, too. All in all, I have to say that it was not as traumatic as I had anticipated. We knew this was coming for about two years and I had visions of no one coming through our doors most of the summer, but even when it was most difficult to come in we still had people who managed to make it.

Newsletter Delayed due to Frisbee competition
By Co-Owners: Bonnie Meier and Juliana Korver

The reason our newsletter was a few days late this month was that Juliana, our IT specialist and newsletter complier was in Norrkoping, Sweden competing in the World Flying Disc Championships. The World Overall Games consists of seven disciplines. The first is Accuracy. It is described as similar to archery, except with flying discs. The second is Double Disc Court. This is a game played with two teams of two players. It is a little difficult to describe, but a good description can be found at www.2015woc.com/events/double-disc-court/ The next event is Discathon which is a racing event on a course usually about 1 kilometer long. While you are running you have two discs in play and are throwing around mandatory obstacles. The fourth discipline is Freestyle. Freestyle is played with a partner and combines aspects of gymnastics and dance with basic throws and catches. It is described as one of the most dramatic events in disc sports. The fifth discipline is Disc Golf. This is the game usually associated with discs and is similar in rules to ball golf. The sixth discipline is Self Caught Flight (SCF). In SCF you throw a disc and try for the maximum number of seconds and meters and then catch it with one hand. The seventh and last discipline is Distance. A player throws as far as thy can from behind a line. The player gets five attempts and the best one counts. The current world record is 250 meters for men and 162 meters for women. Keep in mind a meter equals 39.37 inches, so 250 meters equals 273.4 yards or a little over 820 feet. That is a long way to throw a disc.

Anyway, that is why our newsletter is a little late. Juliana had a successful week in Sweden where she won gold in disc golf, accuracy and DDC. She placed second in distance, 3rd in freestyle, and was dissapointed with her 4th place finishes in Self Caught Flight and discathon, but her combined efforts were enough for her to win the overall and be crowned the 2015 World Flying Disc Federation Overall Women's World Champion. To find out more about this go to http://www.2015woc.com.

Coming Events
By Co-Owner: Bonnie Meier

August 26 – Arts on Central. This is a new event for Orange City and will include art activities and food on the street and sidewalk from 5:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. and then from 7:30 p.m. – 9:00 pm. Awards and the a cappella group Six Appeal on the main stage in Central Park (more about this in our next newsletter). There will also be a “live mannequin” contest in which Jubon Juweelen will take part.

September 9 – 12 – Estate Sale. Our next estate sale will begin on Wednesday, September 9. We anticipate several hundred extra items in our store at that time.

November 5, 6 & 7 – 5th Birthday Party. We will celebrate five years of operation starting November 5. More details to follow.

Perusing our Guest Book
By Co-Owner: Bonnie Meier

Since our last newsletter we have had people in the store from the states of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and all over Iowa. People also came from the countries of Malta, Ontario, Canada, Gelderland, Netherlands, and Vienna, Austria.